Questions for the viral "All-Star break"

Around the midway mark of every season, baseball traditionally takes a few days off for the all-star game, the home run derby, and serious, morning-to-night drinking. 

This year, thanks to the doorknob-licking Mets - (in a pandemic, are strip clubs really worth it?) - the Death Star has a weekend to ponder several existential questions about life and society. Where the hell is Martin Buber when we need him? So, anyway, just wondering...

1. Why, why, WHY... WHY THE FUCK are we once again being carpet-bombed by injuries? Last winter, we changed trainers. We might as well have changed deodorants. For the last two years, we've seen rolling waves of players - like California blackouts - overwhelm the injured list. We thought it was a statistical aberration, the roll of cosmic dice, a practical joke played upon us by the juju gods. We thought it would end, you know, just go away one day, like a miracle, right? 

Well, Aurec Goldfinger wouldn't think so. As he told Bond: Once is happenstance, twice coincidence and three times, enemy action. This, my friends, is enemy action. So, you ask... who is the enemy? 

We are.  

I suggest this Picketts' Charge of injuries stems from the types of players the Yankees love to collect: Vets who were once all-stars, who have big contracts, and who are pushing their bodies to achieve skill levels that no longer exist. 

Some players extend their careers by redefining themselves, either by adding new pitches or adjusting their swings. And some players just try to throw harder or swing harder. And they hurt themselves. 

Jason Giambi once the New York experience to rock star status. He had one great year as a Yankee and then began to wilt. At the end, he was a dead pull swinger barely capable of hitting his weight - nothing like the power-to-all-fields slugger he'd been eight years earlier. Nobody ever accused him of not trying. His body simply couldn't do what it once had done.  

The Yankees keep collecting stars like Giambi. Their attempts to win every year are commendable. I hate franchises who purposely tank, who try to finish last, and who then congratulate themselves for rebuilding. But at some point, the Yankees must stop absorbing players in the twilight of their careers. You know their names: Stanton, Paxton, Chapman, Britton, etc., maybe Gardy, though he's a special case. 

At some point, the Yankees must do what every other team does: Trade aging players for youth.

Frankly, I was dismayed last winter when they re-signed Aroldis Chapman. I don't oppose Hal Steinbrenner spending money. But wouldn't we be better off finding and developing a young closer? Isn't it a sure thing that, in two years, Chapman will be regularly failing?

Next winter, a perfect place to start changing our ways: Gary Sanchez. 

2. Where, where, WHERE THE FUCK would we be without last year's scrap heap pickups: Luke Voit, Gio Urshela and Mike Tauchman? 

Right now, the 2020 Yankees are their team. Our vaunted depth has dwindled down to Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada - two guys who deserve a month to show their stuff. But will they get a shot? Or will the Yankees - see above - trade for a veteran? 

Finding useful position players has been Cooperstown Cashman's greatest success. Unfortunately, this year, Yankee scouts cannot comb the minor leagues for spare parts. We need to find replacements on the taxi squad in Scranton. Do we have them?

3. Will these games even matter? The cancelled Mets series reminds us how fragile this season remains. As schools reopen across America, will the virus explode into a second wave? And if so, are the playoffs fundamentally doomed?

Obviously, we don't know the answers. But this we do know: The Yankees almost surely will qualify for the post season. They have too good a team to fall completely out of the race, which will probably allow a few sub-.500 teams to reach the post-season. 

Thus, come October, the Yankees will face a best-of-three playoff round. Repeat after me: "Ugh." And without fans in the seats, aside from the chance to sleep in their own beds, their home field advantage will be almost nothing.  

Anything can happen in a best-of-three. We can go in with baseball's best record and go out with 18 innings of hapless, free-swinging strikeouts and two bombed relievers. What happened in August won't matter. Best of three. Ugh.  

If players like LeMahieu and Gleyber can return with enough time to hone their bats, these games - and maybe these injuries - don't matter. 

Soon, we'll hit the point where a hamstring ends a player's season. We're not there yet, but it's coming. And if these injuries don't start disappearing, we're dead. We just don't know it yet. So... what was on the list for this weekend? Heavy, morning-to-night drinking? Sign me up.