With baseball's Winter Meetings underway, the Yankees have been getting to linked to just about every free agent available. Whether some of these rumors have any legitimacy or are just smoke signals being put out by interested parties to drive up prices remains to be seen. But when you're the wealthiest franchise in a sport with no salary cap there's no limit to the powers of agents' and fans' imaginary roster construction! The most recent whispers about the Yankees free agent plans have been a little more absurd than usual, even by their typical standards.
According to exclusive sources within the organization that have requested anonymity, the Yankees have been investing heavily in what team officials refer to as the "Forbidden Arts", a series of research projects that attempt to circumvent both roster restrictions by MLB and all common sense. The team has apparently built a massive lab hidden at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean designed for both the research of cloning current Major League players and the resurrection of former greats. When pressed about reports of his team having an army of Giancarlo Stanton clones currently in stasis in the aforementioned laboratory, General Manager Brian Cashman said "That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. We definitely don't have enough to field an army. I mean, no comment.".
As bad as the cloning procedures are, it's the raising of the dead that has many around the league outraged. Boston Red Sox owner was noted as saying "I'm used to them being pure evil, but this is comical, super villain sort of stuff." New Yankees' Director of Dark Magic Grigori Rasputin said "I won't confirm or deny any of these outlandish reports, but who are these people to deny baseball fans the opportunity to see amazing athletes like Babe Ruth and Cy Young play in this modern age? If they just happen to play for the Yankees at the league minimum all the better!".
The Players Union and United Nations has yet to weigh in on these alarming reports, but super agent Scott Boras has already attempted to sign up Zombie Babe Ruth as a client. Whether this new style of player acquisition becomes as big of a controversy as PEDs remains to be seen, but the Yankees should field one of the more talented teams in the league if their team of clones and reanimated dead hold up. Or the clones may fall apart and the undead players will start eating the living ones. You can't predict baseball, after all.