Yankees’ Editorial: The Bronx is Boiling: No to Hamels!
By Wayne Cavadi
Spring has sprung in Tampa and the New York Yankees are looking good. Specifically, the Baby Bombers have come out on fire, each one trying their hardest to show that the Yankees farm system has returned to glory. Yesterday, for example, Rob Refsnyder and Greg Bird won the Bombers the game in the bottom of the ninth.
Sunday morning, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe made an announcement that doesn’t resonate well with me. If the Yankees do indeed have a restructuring plan in place, then follow through with it. The Bronx is boiling and I need to blow some steam.
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STAY THE COURSE
"“According to one Phillies source, the Yankees have come the closest to landing Hamels, offering a package of prospects that at least has given the Phillies a baseline for future talks.” Cafarado, Boston Globe."
Would I love to have Cole Hamels on the Yankees? Of course I would, but not at the cost that it would be to land the Phillies’ ace. Hamels is a nice pitcher, he is very good, but never in his 9-year career has he been great.
The Philadelphia Phillies are in complete rebuild mode. They are trying to get aging (and broken) veterans with huge contracts off of their roster, but Hamels is their most attractive trade chip. They won’t let him go easily. If they would, he would have been gone already.
That’s what concerns me about the Yankees. The new Steinbrenner and Cashman era has clearly changed their strategy. Instead of signing big money free agents to silly long-term deals, they are trading for younger future stars. The team mentality seems to now rebuild the team through the draft, which if you have been paying attention, they have been doing a great job and succeeding.
This idea of trading away prospects to land Hamels would be a step backwards. It goes against everything that this regime has been doing this offseason. Rumors were that the Red Sox couldn’t reach a deal because the Phillies wanted Blake Swihart as part of any deal. Swihart is a Top 10 prospect in all of minor league baseball and is widely considered the best catching prospect by a landslide. If the Yankees offered a package that was better than that, they were offering too much.
I am old enough to have seen this happen before. The early 90s saw the Yankees focus on youth with pitchers like Scott Kamieniecki, Dave Eiland, Sterling Hitchcock and Bob Wickman. They thought their offense could rely on guys like Andy Stankiewicz, Gerald Williams, Hensley Meulens, and Bernie Williams.
Now clearly, aside from Bernie, those were the wrong choices, but instead of mortgaging what was down on the farm below them to improve, they stayed the course. The didn’t trade away their elite prospects, but instead waited patiently through a few down years until they were ready to take over on the big league level. We all know what happened next.
The Core Four took over baseball, all four and Bernie (despite question marks) will have their numbers retired and two are sure fire Hall of Famers. Oh yea, they also brought a collective five World Series to the Bronx.
I don’t mind this new philosophy, as long as the Yankees brass stick to it. Trading away a guy like Martin Prado to take a chance on a younger, questionable arm, is fine but again, stay the course. If the Yankees go out and trade away a Luis Severino or Aaron Judge to get Hamels, I almost rather they have offered another stupid long term deal to Max Scherzer and have called it a day.
The Yankees right now have a legitimate farm system that does have at least one major league ready player at each position. It has been a very long time since they have been able to say that. It does not mean that they are ready to take over on day one of 2015, but it does mean that the Yanks need to exhibit patience. If there is truly a shift in philosophy then they have to stick to it.
Maybe they don’t make the playoffs again in 2015, but I have a hunch good things are coming.
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