New York Yankees, After a second straight season sans playoffs—a scenario that borders on unfathomable in the Bronx—the New York Yankees face yet another winter of important decisions and potential pitfalls. Only this time, there's even more weight and greater risk given the stakes.
Having spent nearly half a billion dollars to revamp the roster last offseason after just their second year without a postseason since 1995, the Yankees could go big again this winter in another attempt to avoid going home before October.
But one imagines that general manager Brian Cashman and the rest of the front office understands that simply opening the organization's bank vault doesn't guarantee anything. If it did, the Yankees would have made the postseason this year.
The goal in the coming days, weeks and months is to put in place a team that can reach the postseason next fall. That's always been the case for as long as Cashman, who signed a three-year extension last month, has been at the helm.
It can be done, of course. New York finished a respectable 84-78 and four games out of a wild-card spot, so there isn't a terribly long way to go.
Then again, the Yankees went 85-77 in 2013.
After splurging on stars last year—the club signed Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran for a cool $438 million combined—a more restrained and precise approach just might be better this time around.
In the wake of two October-less campaigns marked by declining performances, aging, injury-prone players and the retirements of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, this is a franchise that needs stability, youth and health more than anything else.
How does Cashman go about getting there? By focusing less on the short-term—specifically, October 2015—and more on the big picture over a longer time frame.
This free-agent class has a handful of top talents, from starters Max Scherzer, Jon Lester and James Shields to position players like Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval and Yasmany Tomas.
After that, though, there's a considerable drop-off, so it's not as if the Yankees can fix everything by going big on the open market anyway.
Sure, one of those five might make sense and be a good fit. It's not like New York couldn't use a top-of-the-rotation arm to stabilize a staff that endured injuries last season to every starting pitcher except Hiroki Kuroda, who very possibly may retire.
And perhaps the biggest priority is finding a new shortstop for the first time in 20 years now that Jeter is gone.
So ponying up to bring in Scherzer or Lester and Ramirez almost certainly would make the Yankees the favorites to win the AL East entering 2015. If reaching the playoffs next season is the only goal, then those two massive nine-figure moves, along with a few other minor ones, probably would do the trick.
But it's getting harder and harder to pull off a quick—and lasting—turnaround unless a club has a solid organizational infrastructure from the farm system up. If the Yankees' goal is October, not just 2015 but every year, then Cashman needs to work toward getting below the surface to the root of the problem.
He also would do better to shop for big values rather than big names on the open market, which is why it's encouraging to hear that the club actually might not be going after the top tier of free agents, according to Mark Feinsand and Bill Madden of the New York Daily News.
What's the plan, then?
After spending more than $450 million last winter on Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran, the Yankees aren't looking to add any more $100 million deals to their payroll, which ranked second behind the Dodgers last season, taking Scherzer, Lester and Shields out of play
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Instead, the Yankees are interested in bringing back two of their own, free agents Brandon McCarthy and Chase Headley, neither of whom was eligible to receive a qualifying offer after being traded to the Bronx this past July. A source said the Yankees would engage the pair aggressively in an attempt to lock them up.
Not counting those who will get raises via arbitration, the Yankees have just under $170 million allotted for players under contract in 2015, per Cot's Contracts.
So going after mid-market pitchers and position players—where the better values can be found—is a better idea, particularly after ponying up last offseason didn't exactly do wonders for the franchise's fate in 2014.
That way, the Yankees can spread the wealth around, addressing multiple areas over the course of the next few months rather than just one or two. Plus, that will provide a greater possibility for players to outperform their contracts rather than constantly trying to live up to the dollar amount.
This also would present the club with tradable assets going forward, something it lacks right now because of all the bad contracts, aging players and injury problems.
Ultimately, the Yankees could try to get to October next year by throwing money at the top names, and it might well work. But it didn't last year, and the team might be further away because of it.
A fresh approach, though, not only could go a long way, it also could last a long time. If it means missing October 2015 for another run of Octobers thereafter, would that be so bad?
