the real world champions

There are a few truths we know for sure after the Yankees won their 27th World Series last night:

• They’re the best team in baseball.
•  They deserved every part of this win. Anyone who tells you different is kidding themselves.
•  The core of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte that has won five championships may be one of the best in baseball history and it may be the last time we see a core like that again.
•  The days of Rivera being simply called the best closer in baseball history should be over. If he’s not in the top 10 pitchers of all time, he’s at least in the top 20 and is a first-ballot Hall of Famer no matter what you think about the worth or value of closers.

Like Kevin Bacon said in A Few Good Men, these are the facts, and they are indisputable.

cha-ching!

Proof that the Yankees were the best team is a guy who only played in half the series — and wasn’t a pitcher — took home the World Series MVP. Hideki Matsui just rolled the Phillies. They had no answer. At the start of the series, I thought the Yankees getting Matsui as the DH was a huge advantage. Seeing as he went 13-for-45 in the postseason and hit .615 for the series while Phillies extra men Ben Francisco (0-for the postseason) and Matt Stairs (one hit), it looks like that came true. The Yankees were far better equipped for the series because of Matsui as the DH, even if their offense took a hit when he couldn’t play in Philly.

Now the question is — what will the Yankees do with him? If anyone was cheesed off about Matsui winning the MVP, it had to be Yankee GM Brian Cashman. Any thoughts of getting the now-free agent on the cheap were dashed the second he got that MVP trophy. He went from a two-year, $19 million contract, to a bidding war at four years and $45 million. All because Pedro Martinez refused to change his approach against him. The Yankees would have been more than content to send him off into the sunset and let some team (Mariners?) overpay him, but that’s going to be a lot harder for them to do now. Four years and $45 million seems pretty steep for a 35-year-old outfielder who can’t play the outfield anymore. Then again, if Boomer Wells thinks it’s feasible, then it must be true!

We’ve already debunked the myth that the Yankees buy their greatness. If you use that as a premise for an argument against them, you’re just being lazy. Same as a Yankee fan who says your team isn’t as good as theirs because the Yankees have won 27 championships. Lazy. The advantage the Yankees have isn’t that they can buy anyone they want — it’s that they don’t have to tie their entire future to the guys they buy. If the Royals decided one offseason they wanted to go all out and sign the biggest free agent — say, Carl Pavano circa 2005 — then it would be imperative that he’d be successful. If not, their club would be set back 10 years. If Pavano flops for the Yankees, they just reload the next year. And that’s what happened. If the Pavano signing set the Yankees back, it meant they only made it to the playoffs instead of the World Series.

ba ha! someone's going to give me a multi-year deal! ba ha!

Here’s the good news for Phillies fans: This isn’t over. Every very important guy on the two-time defending National League champions is locked up for at least next year. Only Pedro Feliz is a free agent (and Chad “Dead Arm” Durbin) and Feliz should kiss Ruben Amaro Jr.’s feet if he gave him a one-year, $4 million contract offer after the way Feliz served up a turd sandwich of a postseason.

Now the bad news — they could have won this thing, and two of the biggest culprits were the two guys who have done their best to torpedo this season from the start, Brad Lidge and Cole Hamels. Last year, if Hamels was staked to a 3-0 lead, the Yankees might as well have packed it up and headed back up the Jersey Turnpike. If Lidge was one strike from a 1-2-3 inning, the fans would have had one step into the aisles to beat the traffic? Now? The Yankees weren’t scared of Hamels and fans saved half their beer for when Lidge blew the game.

Oh, and Brett Myers. He’s a free agent too.

Two things you should know about Friday in New York City. If you’re planning on going to the parade, it starts at 11 a.m. If you were just planning on going in for the day, cancel those plans. Sell your show tickets on Stub Hub, call in sick to work. Between traffic, drunk people, crowded trains and general inconvenience, it will be the most annoying day imaginable if you’re not going in for the parade.

Just what Philly fans need – New Yorkers telling them to calm down. Don’t poke the dragon, New York. That’s all I’m sayin’.

It’s never too soon to start thinking about next year’s fantasy baseball season. One tip — don’t overvalue guys who had good postseasons. Matsui and his next team would be really, really happy with a .275, 25 HR and 90 RBI year. Those are the stats of someone who should be drafted in the 11th round, but The Guy Who Doesn’t Pay Attention That Much in your league will remember this World Series and reach for him in the fifth round. Mistake.