Dark day: The Redsocks just outbid us for the Cuban "Brett Gardner with power"

The international man of mystery known as Rusney Castillo has signed with Boston, potentially tipping the balance of power in the AL East next year. At the least, the balance of hope has turned markedly in their favor.

Of course, the Yankees have managed to set the bar pretty low on hope.

Basically, they offer none.

Tonight, the Murdoch/YES p.r. Zambroni machine will smooth this over with words dipped in rose-water. They'll tell us how Castillo isn't worth $72 million, and the Yankee "baseball men" - which may include the chain-smoking ghosts of Stump Merrill and Syd Thrift - analyzed the situation and ruled against spending Hal Steinbrenner's hard-inherited money, and - of course, they are second to none, when it comes to identifying Cuban talent.

After all, they saved us from the likes of Puig, Chapman, Abreu, Cespedes, et al, and lured to the coal mines of Scranton Ronnier Mustellier and Adonis Garcia. Yes, they know Cuban talent the way every third-rate Hollywood celebrity knows the Ice Bucket Challenge.

So Boston enters 2015 with an overhauled team, including a 27-year-old Cuban outfielder who might just be a future superstar. They will claim the cover of Sports Illustrated and the national spotlight.

We'll have Martin Prado.

Damn. This is a dark day, a truly depressing Friday afternoon. This is what I most feared - that Boston was hording its money to buy impact players, rather than over-the-hill LOB machines. You know what? I hope the Yankees lose tonight! They deserve to lose. I hope they get swept by Chicago, fall into fourth and get booed off the field, and then I hope Brian Cashman develops a nasty ugly rash - I'm talking shades of purple - in the center of his forehead, so he doesn't want to go to parties, and I hope that Hal - while piloting his yacht - cuts his foot on a broken gin bottle, and it gets infected, and they have to cut off his big toe.

No. Actually, I don't hope for any of those things.

I wish I could. Because they have a better chance of happening than the Yankees do of winning anything memorable this season. Damn... How did it get this way? How did we get so screwed up? The only thing we have left is Derek Jeter - everything else is collapsing - and we couldn't even give him a decent send-off. It's exactly the same as what happened with Marinano. The Yankee organization - like its team - can't deliver in the clutch. But hey, isn't that the ultimate mark of mediocrity?