Can the Yankees avoid the missteps of the Red Sox and Mariners?

The Yankees have visions of multiple playoff appearances and championship runs. But can they avoid the mistakes and misfortunes of other recent teams that have tried and so far failed in their pursuits of glory?

The Yankees have arrived at 2018 exactly where they saw themselves. They had a vision in 2013 of a young, homegrown team laced with talent.

To that talent, they hoped to have enough left in the farm system to trade the many good for the few great, and money for highly talented free agents in positions of need. This is not a new concept, and the Yankees did not invent it.

Most recent successful examples are the Astros, Cubs, Royals and, the prime piece of evidence, the Giants. Every other team would like to have the success San Fran has had recently, including the Mariners and Red Sox.

But it takes more than just a good plan. The roster has to be constructed carefully, with players plugged in to create new strengths, and not as desperate maneuvers. Management must have the foresight and build a cohesive group both on the field and off.

Free agents have to be worth their contracts and young players have to round in to form. And both offense and defense have to be considered. Above all, though, it takes talent and money and all the fortune the gods have to spare.

And guts.

If you want to win it all in the big boy world, you have to be willing to push all your chips to the center of the table. Henry Ford did it. Then again, so did Preston Tucker. Same plan, two wildly different fates.

That’s What Makes it So Difficult

So the Yankees might very well be looking at a five-year span of playoff appearances and competing for World Series titles. But maybe not. A lot of teams have the same plan, but there can be only one champion each year.

The Red Sox and Mariners, for example, are in the middle of exactly that kind of hope for run. But those teams have so far not produced the wins the way their ownership groups envisioned.

Here’s a look at what has kept those two teams, so far, from finding the excellence they were supposed to be destined for. And hopefully, this will help the Yankees navigate the baseball landscape all the way to the Canyon of Heroes.

The Seattle Mariners

Born in 1977, the Mariners are one of seven teams to have never won a World Series. That’s not for lack of trying, however, as the M’s seem like they are in the midst of a decade-long rolling rebuild.

Seattle fans remember the days of Richie Sexson, Jeremy Reed and Raul Ibanez.

The Mariners got the vision for their current run in 2009, when they held two picks in the first round, including number two overall. They used that pick to take 2B Dustin Ackley, whom they assumed would be a cornerstone player for the next decade, once he reached the majors.

That off-season they traded infielder Luis Valbuena for CF Franklin Gutierrez, whom they saw as their center fielder for the next ten years.

They had acquired Cliff Lee from Philly in the winter of ’09 as part of their ever-revolving roster, but, by July, the front office could see it was time to flip him for another young, cornerstone player.

So, they traded Cliff Lee for the 2008 eleventh overall pick, 1B Justin Smoak. He was supposed to be a key part of the Mariners’ blueprint.

The team spent the next few years doing everything right. Even fortune favored them as they continued to get top ten draft picks.

A Few Cold Drafts

In 2011 they chose LHP Danny Hultzen with the number two pick. 22-year old catcher Mike Zunino arrived the next year via the number three pick overall. That’s three top five picks in four years. That would convince any club to create a map for not too future success.

To add to that, before the 2012 season, they traded for another (former) number three prospect, C Jesus Montero.

A look at their 2012 lineup shows why the Mariners assumed they had young players they could build around: 1B Smoak (25); 2B Ackley (24); 3B Kyle Seager (24); CF Michael Saunders (25); OF Franklin Gutierrez (29); and, DH Jesus Montero (22).

By the end of the 2013 season, the Mariners had to think the rebuild plan was going well. They saw enough growth and promise from their young position players to start a run; that’s where the Yankees arrived when the 2017 season ended.

Coming Around

Likewise, the rotation looked like it should be dominant. 27-year old RHP King Felix Hernandez pitched to a 3.04 in 2013 and was already on a Hall of Fame path.

RHP Hisashi Iwakuma was 32, but he did have one of his best years, putting up a 2.66 ERA. He seemed young enough to go along for the next four-year ride of hoped for championship runs.

That season, the three starting pitchers who threw the most innings for the M’s had ERA’s of 2.66, 5.26 and 3.04.

Best of all, they had two young pitchers they hoped would become front liners. LHP James Paxton was 24 and posted a 1.50 in his four starts, while rightie Taijuan Walker looked even better: His three starts and 3.60 ERA were worse than Paxton, but Taijuan was only 20.

He had ace written all over him. Or at least that’s how the Mariners read the cards.

It was time to add one or two key free agents and begin a string of playoff appearances and WS title runs. After all, their roster now had seven starting players who would all be 30 or younger at the end of the 2017 season.

Landing the Big One

So in December of 2013, they got serious and signed one of the top ten players in the game, 2B Robinson Cano. That move was supposed to catapult the M’s to the playoffs, with subsequent moves perhaps making them WS contenders.

But all of this has not added up to even a single playoff appearance so far. And now the team is degenerating.

The pitchers held up their end of the deal in 2014, with all four of their most prolific starters pitching to an under four ERA. The King was so energized, he went out and had his career year: 2.14 ERA, 0.915 WHIP, and 248 strikeouts. All remain career highs.

But the offense was a disappointment. Cano had a stat line similar to his one the previous year with the Yankees but with one big difference: Power. Here is his 2013 line with the Yanks: .314/.383/.516. And this is the following season with Seattle: .314/.382/.454.

That dip in SLG was most felt in the loss of homers and RBI’s. Cano hit 27 home runs and collected 107 RBI’s for the Yankees in 2013, but for the Mariners in 2014, he produced just 14 and 82, respectively.

He has, in fact, only once equaled or surpassed his home runs from 2013 for the M’s and has never delivered as many RBI’s. But that just means he has not helped them as much as he could have. The real problem is that almost none of the homegrown offensive players panned out.

Fishing for Offense

Ackley got 502 AB’s that season and hit .245/.293/.398 with fourteen home runs, not great for a corner outfielder. Zunino got over 400 AB’s and batted just .199. Smoak, a part-time player already, hit .202.

When you trade your best assets, you have to get good-to-great players in return; Smoak was shipped out of town after 2014. It’s never a good sign in a supposed championship run when a team starts trading building blocks because they haven’t worked out.

The owners kept their push going and for 2015 brought in home run king Nelson Cruz. He was supposed to form one of the most devastating middle of the orders, along with Cano, and push the Mariners into first place in their very winnable division, and deep into the playoffs.

And Cruz delivered: Nelson slashed .302/.369/.566 with 44 HR’s in 2015. Cano played well but not at the superstar level the Mariners were hoping, and paying, for (.287/.334/.446, 21 homers).

But again the real problem was that the young players continued to disappoint. Zunino batted .174/.230/.300 in 2015; Logan Morrison had split time with Smoak the year before and so got 457 AB’s in 2015; he hit .225/.302/.383.

Ackley was now a part-time player and hit .215, while Montero hit .223. As the year went along each of them was replaced by an older rental. By the end of the season, there were so many that the team looked more like a mercenary squad than a burgeoning dynasty.

The final nail in the coffin for that season was that the pitching regressed. Only two of their most active six starters had ERAs below 4.14, and even King Felix added 1.39 to his ERA from the previous year, finishing with a still very good 3.53.

Still Searching

By 2016, the Mariners knew they were financially all in, by their standards, but the young core had evaporated. Of the eleven players who got the most AB’s that season, only three were 30 or younger. And only one of those—Kyle Seager—was from the original vision of 2013.

The homegrown foundation had disintegrated from under the free agent superstructure.

They have since compounded that by making their worst mistake of this run: They decided to act in half measures.

For 2016, that meant mediocre free agents were brought in. Players such as 34-year old LF Norichika Aoki, 32-year old 1B Adam Lind and 33-year old C Chris Iannetta became the main players at their positions.

In 2017, that meant trading for young, promising players: 25-year old LF Ben Gamel came over from the Yankees; 27-year old SS Jean Segura and 26-year old Mitch Haniger were acquired from the Diamondbacks—along with not as young 32-year old 1B Danny Valencia, bartered out of Oakland—and 32-year old CF Jarrod Dyson from Kansas City.

In fact, the only homegrown starter last season was 26-year old C Mike Zunino. All the other position players were either free agents or players from other teams.

Let’s Not Argue

I understand the argument that trading for minor league players is akin to promoting from within your system, but none of these players were sent into the minors. No matter how they were acquired, they immediately became starters. That makes them all in the same category as free agents.

For a Yankees reference, think of Starlin Castro. He was a mid-20’s player whom the Yankees traded for. But he had played in the majors already and was traded for to be a starter. That is the case for almost every one of the M’s acquisitions.

That’s different than, say, with a Gleyber Torres, a player who had not played above High-A when the Yankees fitted him for pinstripes.

Sometimes, The Runner Stumbles

But, what were the M’s to do? They had already invested heavily in King Felix, Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz, all through at least the 2018 season. That was their original window, and it is now closing.

And that is partially because they faced a two-headed monster the last two seasons: As their offense has struggled to find an identity, their pitching has continued to regress.

Their King has continued his rapid and unexpected decline, last year pitching to a 4.36 ERA; he is no longer one of the best pitchers in baseball.

And even though James Paxton blossomed into a dominant pitcher, and is now Seattle’s worthy candidate as best pitcher in the AL, his 2.98 ERA performance was sandwiched between those of two much worse pitchers.

Ariel Miranda and Yovani Gallardo, along with Paxton, led the team in games started. But Miranda posted a 5.12 while Yovani threw up a 5.72. And with all due respect to Willie Nelson, one night of love don’t make up for two nights of hate.

No, the answer should have been to go all in.

BOO!

I know that can be a scary thought for a small market team that hasn’t won its division in more than a decade. But the only way to reap the benefits of all the work and effort is to at least make the playoffs.

This article details the incredible, five-year windfall that comes when a team makes it to at least a five-game series.

The Mariners know that. And for the last two years, they have been trying to thread the needle of continuing to invest enough talent and money to force a return for the shareholders, while not spending so much money trying to make money that they go broke.

But they just got caught somewhere between fear and hope. They should have traded for Starlin Castro two years ago and left him at short. They should have signed either DH Matt Holliday or OF Yoenis Cespedes over the last two years.

Yes, the Holliday signing wasn’t worth the money, but that is hindsight. I thought the Yankees made the right move by signing him and cannot now act as if I own a time machine. And it would have been the right thing for the Mariners to have taken that chance, too.

In the last two years, the Red Sox have brought over lefties David Price and Chris Sale. If the Mariners had gotten either of them, they might have made the playoffs one of the last two seasons.

And even though the Red Sox might not win a WS with those guys, they have already financially won those deals because they have made it to the ALDS two years in a row. Ka-ching!

You Gotta Give Till It Hurts

Instead, the Mariners have drawn a financial line in the sand and traded their best pieces for a lot of good players, but no great ones. And now they enter the last year of a window they first peeked out of in 2013.

Gone are all the original young players, although a couple of new faces are emerging.

But their three most talented players are all rapidly aging. Felix can still have a great year in 2018, but there will be no more great years. He is signed through 2019, his age 33 season.

Cano finally gave the Pacific Northwest an MVP-caliber performance in 2016, but merely a very good one in 2017. He, too, can have a renaissance this coming year but, if so, it will probably be the last baseball masterpiece he creates. He is signed through 2023, his age 41 season.

And while Nelson Cruz continued to hold up his end as a premier power hitter, he is signed only through 2018, his age 38 season.

I am sure some of you M’s fans are thinking that the team will be in a great place to get one of the big free agents next season. But this team is more than one player away now, and there is no indication that they would replace the contract of Cruz with an even larger one.

Not when they have built an outfield with no power. No single player can fix that. And not when they would still need to add a frontline starter or two, even assuming Erasmo Ramirez pitches at the same level given 33 starts.

Sadly, the desperation is starting to show in another crucial area, roster construction.

Year Four, and Still Under Construction

Adding IF Dee Gordon does nothing to address the power outage in the outfield, although the merits of building an all-speed team are intriguing.

The bigger issue is that he will now play out of position. With or without the incentive to create cash for Ohtani, it was more a move of hitting and hoping, rather than filling a hole with the exact right piece.

And as so few of the players they were counting on worked out, they are trading pieces they need. For instance, although Taijuan has not become an ace, the 3.49 ERA he put up for Arizona in 2017 would have been good enough for second on the Mariners starting staff.

But Seattle needed a shortstop and was unwilling to pay for one so, et voila, Jean Segura. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not adding to strengths.

Some in Seattle might say that the main culprit has been bad luck, while others would call it a failure of talent evaluation. Either way, their drafts, and trades have been disastrous, in particular, 2009.

A Flaw in the System

They took Dustin Ackley with the number two pick, just missing out on RHP Stephen Strasburg at number one. They hoped he would be a prolific and somewhat powerful hitter; he wasn’t.

In fairness to the Mariners, none of the next three picks turned in to anything (Donavan Tate, Tony Sanchez and Matt Hobgood). But there were good players to be had, and just because other teams missed out on them does not let the M’s off the hook.

For instance, Zack Wheeler, Mike Minor, Mike Leake, and Drew Storen were all chosen in the five picks after Hobgood.

But worst of all is that Mike Trout was drafted number 25. Two picks later; the M’s chose SS Nick Franklin, another complete bust. The Yankees chose two picks after they and ended up with a bust of their own, CF Slade Heathcott.

Third-rounder and 3B Kyle Seager has worked out, though. He slashed .249/.323/.450 with 27 home runs last year and was second in the American League in Fielding Percentage at his position (Alex Bregman, Astros). That was too little to cover the team’s other deficiencies, though.

Finally crippling the team is how they have lost out on talent in true Mets fashion.

M’s Fans, Look Away

All the way back in 2009, when visions of championships first danced in the Mariners heads, their third baseman was Adrian Beltre. But he was at that time a banjo hitter at best, albeit always a premier defensive player.

The Mariners wanted to trade him for prospects, but bad luck again played a role. Beltre was injured at the trade deadline and so had no value. Instead, the Mariners let him walk at the end of the season, and he immediately went on a string of All-Star, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger seasons.

For other teams, of course.

CF Michael Saunders suffered through a slew of injuries and averaged but .231/.301/.384 over his six seasons with the Mariners. So, in true win now mode, they traded him for LHP J. A. Happ after 2014.

Happ put up a 4.64 ERA in 2015, which was not unusual at that point in his career. So, the Mariners traded him mid-season to the Pirates; he pitched to a 1.85 for the rest of the year. In his two seasons with the Blue Jays since he has put up a 3.18 and 3.53 respectively.

Meanwhile, the M’s got young and under control pitcher RHP Adrian Sampson in the trade. He made one appearance, in 2016, and walked off the mound with a 7.71 ERA.

Mister Fister

And of course, there is RHP Doug Fister. He was one of Seattle’s best pitchers in 2011, starting 21 games and posting a 3.33 ERA. With an eye on 2014, they decided to trade him for a slew of prospects.

On July 30, 2011, it was announced that the Seattle Mariners were going to trade young starting pitcher Doug Fister and scrappy reliever David Pauley to the Detroit Tigers for a pile of prospects.  Those prospects ended up being outfielder Casper Wells, pitcher Charlie Furbush, third baseman Francisco Martinez and a player to be named who ended up being closer Chance Ruffin. The prospect package of Wells, Furbush, Martinez and Ruffin turned out to be entirely a bust, and Fister has continued to excel with the Tigers.

That says it all.

And now the Mariners have a new problem: While they have struggled to maintain their status quo, other teams have gotten better.

That includes some in their division: The Astros won the WS and look to be a force for the next five years, while Ohtani walked out of the Mariners’ dreams and into the Angels’ clubhouse.

Seattle’s window is just about to close.

It’s not possible for the Yankees to avoid all of these issues as some were handed down from on high. But the Red Sox have done a better job of rebuilding, and it is they the Yankees must do better than emulate.

The Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox were born in the formative years of modern baseball, and the history of the sport begins in earnest with their first World Series title in 1903.

But they started their current rebuild in 2014, the first year Cano played for the Mariners. It began, however, against a much better backdrop: Boston won the 2013 World Series. As soon as they did, this model franchise in the new millennium made the bold and prudent decision to tear down and rebuild.

They knew DH David Ortiz was going to retire sooner rather than later, but 2B Dustin Pedroia was only going to be 30, young enough to build a new team around.

And so they went from a 100 win season in ’13 to one of 71 wins in ’14, and the first of two last-place finishes in the AL East. But the overhaul showed enough promise to keep going while suggesting the areas of concern.

Hope and Help

Part-time up and coming stars from 2013 took over full-time roles in 2014. Meanwhile, the next wave got their feet wet.

CF Jackie Bradley Jr., 3B Brock Holt and SS Xander Bogaerts all played limited roles on that championship club, while RF Mookie Betts, LF Yoenis Cespedes, and C Christian Vazquez saw their first significant playing time in 2014.

Young everyday players and stars looked like they were emerging around the diamond. Their farm was also strong, including two top-25 prospects in number 20 LHP Henry Owens and number 24 C Blake Swihart.

The problem was the current pitching staff. In 2014, once promising ace RHP Clay Buchholz was the youngest among the four pitchers who started at least 20 games for Boston; he was also their worst. Clay ended the season with 28 starts, the most on the staff, and an ERA of 5.34.

The rest of the four was made up of 30-year old and unhappy Jon Lester (2.52), the ancient and inconsistent 35-year old John Lackey (3.60), and the fair to middlin’ 33-year old Jake Peavy (4.22).

Boston had every reason to look at their organization and feel they had enough position players to build around. They needed to focus on adding front-line starters.

And so the front office began to make moves.

Time to Pitch In

The most significant move and gamble was trading Lester in mid-season for Cespedes. When the season ended, they flipped Yoenis and a few mid-level prospects for RHP Rick Porcello.

They signed both 3B Pablo Sandoval and SS Hanley Ramirez, and cut more of the robustness out of their system, by trading a few more mid-level prospects for LHP Wade Miley.

But they did not ignore their farm system. They won the bidding war for 2B Yoan Moncada, and he immediately became a top ten prospect, eventually landing at number one.

The 2015 season showed even more promise. Four of the five players who got the most AB’s were 28 or younger, as were eight of the top thirteen. The pitching staff suddenly featured two 22-year old starters (Owens and lefty Eduardo Rodriguez), while only Buchholz was over 28.

When the season was over, the Red Sox stood in the same spot the Mariners had in 2013, ready for their run. So they traded another four prospects for elite closer Craig Kimbrel and signed top-ten pitcher David Price.

When a team picks up a player like Price, they are ready to challenge for titles.

A Very Promising Start

Fortunately, unlike the Mariners, those moves paid off: Boston won 93 games and the AL East in 2016. And it was okay that they got swept in the ALDS because this was the first postseason experience for many on the team.

So, just as Seattle added another great player for year two of their plan with Nelson Cruz, Boston added top ten pitcher Chris Sale. This was supposed to be the final move that pushed a very good team to become a great one.

In 2017, however, the Sox stayed still. They won the exact same 93 games and were once again eliminated in the ALDS. Their only mark of improvement was that they won a single game in the playoffs.

Now they might already be facing a premature end to what they hoped would be a five-year run, at least. Alike the Mariners, the failures so far have come on multiple fronts.

This is not to diminish what Boston has done or how talented their young players are. But the measuring stick is deep playoff runs and World Series titles. That looks less likely now than two years ago. And it starts with uneven player development.

Center Stage

Take Jackie Bradley Jr. He always had gold glove talent, but his stick has never arrived; Bradley slashed just .245/.323/.402 this season. And his talent looks worse against comparisons.

Jackie got 482 AB’s and produced a WAR of 2.8. That was only good enough for seventh among AL center fielders. And just above him is the Yankees’ Aaron Hicks. The separation between them, though, is greater than that as Hicks ended the season with a 3.9 WAR after only 301 AB’s.

Perhaps it is a better barometer to point out that Jacoby Ellsbury’s WAR was 1.7. That means Jackie is halfway between a diminished, aging player and a talented but inconsistent one his same age. That is not what the Red Sox were hoping for.

And although Jackie hit 17 home runs, both Hicks and Kevin Kiermaier hit 15 homers with at least 100 fewer at bats. Now, Boston must already make a decision about him. He’s a free agent in three years, so the clock is ticking.

Should they trade his All-Star defense for an upgrade in offense? Can he put together another first half like he did in 2016, or was that a true aberration? The Sox have to know that at 28, Jackie Bradley is the player he is going to be.

Picking and Grinning

On the other side of the coin is 25-year old SS Bogaerts. He can rake with any shortstop, hitting .273/.343/.403 in 2017. But he also only ranked eighth in FP among qualifying players at the position in the AL; Didi Gregorius was third. Xander is a free agent in two years.

3B Rafael Devers is similar to Bogaerts, although at 21 the team has every reason to think he will improve. However, as it stands now, his FP of .906 makes him nineteenth among third basemen with at least 450 innings in 2017. But even that does not show his true lack of prowess.

Number eighteen on the list has a FP of .930, while the league leader is at .974 (Adrian Beltre). That means that the first eighteen players are separated by 44 percentage points, whereas Devers is 68 percentage points away from the top; that’s more than a fifty percent increase.

Devers bat, however, is already on its way to legendary status. But can the Sox really afford to have two average to below average defenders at short and third? You can bet the front office is thinking about that right now.

And in a sign of bad fortune, even when their players work out well, there is a downside.

Too Hot of a Corner

There was a time when it seemed Boston had as many great young prospects at third as the Yankees once did at catcher.

Yet, four years after the planning began, and two years into what is supposed to be a real run, the hot corner continues to be a black hole. Will Middlebrooks, Deven Marrero, Pablo Sandoval, Brock Holt and Devers have all had chances to man the bag in recent years, with limited success.

It’s why the Yankees will be loath to trade 22-year old Miguel Andujar. I think Blake Swihart got some reps there as well, but could not find enough confirmation. Sox fans?

That’s not a good sign for a team trying to compete. And the same situation can be found behind the dish. Boston hoped one of their two most recent catching prospects would round into a fully formed player.

Sandy Leon, 28, was the main-man in 2016 but his .310 BA was offset by his only hitting seven home runs. So in 2017, 26-year old Christian Vazquez got 324 AB’s, with slightly worse results. He also had a great average (.290) but even less power (5 home runs in 324 AB’s). Vazquez is 26, so he has whatever power he is going to.

He’s Still Better Than Ellsbury

And then, of course, there is Hanley Ramirez, the inconsistent hitting, consistent clubhouse cancer. His bat and abilities on the field should not be minimized. And his offense can still make a big difference in 2018.

But signing him proved to be a bad roster decision. They hoped he would be the replacement DH for David Ortiz when he left, but his bat is no longer good enough in the AL East for that role.

His slash of .242/.320/.429 with 23 home runs and 63 ribbies would be fine if he were Mark Teixeira. But Mark was a premier perennial gold glove player while Hanley is, well, let’s just leave it there.

Sadly for the Sox, the problems his signing have created are many.

Boston Fans, Look Away

Boston is overpaying him as a DH and would like to have him play a position. But they also have a starter at every position, even at first, because they recognize Hanley’s defensive limitations.

They are paying Hanley too much to sign Eric Hosmer as well but can’t afford to start the season with Ramirez as their only first baseman. That’s why they re-signed Mitch Moreland.

Also, he is the gift that will keep giving to Boston: Hanley and his $22 million per annum are signed through 2019, one year after the big free agent class of next year.

And of course, the reason the Red Sox don’t have the money to literally pay for their mistakes is because that was not the plan. The plan was to spend big on pitching, in both money and prospects. But even there, the Sox have faced some disappointments.

Still a Good Price Tag

David Price was supposed to put the Sox in the playoffs in 2016. And he did, but no one knew he would do so with a surly attitude and oft-injured body.

But Boston should have been able to predict he would do as he always had and melt down in the playoffs. Price carries a 3.22 career reg season ERA but a career 5.03 post season one.

And so as night must follow day, Price walked off the mound of the 2016 ALDS game two after fewer than four innings with a 13.50 ERA.

However, no one can say the Sox did the wrong thing by signing him. Any team would want him on the field, if not in the clubhouse, and would be willing to take their chances with Price in the playoffs. But luck is always a part of successful playoff runs.

In this case, Boston bet well but still lost, at least so far.

A Pun Using the Word Sale

The same could be said for Chris Sale in 2017. As always he was untouchable for the first four months of the season…and touchable for the last two.

Overall, his regular season ERA of 2.90 was exactly what Boston hoped for. Too tired by October. However, he went five innings in his first start of the ALDS and walked off with a 12.60 ERA.

The more you look at Boston, the more the word inconsistent comes to mind. Take Rick Porcello. He went from the AL Cy Young Winner in 2016 to a 4.65 ERA in 2017, a snapshot of his career.

He has had more seasons (6) with an ERA above 4.00 than below in his nine years and carries a 4.25 career ERA. However, he has also been alternating good years and bad the last five seasons, so he could be great again in 2018.

RHP Steven Wright looks good, although he has now joined Aroldis Chapman in being charged with domestic violence.

But, he too, has had but one good season out of the last two, pitching to a 3.33 in 2016 but injured this year. The Red Sox are a win now team, so the fact that he is 33 is not an issue.

Drew Pomeranz also looks good and is still young, just 29 next season. Best of all was his 3.32 ERA this year. But, as always, there is bad news here: The lefty Drew is an unrestricted free agent next year.

It seems as if there are as many questions right now for the Red Sox as for the Mariners. Answers, however, might be almost as hard to come by.

Up is Now Down

Their top remaining prospect is 43rd ranked LHP Jay Groome, and he is still in Single-A. The only other player of theirs in the top 100 is 93rd ranked 3B Michael Chavis, and he is at Double-A.

In 2018, the Sox will field largely the same team as they did in 2017.

Plus, there isn’t much money coming off the books next year. Price and Kimbrel will probably both be gone, but, with little help coming from the minors, Boston will need to replace them with similarly priced pitchers.

Likewise, they will have to pay a lot more to either keep or adequately replace Pomerantz, who is likely to earn around 9 million this year, according to MLB Trade Rumors. This is not meant to be doom and gloom for the near future, just a reading of what has happened so far.

We Were Young, but We Were Improving

Devers, Bogaerts, and Benintendi can all still get better. Ben, though seems less likely to take over at center. So, if Bradley is not the answer, the Sox are going to have to pay big for a better one. Do they have the resolve to get one? And how?

This team could easily put it all together in 2018 if enough young hitters and free agent pitchers produce at a high level from the first pitch of the season to the end of the World Series.

But their goal was to build a perennial playoff force and multiple World Series winners; that seems less and less likely. Soon their homegrown players will either leave or become high priced free agents, and the team will have less money to shop outside of its own clubhouse.

Two years from now, the Sox might just find themselves with no titles to show for all of their plans, and ready to take offers on Andrew Benintendi in order to start a new run.

Which brings us to the Yankees and their more recent rebuild.

Yeah, Yeah, ALCS and All That

Readers here are more familiar with the Bronx Bombers’ story, so a summary is all that is required.

New York began its vision quest in 2013 when they got three of the first 33 picks. One of those turned out to be Aaron Judge, a compensation pick for the loss of former RF Nick Swisher. Over the next three years, the Yankees continued to make decisions based on building a homegrown team.

Now, upon completion of the 2017 season, the Yankees are ready for a run of their own. They can see a diamond-ringed with homegrown players, some of whom look like shining stars.

25-year old RF Aaron Judge won ROY, the Home Run Derby, and became the face of the game. RHP Luis Severino, only 23, came in third in the CY Young voting, and C Gary Sanchez is off to a historic offensive start; Yo Soy Gary will play next year at age 25.

Soon to be 28, Didi Gregorius slashed .287/.318/.478 with 25 home runs last year and was third in FP among AL shortstops.

And to an offense that led the AL in home runs (241), GM Brian Cashman added 28-year old Giancarlo Stanton and his 59 HRs and NL MVP abilities. When a team takes on a contract like Stanton’s, they are signaling the beginning of a serious run.

Mixed Signals

Like Seattle and Boston before them, New York can also see plenty of reason for optimism in their 2018 starters.

Along with Sevvy is LHP Jordan Montgomery, 24, who posted a 3.88; Sonny Gray, 27 and a rightie, 3.72; and fellow RHP, Masahiro Tanaka, 28, 4.74. It should be noted of Tanaka that 2017 was his worst professional campaign and that he carries an MLB career 3.56 ERA.

Rounding out the rotation is their other leftie, CC Sabathia. While he will be 37 next year, he posted a far more than respectable 3.69, the third year in a row his ERA has come down. Plus, CC is only signed to a one year deal, so his impact is only meant to be for 2018.

Right now, the Yankees have to be optimistic. They still have a great farm system, including the number two prospect overall in 2B Gleyber Torres, all of 21. Aaron Boone and the boys are confident he will take one of the two vacancies in the infield.

The other spot can be filled by a variety of methods, another reason for optimism. Most in the organization think 22-year old 3B Miguel Andujar has the combination of offense and defense, even if he might not start the season ready for the show.

But because they are still below the salary cap, and have that farm system, the Yankees can acquire a competent placeholder, or even replacement, if need be.

Still Not Running On Empty

Best of all in hopes of a long run, they have highly thought of players coming over the next three years. Foremost among them is CF Estevan Florial, who might be their most talented young player, set to arrive in 2019 at the age of 21.

RF Clint Frazier is another high upside player and might be best used to bring back a young, front-line starter. But at 23, the Yankees can take their time with him.

There is one change to the Yankees farm system, though, and it’s a welcome one. Whereas the strength of their minors was once position players, they now look to have a string of promising pitchers throughout the depths of their system.

Evaluators are confident that many of the following pitchers will either help bring back a premier talent, or contribute in the Bronx in significant ways over the next four or five years, most as relievers: Chance Adams, Justus Sheffield, Albert Abreu, Dillon Tate, Freicer Perez, Domingo Acevedo and Jonathan Loaisiga, to name just a few.

Finally, the Yankees have done a great job of lowering payroll and remain on track to be able to add free agents this year and next. And next year is very important as several top players on both sides of the ball will become available.

The Yankees situation looks very promising. Just like it did for Seattle. And Boston. So, what pitfalls that have afflicted those teams might derail the Yankees’ ride?

Will Bird Fly in 2018?

First has to be first. Just as the Red Sox have had to deal with a black hole at third, and Seattle one in center, the Yankees could run into the same situation at first base.

Greg Bird is an All-World hitter and a capable defender; playing roughly a third of the season at first (46 games), Bird posted a perfect 1.000 FP.

But he is also injury prone. And if he goes down, the Yankees will try to use rookie Billy McKinney. That’s having a player in reserve, but not a real backup to the position.

There is always the chance that Torres does not work out. No one is a sure thing until we see it on the field. And the same is even more true for Miguel Andujar. The Yankees could overcome one of them failing, but not all three.

The entire infield could blow up next season, except Didi, which would end any dreams of playoff runs.

He’s Not Sevvy; He’s My Brother

The same is true to a lesser extent for Severino. It’s very easy to proclaim Luis will go on to a Hall of Fame career, but that’s what Boston once said about Buchholz. He plays for the Phillies now.

Even the signing of Giancarlo carries risks in roster construction. If neither he nor Judge can play left, the Yanks will have acquired a very expensive DH-only player. That would add his contract to the worst of any of the three teams, that of Jacoby Ellsbury.

Ells is signed through 2020 for $21 million per. And as it stands now, with Clint Frazier still in the organization, Jacoby is the Yankees sixth outfielder: Judge, Stanton, Hicks, Gardner, Frazier and then Ellsbury. That’s a logjam in both players and money.

A Run For the Roses So Red

Finally is that free agency might not work out. History has taught us that the Yankees will add another big time player next year, as Boston and Seattle did before years two of their runs.

But Matt Holliday showed us that even high-priced free agents can disappoint, while Shohei Ohtani reminded everyone that not ever player wants to be a Yankee.

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So, just because the Yankees plan to get a great player at exactly the right position of need for them, doesn’t mean it’s going to work out that way. Or that the player won’t have an unexpected injury or rapid decline in production.

The Yankees, Red Sox and Mariners all want to be where the Giants, Astros and Royals are or have recently been.

But only one of them can win it all next year, and the rest of baseball will have plenty to say about that, including Houston, both LA teams, and Cleveland.

Of the three discussed here, the Red Sox and Yankees have the best chances of winning a title next year. But it’s the Bronx Bombers who look more ready for a five or six year run of excellence: Severino and Bird are under team control through 2021, Judge and Sanchez through 2022.

Next: The Yankees, Major League Baseball and the Reaction to Scott Boras

There will be decisions before then, though. Sonny Gray and Didi Gregorius become free agents after the 2019 season, and CC will have to be replaced next year. If the Yankees spend their money wisely at those moments or trade the right prospects, they could create the kind of run the Giants recently had.

Or, even better, that the Yankees once had twenty years ago.

But nothing is guaranteed. And the Yankees would do well to remember that the best laid plans of Mariners and men often go astray.