The End of Yankee Dominance

How the Yankees have abused their power and driven the franchise into an unpromising future.

(I created this post on Monday and it has been sitting on my site since then, but this is my first day with an RSS feed to sportsblogs.org, so I thought I would repost it for all you to see).

Since 2001, it's seemed as though the Yankees were going to be able to practically buy the championship every year. With the signings of such players as Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Gary Sheffield, and trades for Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson, they were perennially aquiring the best player on the market. I think it is fine for any team to use all of their resources to get the players they want, even the Yankees. If a team's front office does not put all of their effort into getting the necessary aquisitions to improve the team, they're not doing their job. However, while the Yankees have appeared to make themselves invincible, they've really just set themselves up for a massive drop-off.

During the Yankee success of the late 1990's, the team never recruited big stars off the market. Farmhands Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada, among others, were allowed to grow through the Yankee farm system until they were ready for the big leagues. Role players, such as Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, and Tino Martinez were brought in from the outside to compliment the nucleus of the up-and-coming stars. This way, the Yankees grew off a predominantly young and talented team to dominate the league from 1996-2001.

However, since then, George Steinbrenner has reverted to the strategy that he used during the 1980's: sign the best players out there, old or not. This strategy was death to the team in the '80's, and history is beginning to repeat itself here in 2005. The Yankees are signing players that, although stars in their prime, are aging and whose talents are diminishing. They spent millions of dollars on players that were beginning to lose their touch, only to see them hit rock bottom in pinstripes. For example, the Yankees traded for Kevin Brown before the 2004 season. Since then, he has not done anything to justify him recieving a multi-million dollar salary. Since no team would be willing to trade for him, the Yankees are stuck with him on the payroll. Also, Randy Johnson, who had been a star pitcher all of his career, was brought to the Yankees and given a two year extension on his contract. However, his production has not been as expected, and now the Yankees are stuck with a 40 year old decent pitcher at best who they are paying millions of dollars to.

What it comes down to is that the Yankees, by neglecting their farm system and signing old players, have destroyed their future. This might sound weird, but it would be in a Yankee fan's best interest to hope to see the Yankees lose most of their games before the trading deadline passes. This is the only way the Yankee front office will be willing to face the fact that they are not going to make the playoffs this year. Although a longshot, hopefully this would convice the Yankees to be sellers come the deadline. Albeit they don't have much to trade, I would recommend that they deal Gary Sheffield for some quality minor leaguers. Out of the aging stars that they have, he is the only one that continues to be productive, and would definitely have value in the market. This may sound shocking to Yankee fans, but it's one of the few ways that the Yankees can help themselves in the future at this point. The fact is that the Yankees will not make the playoffs this year, so trading Sheffield would be the best way to get younger and to try to make the future brighter. The Yankees have only been getting worse in recent years, and don't expect them to get better any time soon.
-Adam