Hard to Rebuild on the FLY

The Yankees are rebuilding--or at least creating the option of rebuilding. They proved it by trading their best hitter to a rival(Sheff to Tigers) and pretty much sending Detroit back into the playoffs with the White Sox. This strategy will result in ONLY one AL East team going to the playoffs again this year and the Yankees' chances have gotten more difficult by the day-- Baltimore has come to life( SP Wright and bullpen Wright) and so has Toronto( Frank Thomas). Toronto's lineup is now the equal of the Yankees with Wells, Thomas, Glaus, and Overbay #s 3-6. Now the Yanks have Johnson, Mussina and Wang. They have two young starters to break in in the 2nd half( Sanchez, Rasner) with 2 more for emergency service( Karstens, Hughes). The Yankees believed that their offense was good enough to win behind an above average starter who could eat 6-7 innings giving up 3-4 runs. Damon, Jeter, Abreu, ARod is a speedy, good hitting group of athletic players--add Matsui, Cano, and Posada and you have a good group- Giambi is the other power guy. This group will win if the have decent starters because the bullpen core is solid:Rivera, Farns, Bruney, and Proctor(with Britton in reserve). They could be competitive with Meche, Suppan, or even a lefty from Japan -Kei Igawa. So they key is pitching because without Sheff they cannot plan on overpowering people.