Yankees likely to continue rejuvenation
Yesterday MLB.com published an article written by Richard Justice, about the New York Yankees and their willingness to go on with developing farmhands rather than to spend on big name and big money free agents.
I realize that this is news that many Yankee fans do not like. But to me it is the best thing to read.
Sure the Yankees fell short in the one game play off game vs the Houston Astros as they were kept in check by Dallas Keuchel. And of course the Yankees made the play offs by the skin of their teeth.
But when you look at the farm hands that were called up, some actually did pretty good in the Bigs.
Hal Steinbrenner stated in the article: “I feel better than I did two or three years ago,” Steinbrenner said Wednesday during a break in a regularly scheduled quarterly owners meeting. “It was frustrating. It’s frustrating to have all the injuries we had two years in a row and not have anybody that’s capable of coming up and filling the void.
“We’ve been saying these names to our fans for two or three years now. We’ve been showing video highlights of [Double-A] Trenton and [Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre], what they accomplished and what they do. Hopefully, people are getting excited about them.”
Unlike his father, George Steinbrenner III, Hal has never seen going after big money free agents as the way to do business. I can only agree with him. When you look at the 1996 Yankees, that team was mainly build around homegrown talent. Only the holes in the lineup were filled with free agents or trades, and that worked perfectly. So why this concept could not work in the coming years?
When you look at the trades that the Yankee brass made in the previous off season, you can see that they know what they are doing. Didi Gregorius panned out quite well (I know, I know, I have a soft spot for the kid). So did Nathan Eovaldi. When it comes to the latter, there is room for improvement when you look to the batting average of his opponents (.285), his ERA (4.20) and his WHIP (1.45), but he has shown flashes of brilliance as well.
According to Hal Steinbrenner, recent history has shown that having a big pay roll doesn’t guarantee a World Series title. Look at the 2015 Dodgers, who had the biggest pay roll of MLB. Did they go all the way? Nope. Neither did the Yankees and neither did the Red Sox.
The Royals are now a model organization. It is to be expected that their way of doing business will be copied by several teams. It seems that the Yankees have been converted too.
All I can say is that I really hope that the Yankee’s front office will stay patient and will take the time to build a team with mainly farm hands.