The first two e-mail messages I received from readers about recent acquisitions of the New York Yankees:
“Vernon Wells? Lyle Overbay ? This is embarrassing.” “How can you not be excited for a Youkilis-Hafner-Wells-Juan Rivera middle of the order?”And the Yankees are only now preparing to begin the season. It threatens to be a long season, a very long season.
The Yankees will open the season with four vital players on the disabled list – Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson. Their salaries total about 40 percent of the Yankees’ approximately $210 opening-day payroll.
Every team can expect to incur injuries, even to core players, but the Yankees are going beyond the line of expectation and acceptance. They are further undermined by their own wacky decision – a first in the 40-year reign of the Steinbrenner family – to keep payroll down so that next year they will be able to get under the $189 million luxury tax threshold.
Their willingness to let free agents leave so they wouldn’t have to pay them – Russell Martin, Nick Swisher, Raul Ibanez, Rafael Soriano – and their unwillingness to sign worthy and perhaps costly free agents has left them short not only of starting caliber players but also of players who could fill the bench and even step in for injured starters.
All of the developments, not wholly unexpected, prompt me to recall a column that ran in this space last December, before the gloomy outlook became gloomier, before the Granderson and Teixeira injuries, before Jeter’s optimistic vow that he would be in the opening-day lineup.
The column was written by Zachary Kram, my sometimes substitute and an avowed Yankees’ fan. It preceded by months the doom-and-gloom analyses that have filled the Internet with each negative Yankees’ development.
Saying that he was born in 1994, the year the World Series was cancelled because of the players’ strike, Zach noted that the Yankees had appeared in the post-season in 17 of his 18 years. “Which is why I’m so concerned about next season: if my fear that the 2013 version of the Yankees is the worst since the strike season is accurate, I won’t know how to react.”
“The worries,” he continued, “started last October when the Yankees were pushed to five games by an inexperienced, overachieving Baltimore team and utterly eviscerated by the Tigers. Before the Alex Rodriguez drama and seemingly-endless procession of strikeouts at the hands of Tiger starters, it felt like a last gasp from a dying team.”
And that was before the Yankees let it be known that they were about to initiate their austerity policy. Then Zach provided the pleasure of his literary versatility, writing:
O captain! My captain! Our shortstop’s year is done. He fell when ranging to his left, and now the Tigers won. His ankle torn, his face forlorn, fans try to keep from weeping. The Yanks’ mystique now looks so bleak as Father Time comes creeping. But O Pettitte , Mo, and Jeter, O the heroes of my youth, Will soon be lost to history Like Mantle, Lou, and Ruth.“With the focus still on next season,” the column continued, “emphasizing the demise of the old guard is the lack of new blood in pinstripes. …
“Even taking into consideration the Steinbrenners’ desire to dip under the $189 million luxury tax threshold in 2014, this offseason has been rather quiet and uneventful for the Yankees. Before the 2009 season, Cashman responded to missing out on the playoffs for the first time in over a decade by signing Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, and A.J. Burnett and trading for Nick Swisher. After winning the World Series that year, New York reloaded by acquiring Granderson and Javier Vazquez via trade. The next year saw Martin and Rafael Soriano added to the roster.
“Since Giants’ catcher Buster Posey caught the final strike to end the last World Series, though, the Yankees have focused predominantly on resigning their own free agents – Kuroda, Pettitte, Rivera, and Ichiro Suzuki all signing new deals – and have added only one player of consequence, Kevin Youkilis.
“Next season, instead of a possible run at 100 wins, pinstriped playoff heroics, and championship champagne, I fear I’ll be stuck rooting for an aging roster – Youkilis, at 33, is the youngest player signed this offseason, and half of the Yankees’ 2012 lineup is closer in age to Jamie Moyer than Bryce Harper – mired in mediocrity.
“Combine all these problems – unavoidable symptoms of mortality on the part of Jeter and Rivera, offseason inaction, a roster in desperate need of Ponce de Leon’s fabled fountain of youth, and just a plain lack of excitement surrounding this team – and my fear of 2013 being the worst Yankee season of my lifetime doesn’t seem so farfetched. Perhaps – hopefully – I’m wrong, and a pennant chase will be in New York’s grasp come October.
“But if not, and if Rivera is unfamiliarly human in his return from injury, and Jeter unable to stave off his decline for another year, and the rotation thin and aging, and Youkilis hated in his new stomping grounds, then I might just have to suffer for a season or two until the Steinbrenners decide that it’s acceptable to spend money again. At least Mets’ fans can keep me company in my misery.”
Since this column appeared, though not because it appeared, the Yankees have added some pieces, Wells being the most prominent and promising. Wells was once one of baseball’s best players; that’s why Toronto gave him a 7-year, $126 million contract extension in 2006. However, Wells came crashing to earth after the Blue Jays traded him to the Angels two years ago. In two seasons with the Angels, he batted .222, hit 36 home runs and drove in 95 runs.
The Angels, who signed Josh Hamilton as a free agent, were so eager to shed Wells that they agreed to pay $28.1 million of the $42 million left on the last two years of his contract. That plan works for the Yankees because of their 2014 threshold concerns. They would also like to benefit from a resurgent Wells bat. That’s what Zach and the rest of the Yankees’ fans care about.