BRONX, NY – Bryce Harper, Matt Harvey, and Jake Arrieta will all be free agents after the 2018 MLB Season. Manny Machado, the brilliant young Baltimore 3rd baseman will be free to sign anywhere the year after that. I can only guess that this is part of Yankees GM Brian Cashman’s grand plan to remake the Bombers into World Series contenders. ‘Cause they ain’t that now.
The New York Yankees are built perfectly to be exactly what they are. Mediocre. Boringly mediocre. In exchange for squeezing one last championship out of the remnants of their “Core 4” in 2009, their souls were sold and this team has been remade into… the Minnesota Twins.
How old are these guys? My sources tell me A-Rod endorsed Barry Goldwater in ’64. Texeira has been berating his 3rd base coaches since Eddie Yost and Joe Pignatano tended to the tomatoes at Gil‘s behest. Carlos Beltran? Wow. Just Wow. I remember watching Beltran when that condominium on his face was still just a mole. CC Sabathia? That alcoholic thing was sheer genius. How else do you get to avoid criticism for being one of the 3 worst starting pitchers in Baseball over the past 2 years? Have we thought about how many kids could eat at night if CC forked [ahem] over 10% of his “earnings” to charity?
Guys like Jacoby Ellsbury usually appear at their places of work with masks on and guns blazing. How else would a player like Ellsbury show up and accept the kind of dough he gets without feeling guilt, shame and all manner of derision?
We tend to aim our criticism at the highest paid players, but there are a couple of “non-performers” who’ve fallen on their faces too. Nathan Eovaldi and Michael Pineda – both of whom John Sterling keeps insisting are “championship caliber,” are just terrible. One good game thrown in with 4 bad starts does not constitute “championship caliber,” no matter how much Suzyn Waldman waxes on about Eovalidi’s “elite stuff.”
So what does this all mean? At whose feet does this mess lay? Blaming Brian Cashman is too easy. Sure he’s made some iffy trades. Yes, he’s relied on some guys who were never going to produce. But why is it that the Sons of Steinbrenner have gone largely unscathed during this collapse of all things Yankee? Why does Hal Steinbrenner get a pass? Who’s limiting Cashman’s ability to spend? Is it Randy Levine? Sure, Levine is a douche, and along with Lon Trost probably the worst pair of baseball executives – and people – you can find.
Somewhere during the “transition” from Hank to Hal, things changed dramatically. Any last vestige of the best quality of the late George Steinbrenner’s reign disappeared at that time. The one constant with George was his undeniable desire to win, to present the Yankees as the Gold Standard for Championship organizations. That’s gone for good now.
Hal, the more open minded, rational son, has also been the more suggestible, easily influenced son. Whatever passion and commitment to winning Hal ever had, has been destroyed by a couple of unethical bag men like Trost and Levine, who inexplicably were granted way too much power over the team formally known as the Yankees.
That’s it for now, follow us on Twitter at @AldersonFake and @MeetTheMatts and leave your opinions below. And look for Sexy Beast Junoir Blaber’s piece as well.
