And The Dynasty Finally Ended

Goodbye A-Rod, 

It's been a while since I wrote an entry about the New York Yankees, but hey, when some big time players announce their up upcoming retirements, it's time to have a look. The last time I wrote anything about the Yankees was when Derek Jeter retired at the end of 2014. While 2015 had its own little pleasant surprises, the nub of the problem was that the remaining players beyond what was once the 'Core Four' were getting older, and the other players were merely role players. The Dynasty has been receding from its historic peak for years.

I'll always be an A-Rod fan. At the end of the day I always appreciated his hitting. The whole PED issue has stepped back in importance for me when I look at his career. Sure, he took PEDs and possibly hit more than his fair share. Maybe he did it his entire career? May be he did it as a teen and that's how he became the A-Rod we know in the first place? One can think of the worst of him and come up with ever more theories about the relative merits of his career. I opt to put those things to the side for the simple reason that those homers and hits are real enough.

It is wilfully putting my head in the sand, I guess, for the world of sport screams out loud against "drug cheats".  The thing is, it's nothing like match-fixing. The athlete taking drugs to win, is going exactly in the direction everybody wants to them to go: to excel in performance like no other mortal human being. So, I've decided no, I'm not going to hold the steroids against the steroids era players. It's silly. MLB tacitly allowed this to happen under their watch and then belatedly hunted out players and made examples of them. It's not right, it's not a two-way street, it was a witch hunt concocted by Bud Selig so that he wouldn't have to look bad for having presided over the steroids era.

The truth is, it shouldn't be about the PEDs, the steroids, the allegations, the suspensions. It should be about the guy who was possibly the most talented player of all time. Win or lose, hit or miss, A-Rod provided a mountain load of entertainment for 23years. Twenty-three years! He was the heel, he was feared, he was outrageous, he was hilarious, he was the guy that always compared worse to Derek Jeter in the eyes of the New York Media, but had better numbers. He was all those things, rolled into one, and a once-in-a lifetime player like you will never see again. When I put it under the rationality light, I for one don't really fault the amazing trade that Brian Cashman swung to land A-Rod in 2003. The Yankees got well over a decade of something special from the guy.

We'd be chumps to pretend that didn't happen, or that it didn't mean anything. It meant the world.

Goodbye Tex

As for Mark Teixeira, he too reached the end of the road this year. The injuries caught up to him. He was making noises during Spring training that he'd like to go another 5 years after this season but obviously he said those things before the injuries got out of hand.

Out of eight seasons, Tex had 3 excellent seasons, 2 good seasons, 2 injury-curtailed seasons, and this one where he simply failed to provide any value at all for three months. All the same, it's a pretty good outcome for an 8year contract. As with A-Rod, there's no point complaining about the end being what it is. The Yankees signed him to a long contract just to land him in 2009, and they won the World Series on the back of that signing.

Tex isn't going to make the Hall of Fame, but he is in the imaginary Hall of the Very Good. The amazing thing about Teixeira for me is that I can remember the year he was drafted by the Rangers. The Cubs drafted Mark Prior, and they both made their debut in 2003. It doesn't seem all that long ago. Especially because A-Rod was already in his prime and in his last year as a Texas Ranger that year Teixeira came up into the big leagues. Arguably, the Rangers had the infield of the future in Teixeira, A-Rod, Hank Blalock, Michael Young, and Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate. It's a weird kind of twist of fate that brought half that infield to the Yankees by 2009, only 6 years later.

Amazingly, Tex's tenure at 1B for the Yankees follows in the footsteps of long tenures before him. There have only been five 1B since Mattingly won his spot as a regular in 1984. He went 12 seasons to '95; Tino Martinez went 6 seasons from '96 to '01; Jason Giambi wen from '02 to '08, and that brings us to Teixeira. For the first time since 1983, the Yankees will go into a season without knowing  who will be playing 1B.

The New Kids On The On-Deck Circle

It wasn't just A-Rod and Tex announcing retirements. Brain Cashman also traded away Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Carlos Beltran to load up the farm system. The real story in a sense has been how decisively the Yankees have gone about re-casting their future and the talent they acquired to shape that future.

The Yankees have, for once, collected a lot of talent in their farm system. They have depth at just about every position. In fact they have the most depth at SS which is the hardest to fill. They go 6 deep at SS, starting with Gregorius at the Big League level, Tyler Wade in AA, Gleyber Torres and Jorge Mateo at High A, Hoy Jun Park and Kyle Holder in Low-A. That's a lot of depth. Even first base will have a competition next year with Greg Bird coming back from injury and Tyler Austin graduating the farm this year. They also have a packed outfield with recent additions Clint Frazier and Bill McKinney as well as Aaron Judge.

Not all of these guys will make it, but the Yankees potentially have one of the younger rosters in the AL  next season. It really is a re-boot of the team, right from the ground up. I don't think I've seen anything like this in the Yankees since 1995. Chances are, the young core to emerge out of all these young players won't win a World Series until 2020, but depending on the way things break, this group might peak earlier than expected, just as the aged veterans were forced out sooner than they had hoped.

I can recall back in 2009 when the Yankees wont World Series that the window had closed on that team. The 2009 win was the last win possible with the Core Four. A quick survey of the farm system at the time revealed that the Yankees would project to being a pitching and defence sort of team by 2016-2017. Judging from the makeup of the current team, it's something that has come to fruition, if a little less effectively than hoped. Yet the new kids projecting forward seem to provide an ample horizon where the Yankees will once again be The Bronx Bombers.
That's one sure thing about Baseball - hope always does spring eternal.