Dismiss the Yankees At Your Peril

The clouds are gathering in the collective wisdom and coalescing into dismissal of the New York Yankees. Go ahead, at your own peril.

For sure, the Yankees are a pale shadow of their former selves. Their stockpile of big ticket free agents are nursing osteoporosis now. Many of their richest players pass the season on the disabled list -- or the suspended list. They have made a habit for two years now of auditioning one reclamation project after another in the hopes of catching lighting in a bottle for 300 at-bats.

It's certainly nothing like 1996-2012, when NYY was a post-season lock -- 16 times in 17 years, reaching seven World Series and capturing five championships. Last year, Joe Girardi's nine won 52.5% of their games, their worst performance in more than two decades. This season, it's a tick below that. The Yankees are basically a .500 team.

And yet, the Bombers are 58-53, just five games out of first in the limp AL East and a mere game out of the Wild Card. In another week or two, Michael Pineda returns to the mound, and ace Masahiro Tanaka could be hurling for them again in September.

They would complement new additions Chase Headley at third and Martin Prado anywhere they want.

Could the Yankees emerge from the scrum among Toronto, Seattle, KC, Cleveland and Tampa for the last playoff slot? Sure, why not? Every team on that list has an Achilles Heel as vulnerable as New York's punchless outfield. Could the Yankees overtake Baltimore for the AL East with a few hot weeks? Stranger things have happened. Heck, Hunter Pence parallel parked yesterday.

Then once they're in, all bets are off. Or on. Or...whichever it is. Baseball playoff series are only slightly less random than GEICO ads.

Which brings us to another piece of conventional wisdom gone astray. Since the trade deadline, it has become doctrine that the Tigers, with their three Cy Young starters, or Oakland, with their own trio of aces, are locks to compete for the pennant. As if Max Scherzer has never lost 2-1 (to the Yankees yesterday). Or Justin Verlander, blown up (seven starts of five runs or more allowed this year). 

It's certainly an advantage to throw three aces at an opponent in a seven-game series than not. It's an advantage to throw three aces at opponents all year. But it's not a guarantee of anything, particularly over a handful of games.

The Yankees aren't the favorites. the Tigers and A's are. (Perhaps the stacked Angels' lineup too.) But the favorite entering baseball's playoffs -- much less entering August -- hasn't won the championship the last four years. For that, you have to go back to 2009 when -- well whaddaya know! -- the Yankees won it all.