The Coronation

The Yankees had been tortured by the own high expectations for 9 long years. Not by the supposed "Championship or Bust" mantra that for the most part is wildly overplayed, as much as their actions as a franchise. Even if they had pretended like they didn't care that much about winning, it would have been painfully apparent that they did.

Since 2000, the Yankees have spent over $1.5B on player's salaries, let alone the amount paid to coaches, training staff, front office personnel, scouts, minor league operations and countless other employees singularly dedicated to assembling the best baseball team possible. And last night, it's seemed like it was all worth it.

If the last nine years have taught us anything, it's that you can't buy championships (despite the common Yankee-hater refrain). You can certainly try. You can buy extended streaks of regular season success. You can come pretty close to buying a playoff berth. But you still have to run the gauntlet of a three-tiered playoff system which was a lot harder than it seemed back when Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, David Cone, Bernie Williams & Co. were still wearing Pinstripes.

This year, it seemed easy again.

The Yankees cruised through the second half of the season, didn't face elimination once in the playoffs, and the Phillies didn't have the tying run on base at any point after the third inning last night. After Damaso Marte impossibly mowed down Chase Utley to end the 7th inning and Ryan Howard to begin the 8th with 2 strikeouts six pitches, we could relax and savor the moment.

Last night was a coronation of the a team who, despite what Jimmy Rollins wants you to think, was the best team in baseball for most of this year by a considerable margin. It was validation of the last 9 years of aggressive free agent spending and high-upside drafting.

It was a celebration for Hideki Matsui and A-Rod and Sabathia and Burnett and Cano who will never have the fact that they haven't won a World Series held against them again. And probably just as sweet for the guys who played supplemental roles and ended up in the right place at the right time. It was a culmination for Jeter, Pettitte, Posada and Rivera who amazingly won a 5th title together 9 years after their last. This is as good as it gets.

We were all in vastly different places in our lives 9 years ago. I was a 16 year old kid who was a Yankee fan but didn't really know that much about baseball. I couldn't have told you what OPS meant or who Bill James was. The Yankees had just won 4 out of 5 years and if you had listed the players the Yanks were going to acquire and told me it would take until now to win again, I would have thought you were batshit insane.

But it did take that long. Which makes it that much sweeter.

The Fallacy Of A Hot September

In the beginning of every season, we are forced to look at extremely small sample sizes in order to evaluate performance, which grow larger as the year progresses. It takes a while, but over the summer months, trends become realities and we begin to see who the best players and teams are. But before those positions can be solidified, the schedule winds down and heads into the postseason. Then, broadcasters, analysts and fans all try to identify who the hottest teams are heading into October and the big picture is viewed in terms of increasingly small sample sizes once again.

But does being hot heading into the playoffs really forebode success once you get there? The 2007 Rockies were the most recent poster child of this theory, skyrocketing from 6.5 games back and only 5 games over .500 as late as September 16th and finally sneaking into the postseason via a play-in game against the Padres. From there they swept their way to the World Series but were ultimately dismantled by the Red Sox.

Of course, the '07 Rockies are just one end of the spectrum. On the other hand, you have the 2000 Yankees who turned into a train wreck down the stretch, going 2-12 over their final 14 games, ending the season on a 7 game losing streak and nearly blowing the division. That Yankee team of course went on to beat the Indians, Mariners and Mets and unlike the above mentioned Rockies, actually won the World Series.

Today at The Faster Times, Lisa Swan from Subway Squawkers looked at how every playoff team since the year 2000 performed in September and how it correlated to their success in the postseason. Surprise, surprise... there is essentially no connection at all. Click through for the details.

In a season bereft of any really close pennant races, but the same amount of articles to be published, scribes will be churning out columns trying to identify who is primed for October based on the way they are playing now. Someone is probably writing one about the Yankees right now. Most columnists make a living trying to find story lines. Unfortunately for them, if you want to foretell the future in baseball, you be better off breaking out the crystal ball.