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 :)