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Thursday, September 28, 2006

Yankees Playoff Roster

There's nothing of interest going on for the Yanks between now and the start of the playoffs that they can control, except for two things: The battle for home field, and who is actually going to be on the playoff roster. With the Tigers losing this afternoon and the Yankees owning the tiebreaker vs. both them and the Twins, home field looks extremely likely. So there's not much to talk about besides the playoff roster.
You'll have your starting 8 fielders (Posada, Giambi, Cano, A-Rod, Jeter, Matsui, Damon, and Abreu) along with Gary Sheffield as the DH. Then there are the 4 starters (Wang, Moose, RJ, and Wright). That's 13 players, so there are 12 spots left to fill. They're going to have to bring Cairo as the utility IF and Fasano as a backup catcher. Melky certainly deserves a spot as a late inning defensive replacement, and regardless of whether or not Bernie Williams deserves a spot (I think he does, for the record), there's no way Torre is going to leave him off the playoff roster. Aaron Guiel gets in over Craig Wilson, since Torre is playing him more. What will most likely likely happen is that both of them will make it on there. That leaves 7 spots for the bullpen, which Torre has said he's going to opt for.
The shoo-ins: Mo will close, Farnsworth and Brian Bruney, from out of nowhere, will set up, and Proctor will pitch anytime, anywhere until his arm falls off (which unfortunately is going to come fairly soon), and Cory Lidle, who is the only guy the Yankees will have who can go for a while. Mike Myers will be there as a LOOGY, for whatever reason.
That leaves just 1 spot for the other 7 pitchers currently on the Yankees' roster. We can rule out TJ Beam, Sean Henn, and Jose Veras easily. Octavio Dotel, who could have been a huge help, clearly isn't ready for prime time. That leaves Ron Villone, Jeff Karstens, and Darrell Rasner. Two months ago, this wouldn't have been a question. However, Villone has been so incredibly bad since August that it might be necessary to have someone else on the roster. If either one of Rasner or Karstens has an absolutely great start in the next few days, I wouldn't be surprised to see them make it. However, since Villone is a lefty, I think that Torre will put him on the roster if they don't come through.

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