Baseball Preview: Who Can Stop the Yankees?

Last Updated (Thursday, 19 January 2012 16:42) Wednesday, 07 April 2010 01:37

Sports betting veterans know that after last season's World Series championship, the New York Yankees will once again walk with a special swagger on the diamond. The Pinstripes, after nine years without a world title, regained the Fall Classic and have established themselves as the team to beat in Major League Baseball. It's going to take an awful lot to dethrone manager Joe Girardi's juggernaut. In the end, only three teams appear to have the stuff needed to take down the Bronx Bombers.

Any reasonable sportsbook would stack the odds against any American League challenger to the Yankee throne. The Minnesota Twins won't have a healthy Joe Nathan this year, which deals them a death blow at the beginning of April. The Seattle Mariners' newly-acquired ace, Cliff Lee, is starting this season on the shelf and likely won't be at his best for some time. The Texas Rangers did acquire Vladimir Guerrero from the Los Angeles Angels, but they're not equipped with the pitching depth needed to make a run at the A.L. pennant. The Angels themselves have lost Guerrero and also John Lackey and third baseman Chone Figgins. They're just not as good as they were in 2009, and they couldn't beat the Yankees then.

Unlike Final Four betting, a prognosticator can't rely on a brief hot streak in baseball. Teams need to be built for the long haul, and in the American League, only one team can match up with the Yankees: the Boston Red Sox. With a healthy starting rotation, Boston can match C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett with Josh Beckett, Lackey, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Only Boston has the pitching that can contain the Yankees' bats and make the American League Championship Series an interesting affair.

If the Yankees make it to the World Series, the odds of a Yankee defeat would be almost as small as the Masters odds of Angel Cabrera winning back-to-back Green Jackets. If a team could bump off New York, it would be either the defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies - a proven October ballclub - or a loaded St. Louis Cardinal squad that has two prime pitchers - Adam Wainwright and Chris Carptenter - plus two feared sluggers in the forms of Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday.