With my preferred underdogs (Minnesota and St. Louis) already beaten, baseball is down to the Yanks and Phils.
Tim Brown over at Yahoo Sports has broken things down by position.
However, he’s wrong on a number of those positional comparisons.
At catcher, he’s got Posada and Ruiz as a tie.
C’mon, that is silly despite Posada’s lack of spring chicken-ness.
In this case, Brown seems to believe we should look at the small sample of postseason play over the regular season.
It’s dumb. Hands down Posada is the positional winner here.
At First, Brown chooses Ryan Howard over Mark Texeira.
Their value with the bat is close.
Mark is more valuable with the glove (which doesn’t slump).
Ryan cannot hit lefties.
Wrong again Brown.
Mark will have the better series.
At 2nd, Utley is clearly ahead of Cano, though Cano did have a tremendous season.
Brown got this one right.
At shortstop, Brown gives the edge to Jeter.
Jeter’s defense has improved this year, according to some metrics that have traditionally been unkind to his play.
Jimmy Rollins is a better field (opinion) and more dangerous with the bat, though Jeter has shown the ability to play up to the circumstance.
I expect Rollins will have the better series.
At 3rd, Brown selected Arod over Feliz.
Easy pick there.
Left field, Brown chose Damon over Ibanez.
I wouldn’t want either of these players.
The season Ibanez put up is not normal.
It was Bonds-ian in comparison to the rest of his career.
More so if you consider only the first half (where’d that come from).
Centerfield has Victorino over Melky/Gardner.
Cannot disagree with that.
Right Field Brown has Werth over Swisher. I disagree.
Swish will have a great series, but Werth did have the better season overall.
The pitching to me is a toss up.
The game 1 starters are great, both former Indians (Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia), but after that things are murky.
Can Pedro recapture some glory and help capture a championship?
Is Burnett going to be unhittable or will he get bombed?
Cole Hammels has struggled some this year.
Andy Pettitte has experience, but the results this year were average.
I do like the back-end of the Phillies rotation, with Blanton and Happ, but the Yanks have the edge in bullpens.
Yanks in 6, but lets hope for a 7-game series.