Lupica: Padres’ success more impressive than Yankees’

I beg to differ.

Infamous New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica wrote a column praising the Padres for nearly matching the Yankees’ success this year despite spending $173 million less on players.

Bla bla bla … the Yankees are evil … bla bla bla.

Lupica forgot to mention one thing, and it seemed fairly obvious to me: Strength of schedule.

Yes, only a game-and-a-half separates the Friars and the Yanks, but the Yankees play the two toughest teams in baseball (besides themselves) more than most teams. Let’s compare divisions, shall we?

AL East	W	L	PCT	NL West	W	L	PCT
Yankees	75	46	.620	Padres	73	47	.608
Rays	74	47	.612	Giants	68	54	.557
Red Sox	69	53	.566	Rockies	62	58	.517
Blue Jays	63	57	.525	Dodgers	62	60	.508
Orioles	43	79	.352	Diamondbacks	47	75	.385
Total	324	282	.535	Total	312	294	.515

If you look at the MLB RPI rankings, the Yankees are well in front of the Padres in strength of schedule and are a few spots ahead in RPI.

So there.

P.S.: The last sentence of Lupica’s column will crack you up, unless you’re a Mets fan.

Should the Yankees target Heath Bell this trade deadline?

The Yankees have already expressed their plans this trading season. One, to replace Nick Johnson, might already be complete with Jorge Posada’s altered role. The other, bullpen help, hasn’t been touched as far as we know.

ESPN’s Jayson Stark informs us Padres are still shopping closer Heath Bell. Bell is having another stellar season in 2010, posting a 1.13 ERA with 14 saves. Not a bad follow-up performance so far after leading the NL in saves last year.

Bell is also cheap ($4 million) and is on a one-year deal. Plus, the Yankees would be compensated with a high draft pick if Bell signs with another team and the Yanks offer him arbitration.

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**WEBSITE CHANGE** I just added a “Trade Rumors” link at the top of the site. Like it or not, there will be a lot of rumblings of trades in the next two months. I will do my best to decipher which ones are rumors and which are realistic.