A Preview A Day Keeps the Winter Away, #9

(Okay, so I'm a horrible person and lied about having this up this morning. Apologies)

For the month of March I will be doing a season preview, with a new team each day, going in alphabetical order by team so I can save the Yankees for last, because I am, in fact, that devious.

As this is a Yankees' blog, the previews for AL East teams will be more detailed than those of AL Central and AL West teams, and any AL team previews will be more detailed than NL team previews, save maybe for the Mets. Each preview will involve consideration of how much 'threat' a team is to the Yankees, for fairly obvious reasons.

Up Today: The Arizona Diamondbacks

The Diamondbacks don't bring back many happy memories for the Yankees, but that isn't the entire story as, from the perspective of a fan of the game, the 2001 World Series was one of the most intense, indeed, one of the best, played in recent memory, if not ever.

However, that team is largely gone, and, like the Yankees, 'Zona has gone with youth, such as Justin Upton, brother of BJ, and Brandon Webb, who pitched something like three straight shut outs, or near to it. In fact, with the exception of Randy Johnson, no one on the team is older than Augie Ojeda who's an ancient 33, and now they've added Dan Haren to their staff as well.

Arizona's largest problem, however, is their offense--which they have not remedied in any significant way this off season. Last year the Diamondbacks were actually outscored; while they could outpitch the Cubs the lack of offense hurt them in the NLCS.


Threat to the Yankees: Yellow, Proceed with Caution

I haven't forgotten 2001.