In New York City, where the high rises and brownstones are built upon the noble virtues of Deceit, Greed, and Condescension, there are but two truths:
- New York City is the greatest city the world has ever seen.
- The New York Yankees are the greatest team in the history of baseball.
To be the greatest city in the world and to maintain firmly ensconced in the highest peaks of baseball excellence are no mean feats – no, they require the hardscrabble attitude of a Paul O’Neill, the versatility of a pre-2014 Derek Jeter, and the gobs and gobs of money of a Steinbrenner.
They require adaptation – go ahead, replace that wonderful bodega that sells illegal cigarettes and booze to teenagers with a sanitized, sterilized Duane Reade. Sure, stop throwing money at your pitching problems and your batting problems and your fielding problems and instead start building the best damn farm system in baseball.
New York City does the former. The New York Yankees, against all the prognostications of sports writers and the invariably-sunny projections of baseball’s Pravda (otherwise known as Yankees.com), have begun doing the latter. In a big way.
In just a few short days, they’ve gone from a shallow, aging team that resembled less an ensemble of the crème de la crème of baseball and more a geriatric ward in some God-forsaken hospital in Venezuela to an organization that should strike fear in the hearts of anyone thinking past 2017.
First to go was pugnacious Aroldis Chapman, that perfectly superfluous addition to a perfectly adequate back-of-the-bullpen combination of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller. He was like in-flight WiFi in Spirit Airlines: good as far as that goes, but you’d really much rather have a functioning airplane. Off to the Chicago Cubs with you! In return, the Yankees received top prospect Gleyber Torres and some other people – like our old buddy Adam Warren.
Speaking of Andrew Miller – get him out of New York. Bye-bye. Send him to the wind-swept plains of Middle America, otherwise known as Cleveland. Yes, we’ll take your top outfield prospect, thank you very much. Clint Frazier, welcome to New York.
Next on the chopping block, aging All-Star Carlos Beltran who, despite his rather remarkable 2016 season is everything that’s wrong with the Yankees: old and overpaid. Let’s pick up another prospect, shall we? Enter Dillon Tate, Rangers right-handed pitching prospect. Adios, Carlos.
Lastly, right at the stroke of the four o’clock hour, the Yankees finally – and if you’re a Yankees fan, you do mean finally – got rid of a pitcher who did a whole lot of promising and, as was his wont, a whole lot of losing: Ivan Nova. He’ll go down in Yankees lore as a completely forgettable pitcher with an unsettling penchant for getting hurt and giving up home runs to a bunch of contact hitters. Off he goes to the Pirates – let’s see if he can do any better than Jon Niese of “we should’ve taken Mets junk instead” fame.
That’s all it took: One week and just like that, the Yankees have what is arguably the best farm system in baseball. Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Jorge Mateo – welcome the teammates that will launch the Yankees back to where they deserve to be: at the top of the Major Leagues, looking down (and I mean way down) at the lowly pretenders to the title of best team in baseball. And who knows, maybe we’ll also get a minor addition in the form of Bryce Harper come 2018.
Not wholly unlike the subway rat dodging its way past uptown 4 trains, the New York Yankees have avoided a deadly steel monster barreling down on their future: the temptation to be buyers when they have about as much chance of a 2016 playoff run as Harambe has of being president of these United States.
This is about survival – and the Yankees knew it, going from a team that doesn’t “do” farm systems to a team that is a farm system. And a deep one, at that. We’re sort of like the Mets, who pay their All-Stars cents on the dollars. Except the difference is, we’ll actually win it all.
The days of spending money to win it all are over – quick, someone tell the Red Sox. Oh, they can’t come to the phone because they’re too busy writing a check to David Price? My bad.
The Yankees are back. Everyone else will be playing catch-up for a decade or three.