Saturday, April 23, 2016

You May Miss George Steinbrenner But You Shouldn’t


You may miss George Steinbrenner, hell I do too, but if it is only because we would “fix” this mess the team is in right now, well you shouldn’t. George Steinbrenner was a great man God rest his soul and he was a great owner for the most part as well. Sure he meddled where he didn’t need to meddle and sure he stuck his nose and check book where it didn’t always belong but he treated this team like his hobby and not like his only source of income. This was not a job for him, this was what he did in his down time and it showed in his passion for the team and the way he handled it. Passion can lead to knee jerk reactions though, bad trades and even worse signings and that’s what George would be doing right now, not necessarily fixing things.

I mean zero disrespect in this post but let’s use his track record and the history of the franchise under his tenure to dissect what we think would happen if he were still running this team today. First and foremost you can kiss the Yankees young guns goodbye. You say you’re attached to Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Robert Refsnyder, James Kaprielian, Domingo Acevedo, Ian Clarkin and others? Sorry, they are all gone. Mateo is in San Diego right now and Craig Kimbrel is in the Bronx. The team wouldn’t have an average age under 30-years old like they do now, it’s be more like 35-years old after the bulk of these players would likely be traded for aging veterans and hired mercenaries. Again, we’re using history as an indicator of the future as I have no crystal ball and I barely watch ESPN let alone use my psychic ESPN…..

There wouldn’t be all bad though. You think George would shy away from eating the contracts of CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez or Chase Headley if they continued to struggle and didn’t lead the team to their ultimate goal, their 28th World Series championship? You don’t think George would flip Jacoby Ellsbury for another bad contract like Shin-Soo Choo of the Texas Rangers just to be rid of the devastating contract to the organization? Many of you would love to wake up and see the news that both Joe Girardi was fired and Brian Cashman is cleaning his desk out as we speak, FYI I wouldn’t, and many of you would then jump for joy when the next flavor of the week is hired in their places.

“If George were alive…” Enough. George is not alive and if he were I am not certain things would ultimately be any better. Sure the team would have more big names and wouldn’t treat the organization like we’re clipping coupons and qualifying for food stamps just to keep the doors open but at the same time I’m not sure how much the team would be any better. Let’s remember, again using history as an indicator of the future, that it took George being banned from baseball completely to undo everything that was done and to build the Core Four and a perennial World Series winner. It was when this core grew older, key parts moved on and when George had too much say in the free agent market that the team began losing in the first round of the playoffs year in and year out.

Reaching the Wild Card Round or ALDS is not good enough for me and it wouldn’t be good enough for George either. Unfortunately it’s good enough for Hal and it would unfortunately be all we would see if George were still here running the show. It’s a different game now, you can’t just throw money at a problem and make it go away. Injuries will happen and so will declines and that’s where you need depth and a strong farm system. One last piece of history for you and I’ll stop because I know I ruffled a few feathers with this post. It was in 2005 that a high priced veteran-laden roster fell apart that George Steinbrenner assembled and threw money at and it was a Yankees farm system that George tried to trade away on numerous occasions (let’s remember it is well documented that Cashman did not want Alex Rodriguez and that Robinson Cano was offered in the A Rod deal) that saved that team and led them to another trip to the playoffs.

History and science are the only two things that theoretically can never lie.


2 comments:

  1. Daniel, I think you done done it just right....
    To many don't remember or read history anymore.

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    Replies
    1. This was going to be a controversial post but I think New York winning the last two games, and that figures since I wrote this before the Rays series began, probably helped with the backlash I was expecting. :)

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