Not Your New York Yankees—The Breakdown, Part I: Catchers!

All right, riffing off El Duque's incisive list of coin flips, I think it's time to do the position-by-position breakdown of these brand-new, Not Your New York Yankees, or NYNYY.

I was going to name them, officially, the Bronx Halligators.   But really, what is "The Bronx"?  Just a fabled part of our fair city that fell into terrible hard times, and has been slowly but surely pulling itself back up in recent decades, a tribute to human perseverance, the pluck of our immigrants, the ever-renewing spirit of American optimism and blahblahblahblahblah.

Can you sell it?  Can you make money off it in anyway?

I'm sure Hal himself would prefer naming the team something like the "Your Brand Name Here Halligators," so from now on, that's what this weird, perverse evolutionary offshoot of the once-great Yankees will be:  the YBNH Halligators.

All right, let's get down to brass tacks, and passed and/or aching balls, with the position of...catcher.

Supposedly, the wily Jetes wanted Gary Sanchez AND Miguel Andujar for J.T. Realmuto.  If so, that was way too much, of course.  But considering how little the Phillies ended up surrendering for the 27-year-old All-Star whose numbers are still on the upswing—their own, mediocre starting catcher, a pair of promising young Single-A pitchers, and some international signing money—this may be just another lie emanating from our very own Kremlin-on-the Hudson.

I"M a promising Single-A pitcher these days, for cryin' out loud.  The other day I hit 97 on the speed gun, or was that the cab dashboard?

In any case, if the Hallies were really offered anything like the deal Philly got, they should've grabbed it.

Gary Sanchez had such a terrible season last year that it was actually something of a relief to learn that he was suffering from a shoulder injury as well as a groin injury.  At least the hurts might be something to account for his miserable, desultory play last year.

I can't remember any young player taking such a gigantic step back since George Scott went from .303-hitting, Gold-Glove first baseman in 1967, to a big fat, .171 flop the next season.  Boomer liked to eat, a failing that manifested itself in reaction to the constant hectoring of Dick Williams.  But he ultimately bounded back to have a fine career.

Let's hope the same happens for Sancho Panza here.  If not, we are in deep trouble.

Going into 2018, we had a catcher who looked like a young Johnny Bench.  His occasional problems with the multitude of sinkers-in-the-dirt that Hallies pitchers specialize in more than mitigated not only by his power bat, but also his superb pitch-framing and cannon-like arm.

If the trouble was more than just the injuries—and mind you, these can be nagging, troublesome, recurring injuries—then we're in a whole heap a trouble.

Austin Romine is a fine back-up catcher, but inadequate both at and behind the plate in any more extended role, as he has demonstrated over the past two seasons.  Romine developed some pop last year, but he's a mediocre hitter at best, and not a terribly good catcher.

He doesn't frame pitches particularly well, he has his own trouble stopping low pitches, and above all he throws out runners at a rate well below the league average.  Our pitchers do markedly worse when he is the backstop.

After that, there's...well, nothing really.  Sure, Higgy is still on the roster last I checked, and so what?

Truth is, there was not a single, promising cacher anywhere in the Hallies' system last season, a deficit that Cashy tried to correct by signing two with his first two draft picks.

But collegian Josh Breaux and one-man carny act Anthony Seigler—Hur-ray, hurt-ray step right up and see the man who hits from both sides of the plate, he throws with both arms, he can play any position in Christendom!—both failed to impress in their debuts.

It could take five years for them to make the show—if they ever do—meaning that this position may well become a suppurating wound for the Hallies for a long time to come.

If it does, rest assured that the demands the Wily Swamp Jeter were making for Realmuto will grow exponentially greater:  Why, he wanted the mortgage on Yankee Stadium, I'm tellin' ya, and Hal's first-born grandchild as a hostage...