(Arturo Paradavila/Flickr)
Aaron Judge was supposed to be part of a class of talented prospects, but the Yankees have squandered his tenure so far.
I was devastated after the New York Yankees lost the 2017 American League Championship Series (ALCS) to the cheating Houston Astr*s. But I was only a little devastated, not throw-remote-at-the-TV-and-then-go-cry-and-take-all-my-posters-down devastated. For one, I didn’t yet know the Astr*s were cheating.
But also, we weren’t supposed to be this good — we weren’t even supposed to make the playoffs. The plan was to introduce the “Baby Bombers” in 2017, suffer a year or two of growing pains and then watch them become a dynasty. The rings would come later; this ALCS performance was just icing on the cake.
Or so I thought.
It has been seven long years since. None of them have ended with a parade. I’ve graduated high school and almost finished college. At this rate, I’ll have graduated law school and passed the bar before the Yankees feel like winning again. Maybe they’ll need a lawyer.
Maybe as their lawyer, I could spend some time and investigate what, exactly, happened — why the Baby Bombers just never grew up.
Two-time-MVP Aaron Judge aside, the promising young core with sky-high expectations gave me a lot more headaches than they did victories. Luis Severino was really good, then really injured, then really on the Mets. Gary Sánchez and Gleyber Torres played worse defense than the current team does, which is a fairly impressive feat. Justus Sheffield, Estevan Florial, Albert Abreu and Oswald Peraza are remembered for being forgettable. And don’t even get me started on twin problem children Clint Frazier and Miguel Andújar.
In sum, the kids didn’t pan out.
And that makes perfect sense — prospects aren’t guaranteed to be good. One out of 10 18-year-old shortstops will turn into Derek Jeter. The other nine? More like Anthony Volpe.
So why does General Manager Brian Cashman treat them like untouchable bars of solid gold? If the vast majority of prospects fail to live up to their expectations, why is he so hesitant to trade them for experienced players with track records of success?
In 2017, for example, rumors swirled that the team was considering trading for one of a handful of the best pitchers in the league at the time: Madison Bumgarner, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard or Robbie Ray.
Cashman reportedly said the team was “willing to consider” trading Frazier or Andújar. Spoiler alert: That didn’t happen. None of those players ended up in pinstripes, and Frazier and Andújar contributed 0.0 and 1.2 wins above replacement (WAR), respectively. Both were eventually designated for assignment (DFA) by the Yankees. More crudely, they were kicked off the team and the Yankees received nothing in return.
“Nothing” could have been a top-of-the-line pitcher. Instead, we filled the gap with a revolving door of middling relievers and the occasional DFA-ed light-hitting infielder.
Oh, but why should we trade for a top-of-the-line pitcher? We have “Someone Who Might Be Almost as Good as Derek Jeter in Five Years But Also Might Turn Out Bad” at home.
In what twisted world does that make sense?
Certainly, the fans are to blame for some of this. We — for some strange reason — become attached to players the second they are drafted by the Yankees. We follow them as they swap out one minor league uniform for another, and become defensive when trade rumors swirl. And then if they do not meet expectations, we rage and write (albeit excellent, right?) columns about why they should have been traded.
But Brian Cashman is not a fan. He has a responsibility to avoid becoming attached to players just because he drafted them.
Because that icing on the cake in 2017? It quickly aged into seven years of spoiled leftovers — and there was never a cake at all.