Gerrit Cole for Cy Young? It's not even close. But the Devil owns us.

Okay, so it's back in mid-March, you're sitting at the Dali Museum in Saint Pete, and Mephistopheles himself drives up from Sarasota with an offer:  

We'll get two 3-HR days from Judge, a perfecto from German, nearly 160 games from Volpe, and a Cy Young for Cole. Wanna piece of that action? 

You say, "Count me in, Scratchy," and you're thinking, how bad can it be? At the worst, the Yankees will skate in on a wild card, and from there, who knows? 

For fun, the Devil throws in that Cole's closest runner-up will be Sonny Gray - our Sonny Gray, all 50 shades, who has been nothing but an ace since Cooperstown Cashman dealt him for the immortal Shed Long Jr. (A trade that grows in misery stature each year.)

Only then do you begin to realize the enormity of the '23 Yankees' collapse. How we sought to solve our lefty hitting issues with Franchy Cordero and Willie Calhoun. How Oswaldo Cabrera became, statistically, baseball's worst hitter. How Aaron Hicks, Setback Sevy and Josh Donaldson set new levels on the Danny Tartabull Scale of Yankee Horror. And how their best hope - Jasson Dominguez - blew out his elbow for - well - for NOTHING, DAMMOT! IT WAS A WIPEOUT, A COMPLETE TILT, AN ORGANIZATION SO POORLY RUN THAT IT BELONGS IN RECEIVERSHIP, TO BE MANAGED BY TAX CHEAT ACCOUNTANTS AND POOL BOYS, A FRANCHISE SO CHOKED ON ITS OWN HUBRIS THAT IT MUST HIRE AN OUTSIDE AUDITOR JUST TO BE TOLD HOW UTTERLY CLUELESS IT IS!  

There. Sorry about that. I feel much better now. It's just that, I get up in the morning and diddle around on the interweb, and there it is - staring at me like Mike Pence with a fly on his forehead - the totality of our failure. I want to throw things. I want to scream. So, what do I do? Sadly, I lash out at you - you, who have done nothing wrong, who are blameless and also in pain. For that, I'm so sorry. Maybe, in a Twilight Zone episode sorta way, I deserve these Yankees...

So... getting my bearings now, the Babadook is gone... wouldn't it be sweet to hang one more ass-kicking on hateful Toronto, just to rattle their cage with an empty bottle of Labatts? That could put them into a tie with Houston and force them to sweat the final weekend. Unfortunately, the last wild card spot is a toss-up between the Jays, Astros and Seattle - and don't ask me to like any of them. (Or Tampa, which has clinched a berth.) They all loathe us, as a fundamental piece of their identity. Might as well root for Baltimore, which at least hates us rightfully, considering how we tortured them for the last decade. Now, they're going to return the favor.

Here you go, Toronto: Suck on it. This broom's for you.