Damon: Yankees Will Make Postseason

From The Daily News:

"We're going to be in the postseason," Damon told the Daily News on Thursday. "I think we're one of the teams to beat."

"Toronto probably has the best top-to-bottom pitching around, and the Red Sox, coming off their championship, they're going to be tough," Damon said. "We're hoping to go out and win the East, but if not, we were able to fall back on the wild card last year. I think we have as good a chance as anybody (to win the World Series)."

"We don't just have young guys coming in, we have young stud pitchers coming in," Damon said. "We're going to have to see what they're made of. Most teams would call this a rebuilding process, but we look at it as a positive for us."

Although I'm not a fan of predictions and guarantees from players, I see nothing wrong with Damon showing confidence in his team like this. He's an outspoken guy and has always made statements like this.

He also said that reports saying that he was close to retiring before last season were overblown:

"It's something that has crossed my mind for several years, but there was no way I was going to walk at that time," Damon said. "The season was too close.

In other news from Tampa, Peter Abraham reports that Bobby Abreu is another Yankee who arrived at camp in great shape, and he finally admits that last year he wasn't:

Since he was determined to arrive at spring training in better condition than he was in last season. He reported to camp at 215 pounds, 10 fewer than last season.

"I feel better. I was working hard all winter," Abreu said. "I knew I came in out of shape last year, and I didn't want that to happen again. I ran more and lifted more weights."

Abreu's poor production was one of the reasons the Yankees fell 14 1/2 games out of first place before the end of May.

"I got off to a slow start and I struggled all first half. I don't want to say it was because I was out of shape, but that didn't help," Abreu said. "Once I got in shape and I could run better, I had a pretty good second half."