FanPost

The Yankees Future Success Rides on the Developing of Talent

What many people do not realize, especially Yankee haters, is that historically, contrary to belief, the Yankees' title teams were not bought. In the early years of the sport, baseball was very political and much more about business. In that regard, the Yankees were able to buy Babe Ruth, an established star as a pitcher for the Red Sox. The Yankees went onto become a great team with Babe Ruth, winning many titles. However, there was plenty of talent on these teams to begin with. Through the decades, the Yankees continued to develop stars like Jack Chesbro, Lefty Gomez, Earle Combs, Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio, Yogi Berra, Bill Dickey, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, etc. Notably, all of those guys were parts of Yankee teams that won multiple titles.

Even in the 1970s, when George Steinbrenner acquired the team from CBS and resurrected the franchise, though he spent what was then a lot of money on free agents, there was a still a large foundation of home grown talent and non-star acquisitions that buoyed those teams. Willie Randolph, Thurman Munson, Ron Guidry, Chris Chambliss (who did little before becoming a Yankee), Roy White. Granted those teams were bolstered by additions like Catfish Hunter, Goose Gossage and Reggie Jackson, yet there were still pride to be taken in the development of players and acquisition of not yet stars.

In the 1980s, the Yankees stars aged and most of the best young minor league talent was jettisoned for bad veterans. Mattingly, Righetti and a couple others were exceptions. The 1980's Yankees won absolutely nothing of remembrance.

The 1990s started off weak but turned around largely due to the fact that the Yankees scouting was very good. Jorge Posada, Alfonso Soriano, Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, El Duque, Andy Pettitte, et al., were all products of amateur scouting nationally and internationally. Further, guys like Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, et al, were all young players who were still coming into their own or unrecognized stars who were acquired using the Yankees youth and without committing big dollars. Those players mentioned alone all became stars and the Yankees teams won multiple titles in that decade. While vets like David Wells were added, they were complimentary pieces to an already solid core.

When the 2000s came around, something changed, the team's core from the 1990s remained while the Yankees started spending more on free agents to fill gaps. However, like the 1980s, the Yankees became bad at talent development. Accordingly, here we are now with an old team and the only two prospects developed by the Yankees since 2000 and who are above average players are Brett Gardner, Chien Ming Wang and Robinson Cano. (Unless you count Hideki Matsui's signing at the beginning of the milennium.) In recent years the Yankees have had "top" prospects but none of whom have made the type of dent expected if any. Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy were all supposed to be high end pitching prospects. While all of those guys have made the majors, none of have fulfilled their top of the rotation hype except for Kennedy who seems to be turning out to be a one year wonder. Then there are the Killer Bs - Banuelos, Betances, Brackman. The first two showed promise in the low minors and became solidly ranked prospects just like the just mentioned group, but showed a poor lack of command and an inability to get guys out once they faced stiffer competion. Meanwhile, Brackman never showed much of anything and is now out of baseball. Betances has recreated himself this year as a force in the bullpen while Banuelos is shelved due to injuries. While having a high end reliever is nice, again this is not what was projected. This year, we had high hopes for Tyler Austin, Gary Sanchez, Mason Williams and Slade Heathcott but yet all of them took major steps backward this year with only Gary Sanchez having even remotely a season worthy of any discussion to date.

Retrospectively, some people like to point out in defense of the Yankees that they have been hampered in the draft by their success. While I agree that bad teams have benefited from more certain picks higher in the draft, most teams have had plenty of solid production from guys not taken in the first couple of rounds. Hopefully, things turn themselves around for the Yankees otherwise, this downturn could be long. Unlike the 1980s, free agency does not have the same ability to help teams as it used to. Teams are getting smarter and locking up their studs before they get to the market. Because of the same, farm development is the most important it has been in many decades

Right now, their is still plenty of time for the most recent group of top Yankee prospects to achieve something. There are also plenty of newer prospects to be excited about like Greg Bird, Peter O' Brien, Rafael De Paul, Jose Campos, Eric Jagielo, Aaron Judge, Ian Clarklin, Gosuke Katoh, Tyler Wade, Ty Hensley, Frank Frias, Jorge Mateo, Leonardo Molina, etc., My hope is that the Scouting Department can turn this team around and that some of these guys turn out to be the next special core of the Yankees otherwise this could be a long drought for the Yankees. While there may be shiny new toys to get in free agency, it will not be with the frequency that it used to be. The Yankees future is reliant on better scouting than what it has done in this milennium to date.

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