Yanks Turbocharged This October

Oct. 3, 2006 — -- The last time the New York Yankees won a World Series -- way back in the dark ages of October 2000 -- there had never been a major league player named Melky, Johnny Damon was still a Royal and Chien-Ming Wang was a man with a dream that some day there might actually be a big leaguer from Taiwan.

That was six long years ago, friends.

It was so long ago that George Steinbrenner has had enough time to fork out nearly a billion of his precious payroll dollars trying to get back to the Canyon of Heroes. It was so long ago that the likes of Steve Karsay, Drew Henson, Karim Garcia, Jeff Weaver, Raul Mondesi, Armando Benitez and Esteban Loaiza have all had time to zip on into Yankee Stadium and also zip on out.

It was so long ago that there was enough time for Derek Jeter to get 1,142 hits, for Jason Giambi to make 201 home run trots (and one grand-jury appearance), for Ron Villone to pitch for seven different teams.

But enough of that nostalgia. Wake up the Lower Manhattan street-sweeping crew. They're about to get 19 tons of confetti dumped on their heads -- because The Best Yankees Team Since That One is about to begin its rampage through another glorious October.

Yes, friends. We're picking the Yankees to win the 2006 World Series. We know that's not a pick that will make Yankee haters across the universe real euphoric. Sorry about that.

It's also not a pick, to be honest, we've had no second thoughts about. Heck, we've had third thoughts, fourth thoughts and several thousand other thoughts about it.

But we're applying the old That's My Story And I'm Sticking To It principle here. We picked the Yankees to win the World Series before Opening Day. And they look even better now. So this way, we can always say we nailed this from square one.

If we're right.

But the one common theme running through the last five postseasons is that nobody is ever right. So there's no reason to think anybody has this Octoberfest figured, either.

"This is the strangest baseball season I've ever seen," one longtime scout was saying over the weekend. "So I look for the playoffs to be equally strange."

That scout was one of a dozen GMs, scouts and executives we polled over the last week-plus see what team they thought would win the World Series. You might have presumed that poll would turn into a Yankees landslide. Far from it.

The Yankees got five votes. The Twins got four. The Tigers, A's and Mets got one each. So what does that tell you? Here's what:

"I don't see anybody in the National League that's better than the top seven or eight teams in the American League," said one AL GM. "We've got eight teams over here with 85 wins and five with 90 wins. Now in a seven-game series, who knows? But from a realistic standpoint, it's no contest."

"You don't get Pedro for the [regular] season," said one NL GM. "You get Pedro for the postseason. That's what they got him for. So without him, they're not the team they were constructed to be."

Even the one GM who picked the Mets to win made his pick before he knew Pedro was done. But there was also no reason to think he'd be the Pedro at that point, either. And that GM still had a gut feeling that the Mets would find a way to rise up.

"I know their pitching isn't great," he said. "But there's something about that group of guys [in the lineup]. They just don't let up on you. They're relentless." But that was a sentiment no one else bought into. In fact, one scout said the Mets' rotation, minus Pedro, is "the weakest starting pitching of any of these teams. [So] I don't see the Mets making it through the LCS now. I'm not sure they can even get out of the first round."