Keidel: Yankees Need A Million Things To Go Right To Have A Season Worthy Of Their History
By Jason Keidel
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Jacoby Ellsbury is hurt.
How hurt?
Who cares?
What was described as a quad injury has now been distilled to a strain of his "rectus adbominus" -- a term fans can twist into some silly metaphor for the contemporary Yanks.
What matters is the narrative. Is Ellsbury an aberration or preamble?
Get used to this. The Yankees have spoiled us beyond our ability to convey. Millenials think an autumn in the Bronx is a birthright. It's become the haunted hay ride that other AL East teams used to take every October. Now the Yankees are the punchline every postseason.
The Jeter Babies can't process a rebuild or reboot. Even if the Mets have been in one since Yadier Molina whacked that ball over the Shea Stadium wall in the 2006 NLCS.
The argument has always been twofold. The Yankees have too much money to afford a rebuild, as paradoxical as that sounds. And they are in NYC, which doesn't have the time or temperament for projects. Especially with the price of admission. You can't charge for a Porsche and deliver a Prius.
But you can't hybrid rebuild. The binary approach of building the minors and sprinkling the roster with regal free agents sounds flawless, but it hasn't worked for the Yankees because they don't have the fertile farm system we've been hearing about since the Core Four began to fade.
The irony, of course, is that for all their opulence, the Yankees are about to take a back seat to the Mets, who have a way more robust rotation, led by Matt Harvey and a conga line of younger pitchers. Bartolo Colon is the only authentic graybeard, and he's the last in line, assuming he's even assured a spot on the starting staff.
What do the Yanks have to look forward to?
With sagging sales and evaporating ratings, the Bronx Bombers are hardly living up to their iconic sobriquet. The most excitement you have this year is the pseudo-salient "rivalry" against the Mets: three games in April and then three games at Citi Field in September.
Yankee chat has been reduced to parsing A-Rod's prospects of playing the field, whether he can slither onto the grass and snag some balls at third or first base.
Lord knows, there isn't much else to move the emotional needle these days. The prologue to the 2015 season isn't very sunny; neither are their prospects.
The Orioles were powerful last year. The Blue Jays are competent. And the Red Sox won the World Series a lot more recently than the Yanks, and have improved their team way more profoundly than the Yankees have.
The Yankees lose an icon at shortstop. The Sox pick up an All-Star at shortstop.
The Yankees lose an icon at third base -- for entirely different reasons. The Sox pick up an All-Star (and a World Series MVP) at third.
The Yankees let their All-Star second baseman flee in free agency. The Sox still have theirs.
The Yankees let their high-end closer go to Chicago. The Red Sox re-sign theirs.
No, it's not all about Boston. Except it is. Even the millennials and Twitter trolls know that the Red Sox are our fun house reflection. When the Orioles win, it stings. But when the Red Sox are atop the AL totem pole, it hammers our old-world sensibilities.
Where is there great reason for hope in the Bronx? CC Sabathia, who was signed to a Bill Gates deal in 2009, renegotiated the deal in 2011, giving him a package that pays $122 million over the following five years. And he can't even throw a fastball. Not one that hitters fear, anyway.
Michael Pineda is a fine talent who has his mail forwarded to the DL.
Ivan Nova is fresh off major surgery.
Masahiro Tanaka is one pitch from major surgery. The Japanese star eschewed Tommy John, which is a perilous proposition. Brian Cashman is probably praying daily that the tendons in his pitching elbow don't snap this season.
Chris Capuano is, well...zzzz...
Adam Warren is a reliever who could be a starter. How exciting.
It's almost insulting to mention Luis Severino, who is the prospect du jour, producing a 2.47 ERA with 127 strikeouts and 27 walks in 113 innings. In the minor leagues. The Yankees have produced a conga line of alleged luminaries that have flamed out in the majors. As a friend and former writer for Associated Press once told me, prospects are exactly that, until they prove otherwise. Especially if you're a Yankee pitching prospect.
Speaking of which, no doubt Yankees devotees are drooling over the prospect of Nathan Eovaldi, who wasn't good enough for the Miami Marlins but is suddenly supposed to be a borderline ace in New York.
For all the chat about his meteoric fastball -- and growing up in the same town as Nolan Ryan -- he posted a pedestrian 6-14 record and 4.37 ERA in the league where the pitcher bats. And since when are the Yankees the Father Flanagan's of pitchers? More often than not, hurlers head to the Bronx to bomb, not to flourish.
The Yankees are banking on so many variables that it's much easier to see them lose 85 games than win 95. The answer is probably in the middle, which is now becoming a yearly refrain. Hope the Yankees just hang in there long enough to keep our interest.
And hope their pitching isn't just a big pain in the rectus abdominus.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
