IT IS HIGH WHITE PAPER: If the Yankee brass never made a deal, would we be better off?

This we know: The Yankees have the money, the dough, the clams, the potatoes, the scarfa, the buefluentes, the big green mingaroos. 

They can afford any free agent. Likewise, they can build the best farm system. So one question: Why compete in the one arena where they have no inherent advantage: Trades.

What if the Yankees stood pat? What if they signed free agents and developed young players... and never made trades.

Here is the current alt-earth Yankee lineup. All are homegrown or signed as a free agent. Following each is a comparison (+ 0 -) to the current Yankee. Zero means it's a wash. 

1B: Mark Teixeira  0

2B: Robbie Cano 0
3B: Alex Rodriguez 0
SS: Derek Jeter 0
RF: Austin Jackson/Jose Tabata  0 (vs Swisher)
LF: Brett Gardner/Juan Rivera/Raul Ibanez  0
CF: Melky Cabrera 0 (vs Grandy)
C: Russell Martin 0
DH: Jesus Montero/Andruw Jones/Nick Johnson 0
UT: Eduardo Nunez, Jayson Nix, Frankie Cervelli 0

Starting Pitchers
CC Sabathia 0
Ian Kennedy + (vs Nova)
Andy Pettitte 0
Hiroki Kuroda 0
Phil Hughes 0

SWING: Hector Noesi/AJ Burnett/Freddy Garcia/Ivan Nova + (vs Freddy) 

Bullpen
Rafael Soriano 0
Tyler Clippard +
Phil Coke 0
Cory Wade 0
Cody Eppler 0
David Robertson 0
David Phelps 0

For my money, we’re slightly better off if the Yankee brass never answered the phone when another team called. (Of course, we did win the World Series in 2009; there is no guarantee that a player's output would have remained the same in NY; and the swing really hinges on the emergence of Melky Cabrera, looming MVP in the National League, which offsets Curtis Granderson.)

Nevertheless, we now are told the Yankee brass covets Matt Garza.

Are we supposed to feel hopeful?

With the 20th anniversary of the Jeter draft, Baltimore can ponder what might have been

We know from TV that alternative realities exist. Thus, somewhere out there in the multi-verse, beyond the world where Andruw Jones spells his name “Androo,” – there is an earth where the Baltimore Orioles 20 years ago slightly altered their draft strategy.

Instead of taking Jeffrey Hammond, they chose a highly touted teenager from Michigan. Let’s go there.

Baltimore has done the impossible. It managed to transition from the great, iconic shortstop of Cal Ripken Jr. to his natural successor: Derek Jeter. The Orioles have been a regular power in the American League East, and every kid growing up in America dreams of playing shortstop in Camden Yards. It is the most glory-filled position in sports, akin to what centerfield was to the Yankees around 1975.

Now, in the twilight of Jeter’s career, the nation is wondering who will be the next great Baltimore shortstop?

Of course, many believe the greatest shortstop remains the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez, freshly celebrating his marriage to Drew Barrymore, star of the movie “Fever Pitch,” which detailed the great 2004 Yankee comeback against mighty Baltimore.

In other alt-earth news, former Met Curt Schilling has been named 2012 “Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce…

Drew Barrymore, star of 2005 anti-Yankee propaganda film “Fever Pitch,” marries a civilian

DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD _ Starlet Drew Barrymore - the “E.T.” cherub who, back in the era before bath salts, was sniffing glue at age 14, and who later grew up to become the Princess Leia of anti-Yankee hate groups - tied the knot yesterday with some guy who does not play for or against the Yankees, and thus is invisible to this blog.

Thus ends the secret kink fantasy campaign of IT IS HIGH to see the actress fall in love with – and then get ingloriously dumped by – Alex Rodriguez, the youngest man in history to hit 600 home runs and bed 600 Hollywood starlets.) (Note: Hip and knee problems may keep A-Rod from breaking Derek Jeter's lifetime record of 762.) 

What can we say? Drew is drawn. Our dream has ended. Neither A-Rod nor Jeet will ever avenge the starlet who appeared in the infamous neo-Redsock propaganda film, “Fever Pitch,” a veritable fund-raiser for Yankee hate groups, the movie that jabbed salt into our still-fresh wounds from the terrible Collapse of 2004.

Now, barring a divorce – something that is exceedingly rare in Hollywood - Barrymore will never receive her just humiliation at the hands of a Hall of Fame Yankee swordsman.

Frankly, we’re still holding a mini-candle for A-Rod to break the heart of Barrymore’s co-star Jimmy Fallon – (not that there’d be anything wrong with it) – but the prospects don’t look promising.

Barrymore, by marrying a non-entity, has escaped our dooming IT IS HIGH sword of fantasy vengeance. You can’t win them all.