Let’s start some arguments.
Arguments between fans of a team with a distinct geographic rival. Arguments stemming from baseball’s new age of parity. Fun arguments, loud arguments, passionate arguments, and best of all, arguments with no answer.
The premise is simple: Which team will win more games, Team A or Team B? In each pairing, the teams are in the same city or same state. The idea came to me one day when I started thinking, “OK, which club will be better, the Mets or Yankees? The Cubs or White Sox? The Angels or Dodgers?” And the answers didn’t come to me easily.
I’ve got nine such pairings, which means I’m excluding 12 clubs from this series. Now, don’t start with the “What about…?” questions that fans love to ask me on Twitter or Facebook when I don’t mention their favorite team. I write about all 30 clubs. In this series, though, I’m dealing with 18, OK? OK?!?!
Anyway, here goes. In each case, as a simple reference point, I’m listing in parentheses the projected win totals for each club, according to the 2015 Projected Standings on FanGraphs.com. Then I’ll give my own opinion. Then you can give yours, via Twitter, Facebook or good old face-to-face communication the next time you see me at a game.
Note: The projected win totals on FanGraphs reflect each team’s current depth chart, which do reflect significant injuries.
First up: New York!
Yankees (82 projected wins) vs. Mets (81)
It’s refreshing that the Mets are talking big this spring, but I fear it’s too much.
This is a team unaccustomed to expectations, a team with a manager, Terry Collins, in the final year of his contract. And as strong as the starting pitching figures to be, the Mets’ offense only will improve “if” David Wright returns to form, “if” Curtis Granderson benefits from his reunion with hitting coach Kevin Long, if Michael Cuddyer continues to be a big producer at 36 – lots of “ifs.”
That said, the Yankees face even more questions, starting with their MRI-a-minute rotation. Yes, their bullpen will be quite good, and their lineup should be more dynamic with Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury at the top. Joe Girardi has proven to be a manager who coaxes the most out of his clubs, and I expect general manager Brian Cashman to be more aggressive at the deadline than his Mets counterpart, Sandy Alderson, in part because Alderson operates with greater financial restrictions.
Still, this could be the year the Yankees finally crash.
My pick: Mets 84 wins, Yankees 79.
