The volatile reality of Yankees' player development system has been exposed in 2025

Baseball is a game of failure. Both on the field and in the front office. It's unavoidable. For as incredible a franchise as the New York Yankees are, fans in the modern era are all too familiar with the shortcomings as a result of parity, stale processes, and the overall changing landscape.

Look no further than the Los Angeles Dodgers, even. They just won back-to-back World Series, but they paid guys like Michael Conforto ($17 million), Tanner Scott ($16 million), Kirby Yates ($13 million), Blake Treinen ($13 million) and Tommy Edman ($12 million), all of whom contributed next to nothing. That is $55 million in sunk costs.

The difference between them and the Yankees, though? The Yankees let that get in their way. Dead money paid out to Aaron Hicks, Anthony Rizzo, and DJ LeMahieu has limited their spending. The overall weak depth hurt their bets on Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Jasson Domínguez to take a leap in 2025. And the result was an ALDS exit in four games.

Speaking of guys like Volpe, Wells, Dominguez and others, this recent youth infusion has further emphasized a broken process in the player development department for the Yankees. While Ben Rice and Cam Schlittler could very well be massive wins that save the trajectory of the franchise, it's hard to heap too much praise on the front office's ability to find that duo when there have been next to no successes beyond Aaron Judge.

The three position player WAR leaders among homegrown Yankees position players under Brian Cashman are Judge, Brett Gardner and Volpe. How Volpe is third on that last after serving as one of the worst qualified hitters in the sport from 2023-2025 is truly insane to think about. Make it stop. Sorry we said this.

And what about everybody else in between? Luis Severino. Jordan Montgomery. Gary Sánchez. Greg Bird. Miguel Andújar. Iván Nova. Rob Refsnyder. Tyler Austin. Tyler Wade. Deivi Garcia. Estevan Florial. Everson Pereira. Oswald Peraza. Ron Marinaccio. Yoendrys Gomez. Like we said, Volpe, Dominguez and Wells could join that group. And these are only notable names that made their MLB debuts! Think about all the other prospect/international free agent flameouts, in addition to all of the other players Cashman traded away that never made an impact.

If Cashman is specifically adept at anything, it's limiting risk in trades. He rarely ever parts with a player that fans feel regretful over. But ... that's because those players are extremely rare in the Yankees' system over the last 25 years? So, yes, while he did not trade Aaron Judge to the Braves in that wild rumored package, he also hasn't had the opportunity to trade players even half of that caliber away.

And on the oft chance that he does? When we're talking about Anthony Volpe's stock at High-A or Oswald Peraza's stock after his 2022 debut, he sticks to his guns only to watch those players completely spiral in pinstripes. The Yankees' newfound spirit of wanting to build through the farm is certainly not the wrong approach, but it becomes that when you refuse to leverage that talent to upgrade the big-league roster. The Yankees know firsthand how low the hit rate is on prospects. Yet they've been unwilling to part with the ones that possessed the most value in the name of winning a World Series.

And then, at that point, nobody wants them. They went from selling a stock at its peak after you got in on the IPO to watching the market crumble before their very eyes. That's the first precarious aspect of this process.

The second? When the Yankees finally appear to have hit on someone (ex. Rice, Schlittler), they become so essential that they're pretty much untradable. So now their best assets have become "guys we can't trade or else we make the roster much worse".

We understand star young players are a necessary ingredient to the recipe, but then comes the overall depth — an area of weakness for the Yankees once the curtains dropped on the 2019 season. From 2020-2025, New York has largely carried a bench of unknown commodities or roster filler, until this year's trade deadline when Cashman revamped the group by adding Amed Rosario, Jose Caballero and Austin Slater (the first two of whom will be back in 2026).

It was truly a great job. But it was three years too late. And the Yankees' system couldn't even produce a bench player of that mediocre caliber. It's either Aaron Judge, the promise of players like Rice and Schlittler, or absolutely nothing else.

And truth be told? We have no idea if Rice and/or Schlittler will be able to carve out good MLB careers. We hope they do. They are fan favorites and beloved personalities, but this league has seen plenty of rookies fall off a cliff, which would be more representative of the Yankees' hit rate. The fact that fans are all but on their hands and knees hoping they do perfectly embodies the state of affairs.

So that's pretty much it. The Yankees dormant player development system has produced very little over the past 25 years. It didn't matter for a while because they were content with going above and beyond their means in the free agency/trade department to make up for the losses. But over the past 10 years it's been a whole lot of drinking the Kool-Aid and remaining hesitant about pulling the trigger, all the while limiting expenses and not leveraging their financial power to the appropriate degree.

It's pretty much this: if Cashman isn't making a middling trade involving prospects you don't particularly care about, he's either failing to sell at the appropriate juncture for the right fit, watching their development stall at Triple-A, or witnessing the same thing at the big-league level. And on the oft chance somebody does pan out or appears to be panning out? They become untouchable for legitimate reasons (Judge) or because of personal preference (how the organization views them) and the team gets stuck in neutral.

It's a formula for a good, playoff contending team. It is not suitable for a great, bonafide championship contender. That said, we'll happily accept our heaping helping of crow if Rice and Schlittler are instrumental in the next Yankees' World Series team. But you can see why, at this very moment, that isn't exactly a topic beaming with optimism.