Our Beards

"There are many things in life we can do nothing about, but a man's beard is his own fault."
—Mayor Jimmy Walker

There are certain things about this putrefying corpse of a Yankees season that we can do nothing about.  The rash of injuries to our young, fit outfielders, for instance—that's just the breaks of the game.

But then there are those beards.

It seems to me we have two of them, both of which have grown to scraggly, awful, uncombed and unkempt lengths of late.  Two tonsorial disasters that have marred the face of this organization for many a year:

—No one ever gets better.

This was on full display last night, with yet another failed audition for a starting role from Luis Cessa.

According to the Times today, after two good outings in his first two starts for us, back in 2016, Cessa has gone 1-10 in his major-league starts, with a 5.24 ERA—despite still pitching very well at Triple-A.

This is not an anomaly.  Player after player after player either comes up to the Yanks from the minors, or over from another club—and then declines.  Sometimes quickly, sometimes more gradually.  Gleyber Torres, Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez, even Didi—you name them, they get worse.

Judge suddenly cannot hit on the road.  Sevvy is supposedly still throwing hard, but is now getting touched up by the Amed Rosario's of the world.

The Gleyber looked like a world beater—but after a couple months in the bigs, the bigs adjusted.  Gleyber didn't.  Somehow, nobody at all in the Yankees' organization can come up with a way to help him.

The Bronx is now where potential comes to die.

You can also see our futility in how we play against those that know us best.  The Yanks, after today's latest exercise in disengagement, are now 27-26 against their opponents in the AL East, a division that contains one juggernaut and three Tinker Toys projects.

Injuries or no, it's stunning that they can play so badly, against so many bad teams, for so long.   The fact that they are 49-19 against everybody else shows that to know-know-know this Yankees team is to beat-beat-beat them.

They make adjustments.  We do not.

—No one can judge talent.

This is closely related to Beard No. 1.

I get it that, if Greg Bird really cannot catch up to a major-league fastball, no power on this earth (short of maybe some J.D. Martinez Joy Juice) will make him a hitter.

But nobody on the Yankees knew this?  Nobody thought, when he was at his peak values before, after 2015, or his one shining moment in the 2017 playoffs, Hmm, maybe we oughta deal this busher while the dealin' is good?

Sanchez's death of desire this year was really a surprise to the brass?  Nobody saw it coming after what seemed to be a previous such episode in the minors?

And what's happened to the farm system this year isn't just our grand sell-off for 16-year-old lottery tickets.  Estevan Florial has regressed from the Yankees Centerfielder of the Future to a guy having a terrible year in Single-A.  Thairo Estrada was promoted from flopping in Tampa to really flopping in Scranton.  And then there's Luis Cessa.  Again.

The Yankees and their General-Manager-for-Life, Brian Cashman, seem to have absolutely no ability to weigh talent, or to plan or anticipate.  What they mostly seem to do is...read the stats and hope for the best.  Which makes them different from us fans, how?

Time for a shave.