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Saturday, November 8, 2014

Reason why the Yankees never develop young players No. 139: Chris Young is about to re-sign

Last September, the Yankees found OF Chris Young in a Mets' dumpster and took him home. They washed him, buffed him, greased his hinges, and he looked spanking brand new. (Why does that sound dirty?) For two weeks, he looked solid, batting .282 with three home runs! They thought, "Good grief, if he can hit like that for an entire season, he'd smack 50!"

Apparently, they're about to make Young the official Yankee Broken Antique of 2015 - a/k/a the Ichiro, the Andruw, the Alfonso, the Hafner, the Roberts and/or the Vernon Wells. Yep, when a guy plays well for two weeks in September, it means a two-year deal next spring! (For reference: See Brendan Ryan.)

In other words... here we go again.

Insert sigh here.

Let's ignore that Young is a) not young - he's 31, b) peaked in 2010, c) hasn't hit more than .236 in the last four years, d) hit .200 in 2013, e) was discarded by the Mets last summer after batting .205 over nearly 300 tortured ABs. Nope. Never happened. He had two good weeks last fall! He'll play like last September... not like 90 percent of the last decade.

This jolly Christmas rumor/news comes one day after the Yankees discarded the lonesome dove of Scranton, Zolio Almonte, a/k/a, the official Melky Mesa/Austin Krum farm system whipping mule. Let me now acknowledge that you are shaking your head: Nobody wants to hear me claim Zolio Almonte was ever going to hit for us, because frankly, he didn't.

But here's a question for your bagel and scotch:

Which would you prefer? (a) A guy on the way up, or (b) a guy on the way down?

If you chose (b), congratulations, you can run the New York Yankees.

In recent months, assorted Gammonites and single-celled vermin of the Yankiverse have screamed about the Yankees' barren farm system. But I now see the system as an exercise in efficiency: Why develop young players if you're never going to give them a shot? Just fill Scranton with dead end careers and plummeting former stars, and you can create a massive morale abyss, from which nobody ever escapes.

To visualize the way Yankee prospects must view Scranton, you'd need Christopher Nolan and a billion dollar budget.

Congratulations to Brian Cashman! Congratulations to Chris Young! Congratulations to us all. And to those who said we should not re-sign Ichiro, sorry. We just did.

2 comments:

celerino sanchez said...

The BoSox are kicking our ass in talent development. Its a wonder we never traded away Betances..........

Alphonso said...

I told you we were not:

A. Going to re-build
B. Give young prospects a chance
C. Change our ways
D. Fire Cashman
E. Blame Cashman
F. Compete
G. Make the playoffs
H. Have a future