Brace yourselves, because that touted Yankee farm system is about to get raided, and we are returning to our old ways

Over this last week, raging against the Fates, I've felt like Reince Priebus - (now, Reince Previous) - in that no matter what I said, it wasn't going to matter. Prince Hal (Trump) was moving in another direction - Sonny Gray (or the Mooch) - and our vaunted Yankee "Baby Bombers" rebuilding plan, launched last spring with great fanfare, was about to be scrapped, like plans of the past. 

Today, from all accounts, the youth movement officially dies. Today, if the stories are accurate, the Yankees will return to old Steinbrennerian ways: Trading prospects for vets and ramping up pressure to win now now NOW. 

Let the record show that the youth program lasted one calendar year, before the front office pulled the plug and returned to the ways that have produced, thus far, the worst decade in Yankee history. During that one year period, the Yankees rose from fourth to first in the AL East. But today, we scrap the plan and return to trading prospects and assuring ourselves - along with the casual, not-all-that-involved fan base - that we gave up nothing, and that basically, the other teams are just stupid. From today on, we will avert our eyes to what those traded players do throughout their careers, while we try to remember or forget the name Sonny Gray, like so many others who arrived to save the day... Ken Phelps, Lance Berkman, Sidney Ponson - that's enough - I cannot go on.

Listen, there are good deals and bad ones, and the difference can hinge on a microscopic elbow in Pulaski. It will likely take years to discern what we've traded away. What we do know is this: When we trade youngsters for a veteran, that guy - and this team - must deliver now, right now!, and that adds pressure to the player and the entire franchise, and there is already plenty of it. If a hole develops over the next few weeks, you better believe Brian Cashman will fill it through a waiver deal. He has no choice. Once you go down that path, like Lady MacBeth in her killing ways, there is no turning back. One bloodletting begets another... and another... We actually started on this course two weeks ago, when we traded for Mr. .207, Todd Frazier.

Yesterday, Caleb Smith went three innings and took the hook. Certainly, Sonny Gray (or Jamie Garcia, of the Twins, a new rumor) could have done better. But presumably, Caleb Smith learned something yesterday. Maybe he'll become a better pitcher, as a result. We'll probably never know. Soon, the Yankees will turn to players whose ceilings are well defined. As for the young players we trade, well, the A's and/or Twins won't give away pitchers for nothing. 

It's been fun this season, watching the turmoil within the Redsock '17 Hall of Fame Superteam of Destiny (TM) - in part because of the "win-or-else" pressure the franchise placed upon itself. Soon, we will be that team. Let the record show that, when the plug was pulled, we were in first.