Here's a shocker: In the bidding for Kyle Tucker, the Athletic picks the Yankees to finish second

Surprise! The Athletic picks the Yankees to finish 2nd
in the bidding for Kyle Tucker .

In a world where even the Jets and Giants show a clearer sense of the future - at least, in the need for change - the Yankees are preparing to once again almost sign the top free agent in the 2026 market. 

In their ongoing pageant of pointlessness, the nation's crusty Gammonites are predicting the Dodgers or Mets to land OF Kyle Tucker, with the purse-clutching Yankees finishing as First Runner-Up, and Hal Steinbrenner once again donning the crown of Miss Congeniality.

Look outside. See the snow? It's fucking winter. Soon, MLB will crown its newest obscenity of overpayments, by pouring mountains of money over some middling slugger - in this case, Tucker, a lifetime .273 batter who has never hit more than 30 HRs in a season. Last year, he finished with 22 HRs and .266. (Ben Rice last year: 26 HRs and .255.) But he's 29 and viewed as the prettiest girl in a herpes-infested pageant. 

As for Owner Hal? He is Miss Tampa, a bit to heavy on the hips. He's the heir to a baseball family - like the Yawkeys, the Griffiths, the O'Malleys - of the past. Old money.  Ancient money. And a principal tenet of the elders, the cheap owners, was that they always, always, always - almost - get their players.

As hard-bitten Yank fans, we need to start realizing our place in the baseball cosmos. The Yankees have the greatest legacy in American sports - but most of it is 60 to 80 years old, and if it doesn't predate us, it extends back to our childhoods. 

Moreover, the Yankees do not have a relatively rich owner.

With his net worth calculated at $1.8 billion, Owner Hal ranks 18th on the list of MLB owners' wealth. Leading the pack is Stevie Cohen, owner of the Mets, at $21.3 billion. If you're simply looking at money, Hal has less than the owners of the Tigers, Twins, Redsocks, A's, Rangers, Cardinals, Braves, Phillies, Giants, Astros, White Sox, Cubs and of course, the Dodgers. 

That's why the Yankees bank so much of the profits, rather than funneling it back to the team: Hal's trying to keep up with the Cohens!

Most owners represent a new oligarchy: They're hedge fund buttholes, techie bedwetters and mystery financiers, whose sources of money are as elusive as the Epstein diaries.  

Millennials today see the Yankees as an annual wild card contender, the team that once had Jeter. 

So, winter is here. For now, we simply wait to see if Trent Grisham accepts the Yankees $22 million one-year qualifying offer. If so, prepare to be told that the deal will have drained the coffers. The mighty Yankees - 18th on the owners list - will not win a bidding war against Cohen, the Dodgers, the Phillies or even the Cubs. But they sure can come in second.