Yankees fans must accept Yoshinobu Yamamoto reality despite Hal Steinbrenner limit

New York Yankees have a legitimate right to bellyache about the team's processes and philosophy since 2012. We'd be the first to say they were struck with horrid luck and misfortune from 2001-2008, and sometimes that's the way it goes. But everything over the past decade and a half has largely felt self-inflicted.

Across the country, the Los Angeles Dodgers are morphing into their version of the 90s dynasty Yankees through flexing their financial power and making the right decisions, while New York is limiting its financial impact and making the wrong decisions.

But there's a big one Yankees fans need to let go, and it involves Yoshinobu Yamamoto. New York scouted him heavily and were believed to be the top choice for quite some time ... but we all know how that ended. The Dodgers offered him $325 million and that was that.

In the aftermath of the reporting, it was said the Yankee refused to go that high because it didn't make sense for them to pay Yamamoto more than Gerrit Cole, whose contract is $324 million. That felt like a weak approach, but we won't deny most fans didn't agree. At the very least, the Yankees got creative with their $300 million offer and gave Yamamoto a higher AAV with favorable opt-out clauses.

After he went to the Dodgers, Hal Steinbrenner all but officially put his foot down on the matter, claiming $300 million was a "very, very good offer" and refusing to expand upon the idea that throwing more money at the right-hander might've been the difference maker.

Yankees were never getting Yoshinobu Yamamoto from Dodgers' grasp

We suppose it's possible another $50-$75 million could've gotten the job done, but that would've been objectively ridiculous. What we do know is that matching the Dodgers' offer would've done nothing, if we are to believe Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

He's very much dialed in to the goings on with the Yankees and Mets, so his word is as good as anybody's in the space. Heyman recently said "there was nothing" the Yankees or Mets could have done once the Dodgers increased their bid. Yamamoto always preferred to be on the West Coast as long as the money was comparable.

If it were the reverse and the Dodgers were refusing to budge at $300 million while the Yankees had the ball in their court to go higher, then maybe we'd have an argument against Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman. But LA, Yamamoto's team of preference (as it's since been revealed he was a Dodgers fan), were able to go up to a number that definitely made the Yankees uncomfortable, all thanks to Shohei Ohtani's deferred money.

Oh yeah, and they had Ohtani, who Yamamoto wanted to play with in MLB! There are plenty of topics to rage against the Yankees about. We can probably put this one to bed. Yamamoto's World Series heroics were indeed painful to watch, but just know it probably was never a possibility for New York unless the Dodgers were completely uninvolved.