A storm is coming, and it's going to wash away this Yankee team

Potential Tropical Cyclone Number 16 is coming. It could hit this weekend. Heavy rain, brisk winds, sloppy armpits, flooded basements - an arterial firehose of cold, soggy reality. It won't change the Gotham skyline, but it could pressure wash Sunday afternoon's Yankee Stadium finale - right now, a game without a reason. 

I say, let it rain.

Bring it on, Mother Nature. Show what you can do. Let Potential Tropical Cyclone Number 16 - perhaps to be named Ophelia - show those slimy, grimy juju gods just how insignificant they are. Yeah, they can fix ballgames, a profitable skill in this age of legalized criminal gambling, but you're still the Big Dog. So bark, dammit. Bubble the sewers, flood the bullpens, turn the sky black and rattle the rafters with bolts of thunder so furious that they chase the rats across the Yankiverse. 

The 2023 season cannot end soon enough. 

In many ways, it ended in August, when this hapless team fell in the shower and wasn't wearing its First Alert. A rainout weekend would be a mercy killing. There is no reason to watch this sorry lineup, aside from the mocking reminder that - somehow - the crosstown Mets were even worse. 

I believe the problem is New York - a city drunk on its own hubris - and the obscene division of wealth that makes baseball owners impervious to discomfort. The Yankees have an owner who - when all is said and done - wants to win, sorta, but not so much that it might interfere with supper. As long as the money keeps flowing, that's the only flood that matters. The old, white country clubbers atop the Yankee pyramid can never lose. The game is fixed.

The remaining question is whether the meltdown of 2023 will last for another two or three more years. There seems no pathway out of this abyss. Consider...

1. The Yankees just squandered the greatest year of Gerrit Cole's career. He is truly an ace, and he should have won 22-24 games. (Last night was his 14th.) His achievements this season only make us gasp when trying to ponder how exquisitely bad this team was. Without Cole, we would have been a Top Five Tankathon team. 

2. The Yankees have no pathway or plan to deal with Giancarlo Stanton, aside from having him return next year for more abuse. In the end - maybe around 2027 - Hal Steinbrenner will pay him about $98 million in movie money, the Stanton Era will end, and we will all be better off. Hal will use Stanton as the reason not to spend on free agents, and the Yankees will continually draft 16th or 17th, maintaining their lock on mediocrity. 

3. Time will tell whether the Yankees undercut Anthony Volpe's development by elevating him to the majors too soon. Volpe is a stalwart, a goodhearted soul, and a work in progress. But the record for 2023 will show an average around .208, and I don't think the Yankees did him any favors by letting him get used to being so ineffective.

4. The Yankees must ask themselves why Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson - two horrible ghosts from the past - went to other teams and improved so dramatically. Hicks hit .188 for us. In Baltimore, over nearly 200 ABs, he's batting .293. WTF? Donaldson hit .142 for us. In a few ABs in Milwaukee, he's .219. Small sample, but still... WTF?

5. The Yankees have one superpower - an awesome P.R. department that could make Emily in Paris look good. They sold a month of tickets by bringing Jasson Dominguez to the majors, and he tore out his elbow, trying to impress everyone. We will learn next year how badly the injury affects his future. But the bullshit machine will keep revving. It will tell us everything is fine, and a sizeable chunk of the NYC fan base will believe it.  

As with every fallen empire, the culprit is hubris. So, let it rain. Let Potential Tropic Cyclone Number 16 be the one that matters. Wash us clean, Ophelia.