Yankees: Meet The New Yankees – Same As The Old Yankees

The Yankees are pulling off an illusion that reminds of Houdini. The “New” York Yankees aren’t new at all. And we’ve all been bamboozled!

The Yankees broke my heart today. First, they sent Tyler Wade down to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders rather than giving him a six-week trial at shortstop replacing the injured Didi Gregorius. “Replacing” is a misnomer, though, and would have been understood that when Didi comes back, the position is his. Wade, who performed admirably during the spring

Wade, who performed admirably during the spring, didn’t have a chance in hell of getting the nod no matter he did on the field. And that’s because he’s a non-roster player and Brian Cashman would have needed to bump someone to make room for Wade if he made the team.

Gee, let me think. Is there anyone currently on the roster not named Chris Carter who is taking up needed space. Oops, I forgot that Carter is making too much money and he has no options. Meaning that the organization put themselves in a box and Tyler Wade et.al. has to live with the consequences.

Oops – Girardi Spills The Beans

And he’s not the only one. Today, Joe Girardi spilled the beans about Aaron Judge too, telling numerous sources that “Judge needs to play.” Which implies that Judge will get sent down soon and that Aaron Hicks wins the job in right field by default.

What it is about is all the hype that the organization gave to this spring being “highly competitive at every position.” It simply wasn’t true from the very beginning.

Presumably, no one bothered to ask Girardi why Judge can’t get playing time with the Yankees instead of in Scranton given the spring he’s had, including another monster shot yesterday.  But maybe by this time, everyone is throwing up their hands saying “Why bother? Because the team never had a plan that incorporated young talent over old talent.

And that could be alright. Brian Cashman has a track record, especially lately, that far better than mine and I dare say yours when it comes to making baseball decisions for the organization. So it’s not about that.

The Yankees Did Run A scam

What it is about, though, is all the hype that the organization gave to this spring being “highly competitive at every position.” It simply wasn’t true from the very beginning. And even if they throw us a bone now by adding Jordan Montgomery as the fifth starter, it won’t expunge the sour taste that left in our mouth.

I’ve been on this for a couple of weeks now, but I always hoped that what I was writing wasn’t true and I would be proved wrong. A week ago, I published a piece titled Are The Yankees Unintentionally Running A Scam? and I thought the use of the word scam might have been a little too much. Now, I’m not so sure.

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A few days later came another piece asking Will The Kids Rue The Day They Signed With The Yankees. And I wondered if that too wasn’t overkill. Sadly, the Yankees are proving me wrong.

Chase Headley, Brett Gardner, and Jacoby Ellsbury are still in the starting lineup for the teamj ust as they were last season. Billy McKinney, Justin Fowler, Gleyber Torres, Tyler Wade, Blake Rutherford, etc. are not.

Bottom line, if the Yankees are built for 2018, they should have said so in the beginning.  We are sophisticated fans who bought into what the team was doing way back in August when Cashman should have been arrested for grand larceny.

And if you want to label Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird as “New” Yankees, you can. But Bird, if not for an injury last season would have had 450 at-bats with the team, and maybe more given all the time that Mark Teixeira lost last season. And there’s no way Sanchez can be kept out of the lineup this year.

So what are we to conclude except that all of the so-called “competition” was a ruse and the team the Yankees will field on Sunday is the same team they fielded last year.

Yankees: Four Reasons Why They’ll Make The Playoffs In 2017

The Yankees are showing their fans a lot during this Preseason. But there's more to come and the opportunity to play baseball is a real possibility.

Again, I’m right with that, and like all Yankees fans, I hope for the best. But damn it, why didn’t they just say that in the first place? Except that……………

Yankees Update – Today’s Game Results

The Yankees (23-8) beat the Blue Jays today by a score of 3-1. In that game, Aaron Judge went 2-3, scored a run and had a two-out RBI raising his spring average to .345 while Aaron Hicks went 0-2 managing a walk and also scoring a run.

Jordan Montgomery went five imperfect but very effective innings giving up only one earned run to pick up the win.

And Chris Carter went 0-3 with another strikeout. Chase Headley is now hitting .208 for the spring and Brett Gardner .211.