Yankeetorial: Here's a staggering concept: What if we just kept our prospects and supplemented the lineup with free agents?

It's a ridiculous thought, eh?

Instead of annually trading the guts of our farm system for former all-stars that other organizations have, for undisclosed reasons, decided to jettison...

Instead of regularly needing to prove how much smarter our front office is than their counterparts from other teams...

Instead of constantly needing to dominate the back pages of the NY tabloids...

What if we just kept Jesus Montero, our best young pitchers and the prospects who regularly grow up through our system -- the Ian Kennedys, the Austin Jacksons, etc?

Seeing that we would save enormous sums of money during their first few years, does it stand to reason that we could easily buy the extra studs and the spare parts needed via free agency?

Hello? Does this make sense?

I'm not saying we don't trade Wilson Betemit for Nick Swisher. I'm not saying we don't move a minor leaguer for a pennant run in August.

But whenever a Francisco Lirano or a Javier Vazquez or a Randy Johnson or a Kevin Brown goes on the market, are we mandated by law to trade our top prospects for the guy? Or are we bound by statues to never believe that, at age 24, a kid like Ivan Nova might just improve into the pitcher we need?

Today, throughout the Yankiverse, we can hear the train whistle a-blowing... Dellin Betances and Andrew Brackman to Minnesota... and they'll be with the Twins for the next five years, while we get one for Lirano.

Trading our youth just seems like a heroin fix for a junkie who is always vowing to quit tomorrow. 

At some point, do we ever have faith in our system? Or is it all about being able to rib Theo Epstein at the next charity golf event?

For once, have we the guts to hold our cards?