Yankees Brian Cashman will craft his final legacy today

The Championship Blueprint

A while ago I wrote a piece that tangentially touched upon previous Yankees dynasties. What I found was that all of them replaced players during their glory days, often significant players, to sustain long championship runs. You can read about the late-30’s and early-50’s dynasties here.

The same was true for the most recent team that went to six World Series in eight years, winning four of them, from ’96 to 2003.

The ’96 Yankees started Wade Boggs at third and Mariano Duncan at second, while Jimmy Key and Kenny Rogers were central parts of the rotation. Gerald Williams was the third most used outfielder.

By 1998, Chuck Knoblauch was at second, Scott Brosius manned third, and Chad Curtis was the third most used outfielder. Key and Rogers were gone, replaced by David Wells and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez.

And by 2003, Alfonso Soriano had come up to play second while Robin Ventura held third. Roger Clemens and Mike Mussina were already long-time parts of the rotation; Raul Mondesi and Hideki Matsui now played the corner outfield spots.

There have been no long run of World Series appearances and championships without personnel changes. I could have said specifically Yankees dynasties, but that would be redundant. The longest runs have all been accomplished by Yankees teams. That all adds up to…