I haven't posted a team set of 2013 SEGA Card-Gen since the end of August. I was a little surprised to see that it has been almost three months, but I guess time has a way of moving faster than you want it to. I finally scanned a couple more teams and the next one on the list is the New York Yankees. This team set is pretty big on star power, with a whopping 7 players with 7- or 8-star ratings. There are 11 Yankees in the set, which is slightly under the team average of 13 over the whole checklist.
Kicking things off for the Evil Empire is Mark Teixeira. Injuries have plagued him for the last couple of years, so he hasn't quite lived up to the 8-star rating he shows here recently. You can't knock him too much, though, as he's been around long enough to have two career peaks, with some decent production between them.
Robinson Cano left the Yankees for the Mariners in 2014 after signing a 10-year contract for a buttload of money. Most importantly, he's been a valuable commodity in fantasy baseball as a 2B who hits for power, although the move from New York to Seattle hurts that a bit.
Alex Rodriguez has been caught up in all sorts of scandals centered around steroid use, and that has marred a career that could be measured among the all-time greats. I just don't like the guy. It's interesting that he only got 7 stars. You'd think his superstar status would garner an instant 8-star rating.
Derek Jeter is pretty famous. You may have heard that he retired after the 2014 season. He's been an All-Star for like the last 15 years, although the last few seasons it was probably more out of reputation than actual performance on the field. A lot of people are all about the Yankees, and Jeter has been the face of the Yankees for a long time. My favorite Jeter memory is pulling a Jeter Rip Card out of 2014 Allen & Ginter's and selling it on eBay for enough to buy a cheaper Rip Card and a bunch of other stuff.
Granderson was coming off of two consecutive 40+ home run season when this card came out, so I guess the high rating can be excused. He had a down year for the Yankees in 2013 and then moved to the Mets for 2014 and at least was able to stay on the field for most of the year.
Ichiro is another pretty famous dude who plays baseball for the Yankees. He came into the league on fire, winning the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards, and reeled off ten straight All-Star appearances. He led the league in hits like a million times. His last four seasons have been at a lower level than the first ten, but he's still probably an above-average player. I'm not sure where he will play in 2015. Some team will probably pick him up, if he is willing to accept whatever contracts are offered.
CC Sabathia is another guy who was coming off a pretty good 2012 when this set was produced. 2013 and 2014 were pretty rough for him, and with his knee being as bad as it is, who knows if he will ever be able to come back and put up serviceable numbers? He's got a Cy Young and 6 All-Star appearances, but heaven help you if you draft him in fantasy baseball expecting miracles.
Now we're getting to the weak portion of the team, with a guy who only has 6 stars. Just kidding, it gets a little worse later. He pitches a lot of innings with decent ratios, and his career win-loss record is an even 79-79, which is kind of cool. Looking at the numbers, he probably deserves to have a few more wins than that, but that's just one poorly-educated man's opinion based on a cursory glance at his Baseball Reference player page.
Ivan Nova hasn't exactly been great in his career, and his 2014 was cut short by an injury that required Tommy John surgery. I don't know a lot about him, as I've never wanted his inflated WHIP on my fantasy baseball rosters.
Based on star rating, Phil Hughes would be tied with Carlos Pena as the best player on the Houston Astros' Card-Gen roster. Hughes was kind of a yo-yo with the Yankees, with some pretty good years and some pretty bad years. He signed with the Twins for 2014 and finally put it all together and/or had a career year.
David Robertson pitched well for a few years and then in 2014 stepped into the closer role vacated by the retired Mariano Rivera. He pitched pretty well as the closer and the rumor is that he will make big money on the free agent market from a team looking to add a top reliever. It is interesting to see that the Astros might make a play for him. They need somebody consistent to take over the late innings, as it seems like the bullpen is constantly a train wreck waiting to happen.
And that does it for the Yankees in 2013 SEGA Card-Gen. Ten teams are down, so I've just got 20 more to go. I may finish this series of posts by 2017, but I don't know that I'd put any money on that.
2013 SEGA Card-Gen Directory
Kuroda definitely deserved more career wins. Unfortunately he had the misfortune of being on terrible Hiroshima Carp teams, crappy Los Angeles Dodgers teams and horrible New York Yankees teams.
ReplyDeleteAs for Nova he's basically Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes he can hold his own against the best of them, other times he looks lost and like a DFA candidate. For the most part he's usually in between though.