Sanchez' family to Carrot Top: Baseball America's take on the Yankees

The other day, a Baseball America podcast devoted roughly 33 minutes to the Yankee farm system, and if you've got 33 minutes lying around, with nothing better to do, or you need background drivel while cleaning your Glocks, give it a go. Just keep in mind that a 15-minute call to Geico can blah-blah-blah on car insurance, and with the remaining 18, you could drive to the store and buy a pack of Luckies and quart of King Cobra. Do you really want to spend 33 minutes inside the free-association minds of a Skippy, a Fletch and a Cooter - guys whose lives involve plumbing the ever-sifting secrets of Scranton, Trenton and Pulaski?

Didn't think so. Therefore, I did it for you. Some takeaways.

1. They were comparing SS Jorge Mateo's two-week suspension last summer to that of Gary Sanchez, two years ago. In both cases, you've got a hot prospect pissing off the Yankee pooh-bahs by breaking some unnamed rule. (Panty raid? Serial killing?) It certainly worked for Sanchez, who looked mature beyond his years this summer. Will it work on Mateo? Well, they don't know. But here's the takeaway: Sanchez' change of heart came after he got married and had a kid. Big change. Maybe we need Mateo to find a woman. Oh, and he'll probably play CF. He's literally too fast to be wasted in the infield.

2. While waxing about Clint Frazier's formidable physique, somebody said he is "jacked like Carrot Top." (Both have red hair.) This rattled me. I find shirtless shots of Carrot Top to be unsettling. Stand-up comics who spend all day pumping iron end up looking like steroidal monsters - way too scary to laugh at their jokes. I love how Louis CK and Rickie Gervais, joke about being fat, even though neither is. It makes them human. Now, whenever Frazier comes to bat, I'll have a Carrot Top moment bouncing in my head. Thank you, Baseball America. As for Frazier, they love him, though - and I didn't know this - they say some scouts see too much movement - something "hitchy with his swing." As a result, he might have trouble adjusting to MLB. A final note: They say Frazier is really smart and obsessed with improvement, and one of the most knowledgeable hitters in the game. I suspect this is just their olive branch after comparing the guy to Carrot Top. They're probably scared of him, too.

3. Josh Norris claimed the Yankees could have 10 prospects on Baseball America's Top 100 list. The others said maybe eight. They agreed that we have one of the deepest - if not THE deepest - systems in baseball. (Keep in mind that these rankings are baseball's equivalent to the polls that said Hillary was a shoe-in.) I fear we are being set-up for the inevitable five-for-one trade - coming next month - which will be hailed by the YES-courtier press, and which later will go down as the worst thing we ever did. Yes... I know, I know... I'm being cynical and negative. Now and then, Cashman scores a nice little pickup. But the bigger the deal, the more chance of disaster. If we bundle talent for a Chris Sale, something tells me we'll get the short end... and be thinking of Carlos Quintana.

Would it not be interesting, just for the hell of it, to see what happens if the Yankees simply let the deepest system in baseball grow to its fruition? Must we trade it off? Is it a given that we cannot develop our own ace pitcher, that he must be acquired through trades, and only after having logged 1,200 innings for another team? If one out of every three prospects becomes a decent MLB player, isn't a key to success having a LOT of them?

4. They love Gleyber Torres and might rank him in the Top 5... but... and they didn't say this outright ... but... he'll rank below Yoan Moncada. Gah, that name again! Can you imagine the Yankee system if Hal had not gone alligator arms two years ago while reaching for his purse? Because even with a surge of talent over the coming years, we are probably doomed to watch Boston walk away with the next two divisional crowns. That's because they methodically built a team from the ground up - and then supplemented with outside talent, after seeing what holes needed to be filled.

We now face one unanswered question, which the boys of BA cannot answer:

Will we finish the rebuilding job... or seek the quick fix? Just what the hell is Hal Steinbrenner thinking? Can the Yankiverse - with its self-proclaimed smartest fans in the game - be patient enough to wait? Or when we built the new monstrosity, did we become slaves to always winning the next game? Do we have the guts to actually build over the long haul? Or will it always be about next year?