New York Yankees Tickets - Back to Baseball

Amidst a firestorm of offseason troubles, such as Joe Torre's tell-all book and Alex Rodriguez admitting that he took steroid, people's attention has been drawn from the actual baseball team that is the New York Yankees. We, as humans, have the tendency to slow down when we see a car accident on the side of the road. Well, the offseason road in New York has been riddled with wrecks, but when the smoke clears people will remember that the Yankees are probably the favorites to win the World Series. Fans are going to purchase New York Yankees tickets no matter what happened in the offseason.

Alex Rodriguez did take steroids, but he is clean now, as far as we can tell, and it's not going to stop him from putting up phenomenal numbers in 2009. Yes, he catches a lot of heat for failing to come up big in clutch situations, but his regular season performance will be a major factor in how this team fares and whether they win the American League East or not. Rodriguez is still one of the game's best players, and I think he'll prove it this season.

The 2009 Yankee lineup looks like an All-Star team. The opening day lineup could look something like Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Hideki Matsui, Xavier Nady, Jorge Posada, Nick Swisher and Robinson Cano. While the lineup may be lacking in speed somewhat, where are you going to find that kind of power outside of the mid-summer classic? What pitcher does have his trepidations about facing a team with that kind of firepower? The biggest addition to the mix, Teixeira, looks poised for a career year. He appears to be entering his prime, and in this lineup he should absolutely mash the ball and drive in a ton of runs.

Hitting has not been the Yankees' achilles heel recently, it's been the team's pitching, both starting and the bullpen. The Yankees made a huge splash by landing two of the top pitching free agents on the market this summer, C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Sabathia has the potential to win 20 games with this lineup behind him, while Burnett has some of the best stuff in the majors when he's healthy.

Behind these two studs the Yankees still have the much underrated Chien-Ming Wang, a two-time 19-game winner and sinkerball specialist. It's also said that the team plans to use Joba Chamberlain as a starter yet again this season. Chamberlain had some trouble adjusting to his role as a starter last season, racking up high pitch counts early in games, but he made some adjustments and was really rounding into form before he went down with an injury. If he can prove that he can handle the workload of a starter, he could be a great one. Still, moving him to the bullpen, where he is utterly dominant, isn't such a bad alternative. The New York rotation likely will be rounded out by veteran Andy Pettitte. That starting five is an impressive one if everyone stays healthy, and backed by the aforementioned lineup could be a real force.

In the bullpen the Yankees still have Mariano Rivera to slam the door on opponents. The Yanks will also lean heavily on Damaso Marte and Edwar Ramirez. As I mentioned earlier, there is a chance that we could see Chamberlain assume the setup role if things don't go to plan with him as a starter. If Chamberlain were to return to the bullpen, it's likely that Phil Hughes would enter the starting rotation.

Looking at the New York Yankee roster, there's little doubt that this team has what it takes to win it all. The sooner that people put these offseason issues aside, the sooner they'll realize what his team is capable of. It will be better for them, better for the Yankees and better for baseball.

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