"This man is not your friend..."

 

There is a moment in the immortal, 1957 film, The Sweet Smell of Success—a moment in the scene depicted right here—when Burt Lancaster, as the vicious gossip columnist, J.J. Hunsecker, tells a U.S. senator (far right) about the acting agent (middle):

"This man is not your friend."

The senator ends up telling him, "Thank you, J.J., for what I consider good advice."

I offer this same advice to the legions of my Yankee fan brethren now on the internet, insisting that it will be just as well if Aaron Judge walks, that he sucked in the postseason, that he will only get worse as the years go by, that the team will never win a World Series with him, yadayadayada.

Now, it could be that this really Cooperstown Cashman going all Putin on us in manufacturing internet trolls. But I doubt it.

Instead, these seem to be real fans living in virtual reality where so many American reside nowadays. That is, a world where they believe they will always have a choice of their own devising.

Again and again, they tell us that it's ridiculous to give any player the money Judge will surely receive—that prices are already too high at Yankee Stadium.

They tell us that with Judge gone, his salary and the money he would have been paid can now be devoted to building the sort of winning team they would prefer, acquiring assorted pitchers and position players who will finally get the Yankees over the top before this window of opportunity to win, closes.

Folks, all I can do is quote J.J.. This man—this Hal Steinbrenner—is not your friend.

I know this may be shock to many people, but if Aaron Judge walks off this team tomorrow, Hal is not going to announce a "Judge Walks Discount On All Yankees Tickets!" Your cable bill is not going down. The usual rat dogs and Rancid Beer ("Mmmm Rancid! The beer for when you just don't care!") prices are not dropping by so much as a nickel.

As usual in capitalism, what the Yankees charge is determined by what the market will bear. That will not change.

Nor, for that matter, are Hal and Brian Cashman going to kick up their heels in glee, high-five, and screech in each other's faces, "Now we can finally build the great team we always wanted!"

For the last 15 years, free agents who could indeed have got the Yankees over the top have come and gone by the boatload. Some—such as Bryce Harper and Carlos Beltran—even came to New York talking about how they always wanted to be a Yankee, and hinting that they would give the home team a discount.

Hal and Cashman never budged. 

Now, there are no great free agents on the market, save for a couple of first-rate shortstops, who our front office will never sign because we have three GGGREAT shortstops all ready to bust into the majors—

—I wonder at times about how great those shortstops really are, having lived through Brian Cashman's Cavalcade of Can't-Miss Catchers, Gary Sanchez, J.R. Murphy, Austin Romine, and, uh, oh! Jesus—

—but never mind. There are no outfielders worth mentioning out there, certainly no one capable of approaching Aaron Judge's caliber. 

There is nobody to trade, from a farm system that was mediocre to start with and has now been stripped down to acquire the likes of Frankie Montas and Scott Effross. There is absolutely no evidence from his 25-year tenure as GM of the one major-league team consistently willing to spend big bucks that Brian Cashman can build a champion on his own.

That window of opportunity has already closed, people. Or rather, it's being held open just a sliver by our one, remaining superstar, Aaron Judge. You slide him out, and that window is going to slam shut for at least the next decade.

To close on the same line Lancaster uses in this scene, "Are we kids or what?" 

Letting Aaron Judge walk is not going to make a single thing better on the New York Yankees. Save for Hal Steinbrenner's portfolio, which doesn't need any help.