The Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview is now available. We showed you the cover yesterday and linked you to Tom Verducci's breakdown of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry... but here's a closer look at what S.I. had to say about the Red Sox and Yankees.Boston Red Sox
Tom sites that the Red Sox have taken a new approach over the past few years and it has resulted in the breaking of a curse and two World Championships: Use the draft more effectively and don't be so quick to cut a veteran.
Boston's own number crunchers don't expect Mike Lowell to duplicate his career year [2007], but they still believe the Red Sox will match or slightly improve their run production. Why? Ellsbury should create more runs than Crisp, and J.D. Drew, who salvaged a miserable year by hitting .342 after August, can't be much worse.
Another new approach that has worked well for the Red Sox is their players approach at the plate. We all know Kevin Youkilis (.390 in '07) is an OBP machine, but even the the power hitters: Ortiz (.445, team best) and Ramirez (.388) do more than hit home runs - they get on base. Pedroia's .380 OBP and Ellsbury's .394 (in 116 AB)rounds out the team's top 5 in the category, but they are also the first five batters most opposing pitchers will have to deal with in 2008.
It's instructive that Boston has hit fewer home runs in four consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history, yet has won two championships during that span. The Red Sox' .362 OBP last year was the team's best in more than half a century. "They never swung at a ball, no matter how close it was [to the strike zone]," says Rockies righthander Ubaldo Jimenez, referring to Boston's World Series sweep of Colorado. "Amazing."
Bottom Line: Verducci praises the Red Sox system from top to bottom, but reminds us that winning back-to-back Championships is extremely hard:
"There's only one mission harder than having a dream season like '07: to do it again."
That seems to be the main reason they've picked the Yankees to win the AL East...
New York Yankees
Verducci's main point in the Yankees scouting report is the same one we've heard all offseason:
"How effective will the young pitchers be when they get to that seventh month?"
Amazingly though, despite this comment:
Only five clubs in the wild-card era have trusted 15 starts to three 23-and-under pitchers, and they all had losing records (the 1997 Royals, '98 Marlins, '99 Expos, 2003 Indians and '06 Marlins). And only four AL teams won a pennant with such a young staff: the 1913 and '14 Philadelphia A's, the '66 Orioles and the '85 Royals.
He repeatedly states that having all this young (and unproven) talent will make the Yankees better, not worse... Why? Because of the offense.
Bottom Line: A solid offense can hit a team out of a hole that the pitcher dug - and the 2007 Yankees did that plenty - but a hole is a hole, whether it's dug by a struggling veteran or an inexperienced rookie... If all three kids reach their ceiling in 2008, I'll eat my words, but I just don't see things playing out much different for the Yanks this season...
But I do agree with this, and it's what really scares me:
New York does have age issues. Derek Jeter turns 34 in June, and Johnny Damon, 34; Hideki Matsui, 33; and Jason Giambi, 37, are all coming off down years. But with Giambi's contract ($21 million in '08) coming off the books this year, as well as those of Bobby Abreu ($16 million), Andy Pettitte ($16 million), Mussina ($11.5 million), Carl Pavano ($11 million) and Kyle Farnsworth ($5.5 million), the Yankees will have plenty of cash to chase such free agents as C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, both of whom turn 28 this year.
The Bottom Line, Bottom Line: I agree with most of the S.I. predictions, but I think the Red Sox can beat the Tigers if they play the first two in Boston... I'm praying for a Red Sox / Cubs World Series, but the Cubbies will have to be clicking on all cylinders to beat the Mets.
Get the S.I. Scouting Report for all MLB teams here.
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