Thursday, October 15, 2015

You Kept the Prospects, Now Use the Prospects


As a fan of the New York Yankees first and Major League Baseball second I am thoroughly enjoying the 2015 edition of the MLB Playoffs, with or without the Yankees. There have been touch pitching matchups with great arms like Dallas Keuchel, Jake Arrieta, Masahiro Tanaka, Gerrit Cole, Marcus Stroman, Clayton Kershaw, Jacob deGrom, Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels and a slew of other names I could throw out there. There has also  been exciting young talent also making a name for themselves, players like Colin McHugh, Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Stephen Piscotty, Robert Osuna, Josh Donaldson, Michael Conforto, Greg Bird, Carlos Correa and a slew of others I could also throw out there. Watching the 2015 MLB Playoffs got me thinking about the Yankees, their direction the team is going and the 2016 season specifically. In July of 2015 the Yankees held onto their prospects rather than acquiring a Ben Zobrist, a David Price or a Johnny Cueto revealing half of their plan, the other half of the plan just has to include using those same prospects.

Taking a quick glance at the Chicago Cubs depth chart you can see homegrown and young talent at many key positions including first base (Anthony Rizzo), second base (Tommy LaStella and Starlin Castro), shortstop (Addison Russell), third base (Kris Bryant), left field (Kyle Schwarber), center field (Dexter Fowler), right field (Jorge Soler) and the pitching staff (Travis Wood, Neil Ramirez, Hector Rondon, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Kendricks, etc.). The Cubs are a team with a plan, to build from within their deep farm system and fill in the rest via free agency, and it’s a model that the Yankees should consider emulating.


The Cubs were terrible for many years and that will not fly in New York, there are no rebuilding years with the Yankees simply re-tooling years, but it can still be done with the proper plan. It’s just going to take longer. The plan was put into play this season when the team refused to part with Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Jorge Mateo or Greg Bird and it needs to continue with Robert Refsnyder, Rookie Davis, Brady Lail, Domingo Acevedo and the rest of the team’s top prospects. Stockpiling prospects is great, well until Rule 5 Draft time anyway, but they are useless unless you use them. So be more like Theo Epstein and the Cubs and use them already. 

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)