tonytalkssports My Take on Sports, particularly the Yankees, Maple Leafs and Browns

Yankeeland In Trouble

After a terrible post season, the New York Yankees find themselves with some major question marks. Rafael Soriano and Nick Swisher will not be back. We don't know whether Andy Pettite and Hiroki Kuroda will be in pinstripes and Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are another year older. On top of all of this, Hal Steinbrenner is committed to bringing payroll down to $189 million dollars.

This past year's team was one of the least entertaining in a number of years. The home run or bust offense has failed miserably. Brian Cashman's statement that he is not going to change a philosophy that was successful under Gene Michael is a joke because if you look at the record, only one year from 1996-2000 did the Yankees have a 40 HR hitter. That was in 1997 which was the only year that the Yankees did not win the World Series during that time period.

Cashman's job is safe and that is a problem. He has failed to recognize that this team needs to get younger and it needs to rely less on home runs. In the post season, you have to be able to manufacture runs and these Yankees are unable to do that. Part of the problem is that the Yankee farm system has been terrible in developing position players under Cashman. It is inconceivable that the richest team in sports has such a terrible scouting staff. When was the last time the Yankees developed an outfielder, a third baseman and a first baseman (Bernie Williams, Mike Pagliarulo and Don Mattingly)??

I hate to say it but we can be on the verge of a dark period in Yankee history rivaling the late 80's early 90's. Cashman and Company have done absolutely nothing to restock this team with young homegrown talent. Take Jeter, Pettite, and Mariano Rivera from this roster and what you have is a collection of mercenaries around Robinson Cano, Phil Hughes, Brett Gardner and Joba Chamberlain. For those of you who don't know, that's what the 80's were like. Yankee fans we can be in for a long winter.