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Too Early to Think “Wild Card”?

By Brent Nycz | May 19th, 2008

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That’s both the question and the thought Peter Abraham offered on his blog today:

Cheer up and consider this: Who is going to win the AL Wildcard?

Tampa Bay leads the WC standings at the moment followed by Baltimore, Oakland, Toronto, Cleveland, Texas, Kansas City, Minnesota and the $205 million train wreck.

Let’s say that Boston, Cleveland and Los Angeles win the divisions. You’re telling me the Yankees can’t outlast Detroit, Oakland, Chicago and everybody else for the wild card? I don’t buy that. Not yet.

Want the simple answer? Yes. It is too early to start scoreboard watching at this point. The Yankees are 6 games out while they were 10.5 games out last year at this time (while 5 games out of the wild card). Just for fun, here’s a link to Mitchell Plitnick’s article about the Yankees May 19, 2007, when the Yankees were also 7 out of the wild card. Read it over and you’ll read some similarities. However, by luck or fortune, the Yankees are in slightly better shape in the standings.

Sure, I predicted the Yankees to get the Wild Card before the beginning of this season, but if the Yankees are about 7 games back in the AL East by July, then, let’s have this discussion. Until then, Pete Abe, yep, it’s way too early to think Wild Card.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Wild Card, 1 - Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Too Early to Think “Wild Card”?”

Shane MacGowan says:

May 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

The Yankees were 10 back last year with Wang, Pettitte and Mussina out with hammy’s (in addition to Matsui). If those three pitchers were out this year, we’d be a lot more than 10 games out.
Moshe Mandel says:

May 19th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

And if they would have been missing Alex and Posada last year, they also would have been more games out. Its a double edged sword.
Justin LeMoine says:

May 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

I also think ts too early to think about the wild card. I even think its too early to care about what the Rays or the Sox are doing. All I care about is getting back to .500. Then get a few games over, and by then I might have my eye on the standings. There is still a lot of baseball left, people.
Clutch McGritterson says:

May 19th, 2008 at 11:17 pm

A-Rod’s return will definitely help, and no, it’s not too early to talk playoffs! He should have had 20 homeruns already this season.

http://grittyandclutch.blogspot.com/2008/05/yankees-fans-cant-wait-for-rod-to-get.html