As a Yankees’ fan, I realized I might be headed for a frustrating season when I became dismayed at my favorite team’s failures to sign Jeff Keppinger and Nate Schierholtz. That admission is not intended as an insult to Keppinger or Schierholtz; they are both solid players and deserve the millions they earned from the White Sox and Cubs, respectively. But the very possibility that they would have been pegged to start for the Yankees in 2013 is a frightening prospect.

I have grown up loving the Yankees second only to my family (well, my parents will read this column, so I have to write as much). Derek Jeter was the knight in shining, pinstriped armor in my bedtime stories; the crack of a bat sawn into pieces by Mariano Rivera’s cutter was my lullaby; and my veins still throb and pulse with the Bronx Bomber beat.

I was born in 1994, the same year that the playoffs were cancelled due to the players’ strike, and since then, the Yankees have qualified for the postseason in 17 out of 18 seasons, with the only blight their still-impressive 89-win 2008 campaign. In 15 of those years, the team won at least 92 games. In that span, it won World Series numbers 23 through 27. Put those figures together, and I am entirely unfamiliar with Yankee struggles or even Yankee mediocrity. Sure, the team has only had one victory parade in the last decade, with more divisional series losses than World Series appearances in that time, but the expectation of a title is always present, and the Yankees have consistently contended for as long as I have followed them.

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 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. Strong starting pitching by the trio of C.C. Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, and Andy Pettitte coupled with Raul Ibanez’s heroics to stave off the upstart Orioles, and when Ibanez homered again in Game 1 against Detroit to send the contest to extra innings, I believed. I allowed myself to believe that these late-game comebacks foretold a magical run to one last title for the players I had grown up watching.

But there was Rivera throwing out not the final closing strike as he has countless times but the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the ALDS. There was Pettitte pitching valiantly in his injury-riddled comeback season. And then, a mere three innings after Ibanez had once again etched his name into Yankee lore with the shot into the bleachers off Tigers’ closer Jose Valverde, the greatest calamity of all:

Jeter recently vowed that he will play on Opening Day; Rivera also aims to return from his injury. Having to watch both players writhe in pain, one on the warning track during batting practice before an unimportant game in Kansas City, one on his familiar turf between second and third in the infield dirt at Yankee Stadium, was the first time I had to confront their baseball mortality, though.

This task was made especially difficult because I don’t know what the Yankees look like without Jeter stroking opposite-field singles and making jump throws from deep short. I don’t know what they really look like without Rivera jogging in from the bullpen, “Enter Sandman” blaring and fans exhaling because they feel comfortable that the lead is safe. When Jeter and Rivera eventually depart the Bronx with a first-ballot ticket to Cooperstown, not only will they leave the Yankees wanting for players capable of replacing their production, but they will leave an entire generation of fans unsure of what comes next.

With the focus still on next season, emphasizing the demise of the old guard is the lack of new blood in pinstripes. I don’t blame general manager Brian Cashman, for the pickings this winter were meager; of the top free agent batters, none were particularly appealing options. In Curtis Granderson, the Yankees already have their own version of Josh Hamilton as a home run hitter with a propensity for flailing at two-strike pitches in the dirt. Michael Bourn is fast and a great fielder; so is Brett Gardner, who also has the advantage of youth. B.J. Upton hit – or, to be more accurate, didn’t hit – his way to a sub-.300 on-base percentage in 2012 in his latest failure to live up to his impressive potential. The list goes on.

But while the Dodgers continue to spend as if gold had been discovered in Chavez Ravine, the so-called Evil Empire was unwilling even to top the Pirates’ offer to Russell Martin. The Pirates! In direct contrast to the Yankees, they haven’t had a winning season since my birth, and it was only a few years ago that they appeared to be a virtual farm club for competent teams, sending the likes of Xavier Nady, Jason Bay, and Nate McLouth east. Somehow, though, they managed to leave the Yankees devoid of an everyday starter at catcher.

I’m not so naïve in my fandom that I don’t realize that all this complaining sounds rather snobbish. After all, the Yankees still outspend 28 other ballclubs, and lacking an above-average player at only one or two positions is an enviable spot in which to be in December (cue nodding from Astros’ fans). Yet I can’t help it; I have grown accustomed to the luxury of Cashman being able to entice All-Star free agents with an extra zero in contract offers, which led to such unequaled success as documented above.

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.

All the while, the competition in the AL East has improved. The Blue Jays have rightly received many of the headlines for poaching Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle from the floundering Marlins and reeling in their biggest prize, Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey, from the Mets. While I temper my expectations for the return on these deals – Dickey could struggle with a full season in his new tough division, Johnson is injury-prone, and Buehrle no longer has ace potential – there is no denying that Toronto’s new rotation is superior to last year’s run-hemorrhaging outfit.

In addition to the return of a healthy Evan Longoria, the Rays will receive a boost from new bat Wil Myers and can simply reach into their treasure trove of talented young pitchers to replace James Shields. It seems improbable that the Red Sox could be as woeful as they were last year, and at the very least, their potential struggles absent Bobby Valentine and the beer-and-fried-chicken crew are much less enjoyable from a schadenfreude perspective.

Also less enjoyable will be this year’s Yankees, whose chief culprits are the two thirdbasemen. Youkilis may hear his share of Bronx boobirds as bitterness carries over from his years bashing Yankee pitching and skirmishing with Joba Chamberlain as a member of the hated Red Sox. Rodriguez, out for at least half the season due to hip surgery, may need that time off for fans to forgive his pitiful playoff performance, or he could use it to hone his womanizing technique by flirting with more bikini models (yes, I for one am still a tad resentful).

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.