Ah, five years ago... the summer of rebirth...
That July, Cashman's Clunkers - old, slow and pissing money - "retired" A-Rod, traded Aroldis Chapman and unveiled a litter of future stars, most notably, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge. We also picked up Clint Frazier and Gleyber Torres, whose fates have intertwined with the current mudslide.
Well, aside from the fact that we might again collapse - and maybe trade El Chapo - this aint 2016.
Check out the Scranton "alternative" site: You won't find many alternatives. In 2016, the upper levels of the Yankee farm system boasted Sanchez, Judge, Tyler Austin, Luis Severino, Ben Gamel, Austin Romine and Rob "Brigadoon" Refsynder, the mysterious specter who vanished and reappeared. Who knows? Maybe Ref will show up some alt-Scranton time warp, still age 25 and ready to wrest 2B from Rougned "No More" Odor!
Aside from Deivi Garcia - the new Brigadoon? - who mysteriously disappeared so Domingo German could flourish, the alt-Scranton cupboard looks as bare as a Kardashian Instagram. Nor can they "retire" the new A-Rod, Giancarlo Stanton, without writing off about $120 million. To effectively trade Stanton, they will need to either pay his vast salary or throw in a top prospect or two -basically burning the franchise to the ground and starting over. That won't happen under Cooperstown Cashman. But a new management team... ?
If you like worst case scenarios - and as Yank fans, who doesn't - we could be facing a 2016-level collapse - without the ensuing wave of youth.
Okay, I know what you're thinking: BUCK UP, YOU CLOWN. IT'S WAY TOO EARLY TO BE SO DOWN. Yeah, we're having a miserable month of April. In May, the big bats could heat up, and Gerrit Cole is every bit the ace we needed. And you're right, sorta. Spoiler alert: This is not the worst team in the AL (shout out to Texas Rangers!) But this season has been built on gambles - Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon, Jordan Montgomery, Domingo German, Sanchez, Gleyber at SS, Aaron Hicks, Frazier, Judge's injury record, yeesh... If a few don't pay off, let's face it: We're toast.
The talent curve from 2016 is collapsing. Our best future hope, Jasson Dominquez, remains two to three years away (assuming he's for real, which we don't yet know.)
For last year's mini-season, Boston kicked in the walls and launched a rebuild. Tampa stuck with youth at every position. Toronto unveiled a wave of rising stars, and Baltimore - well - as Randy sang, aint it hard just to live...
The Yankees seem to have just grown a year older.
Well, it is too early to self-immolate. One of these days, we'll win five in a row. But if these gambles don't pay off... if we're actually as bad as we look... dear God, it's going to be a long time down.
Spot on, El Duque!
ReplyDeleteI just have one quibble with your article: "This is not the worst team in the AL (shout out to Texas Rangers!)" Well, I don't what the Rangers' record is, nor do I much care, but they did beat the Tampons 3 out of 4 this past week. And the one game the Rangers lost was a 1-0 score. So it looks like the Rangers are doing a lot of things right. Do you think we'll win three straight against the Tampons this year? Ha Ha, no way. We'll be lucky to win 4 or 5 games total against the Tampons this year. And it's beginning to look like we might win only 2 against them for the entire season. If we continue to go through this season with 1 or 2 hits in 7 or 8 innings of every game, we are going to be one of the worst teams of all time, let alone the worst in the league. Our only legit starter is Cole, our defense sucks, the injuries will start happening very soon. And if they don't, heck, we might be in even bigger trouble, because guys like Stanton suck so bad, we're better if they are injured and on the DL.
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