An aging team should take steps to insulate itself from the potential pitfalls an older team will tend to incur. Injury risks and regression candidates abound for both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. The Red Sox are well prepared to withstand such potential problems while the Yankees, to say the least, are not. Without even going into the starting pitching side of things (WOTS is New York’s 6th starter while the Sox go 6-8 with Wake, Kim and Halama), here are the career lines of the main bench components for both Boston and New York. Two caveats: one, listed below is Roberto Petagine’s ZIPS projection (Dan Szymborski of BTF’s creation) and not his career line as I thought that would be more appropriate. Two, the Red Sox have a far younger bench and all of these players are at different stages of their career. This is meant as an interesting, telling tidbit but simply listing career numbers does not, by any means, constitute any sort of conclusive study.

Doug Mirabelli: 242/331/426
John Flaherty: 255/293/382

Jay Payton: 285/335/443
Doug Glanville: 277/315/380

Ramon Vazquez: 262/334/344
Rey Sanchez: 271/308/334

Roberto Petagine: 282/397/450 (ZIPS projection - he’s been in Japan)
Ruben Sierra: 269/317/452

Kevin Youkilis: 260/367/413
Damian Rolls: 248/291/337

It’s as though the Yanks have decided that their bench does not matter. To paraphrase BP’s Joe Sheehan, $200 million ought to get you more.