Not ‘Marlins cheap’ or ‘Mets cheap,’ but cheap nonetheless. They spoke endlessly of getting under the luxury tax threshold, they let Robinson Cano walk away, they limited themselves to low-commitment trades last offseason and they declined to spend a dime in free agency this winter.

You might consider this strategy wise and responsible, but it’s not. It’s cheap. It’s the classic case of valuing the next dollar more than the next win, the brand of attitude that gets ownership groups booed and even run out of town.

The Yankees and their owners, Hal and Hank Steinbrenner, have plenty of money. According to Forbes, the team’s revenue was $508 million in 2014, by far the highest in baseball. Forbes, known for under-valuing sports franchises, valued the franchise at $3.2 billion, again tops in the sport. Two years ago, the Yankees sold the majority stake in the YES Network in a deal that valued the network at $3.9 billion. Cash flow is no problem.

The Yankees have the money to spend on free agents every offseason. They have enough money to blow past the luxury tax threshold no matter the rates. They have the money to spend just as much as the Dodgers do and then some more on top of it. They have the money to ignore ugly contracts and proceed like they’re not even there.

But they don’t do any of those things.

Last season the Yankees had the second-highest payroll in baseball, but were closer to fourth than first. They ranked comfortably in the bottom half of the league in payroll as a percentage of revenue, based on 2014 revenue figures and 2015 payroll.

Reminder: pic.twitter.com/lSHDmq7gG4

— Ben Diamond (@_BenDiamond) February 8, 2016

And this offseason the Red Sox and Tigers have closed to gap by signing expensive free agents while the Yankees have basically sat on their hands. Two or three years from now, the Yankees will almost certainly still lead the league in revenue but could rank fourth or fifth in payroll.

The weird thing about the Yankees’ increasing cheapness is that, as far as I can tell, fans don’t seem overly worried or angered. There’s little outrage that while the Red Sox are off bringing in David Price the Yankees are preparing to go begin the season with CC Sabathia in the starting rotation. No consternation that the Yankees avoid spending despite having no position player who’s a strong bet on to make the 2016 All-Star team. No worry that the only place the Yankees seem willing to devote resources is their bullpen.

There seem to be a few reasons everyone is so relaxed about the Steinbrenners slowly turning into the Wilpons.

First, fans have generally bought into the idea that the Yankees are handcuffed by deals they gave out in the past, specifically during the offseason before the 2009 season and the offseason before the 2014 season. The idea is that because the Yankees already have expensive players at nearly every position, they are stuck with those players, regardless of their performance, until their deals expire. But this is factually inaccurate. As mentioned above, the Yankees have the cash to bring in pricey players at positions where they already have big contracts. They could afford to sign Yovani Gallordo and send Sabathia to the bullpen. They could afford to bring in, say, Pedro Alvarez even if they don’t plan to play him everyday. They could afford to pay Dexter Fowler or even Justin Upton and bump Carlos Beltran to the bench, and if Beltran doesn’t like that, they could afford to cut or trade him while eating his whole salary.

The Yankees have enough money to totally ignore their previous mistakes and keep spending. They choose not to.

Another reason we’ve all basically accepted the new austere Yankees is that we equate inexpensive contracts with youth, and everyone agrees this team should get younger. But the Steinbrenners wouldn’t have to sacrifice the future to pay for a more competitive team now. Spending on a top-shelf starting pitcher doesn’t mean demoting Luis Severino or Nate Eovaldi. And if the Yankees are committed to Didi Gregorius and Greg Bird as long-term starters, they could take care not to block their positions. But trotting out near-replacement-level Beltran and Chase Headley doesn’t have anything to do with youth, nor does sticking with Sabathia in the rotation.

The final reason fans have given the Yankees a pass on their spendthrift ways is a little less concrete and requires some psycho-analysis. I think Yankee supporters remain a little embarrassed about the relative failures of the post-dynasty era. Throughout the mid-2000s and into the 2010s, the Yankees strategy was buy, buy, buy, and for a while it won them almost nothing (though that 2009 World Series title was nice). During my formative years following baseball, the Yankees spent big every season, only to lose early in the playoffs every season. Yankee fans were mocked each October for our team bowing out early despite its gaudy payrolls.

It’s hard to say to what extent the Yankees’ playoff losses had to do with the way they built their team as opposed to the whims of variance, but I would bet a lot of Yankee fans are fine with laying low in free agency because they feel like spending indiscriminately has been tried and has (mostly) failed and because that approach was a bit embarrassing anyway. It feels nice that now the Dodgers, not the Yankees, are baseball’s poster-boys of excess.

But that doesn’t mean we should sit by as the Steinbrenners prioritize boardroom success over on-field success. Hal and Hank are reaping huge profits while the team enters its fourth straight season as a borderline-playoff team. Yankee fans loved George Steinbrenner because he placed an undeniable emphasis on winning and didn’t mind investing in that cause. Now, while owners like Mark Walter and Mike Illitch follow in The Boss’s ideological footsteps, King George’s own sons have gone frugal.

No longer are the Yankees doing all they can to maximize the franchise’s short- and long-term success, and that ought to make the team’s fans just a little bit angry.

Basically, because of bad contracts the Yankees have given out in the past, they are categorically unwilling to give out bad contracts, or contracts at all, in the present. In fact, the Yankees are probably the only team in baseball (except for maybe the Angels) that has so many payroll albatrosses we can argue over who holds the most damaging contract on the roster.

So without further ado, here are the candidates for worst contract on the Yankees.

Contestant 1 – Alex Rodriguez

Years remaining: Two
Dollars remaining: $40 million
WARP in 2015: 2.5
WARP over past three years: 3.2
Age: 40

Just a year ago, our first contestant not only looked like a frontrunner for worst contract on the Yankees, but also worst contract in baseball. But an emphatically solid .250/.356/.486 campaign boosted A-Rod’s deal from disastrous to merely inconvenient. In fact, it’s not far fetched to say that, based on the value of a win on the open market, Rodriguez’s play was actually worth his pay in 2015. Of course, A-Rod has two more years left on his deal, and given his age, it seems unlikely he’ll ever again be worth three wins. This contract may no longer be a catastrophe, but it’s still not one the Yankees are happy to be carrying.

Contestant 2 – Mark Teixeira

Years remaining: One
Dollars remaining: $22.5 million
WARP in 2015: 3.0
WARP over past three years: 3.3
Age: 35

Like A-Rod, our second contestant entered 2015 with a contract that appeared worthless, and like A-Rod, he had a nice year in 2015 and more or less earned his pay. Teixeira has been about as valuable over the past three years as Rodriguez (even though the latter missed all of 2014) but has two things going for him by comparison: He’s five years younger than A-Rod and is under contract for half as long. It’s not too hard to imagine Tex putting together another three-WAR campaign and riding out his Yankee deal as a productive player.

Contestant 3 – CC Sabathia

Years remaining: Two
Dollars remaining: $50 million
WARP in 2015: 0.4
WARP over past three years: 1.0
Age: 35

Things once looked so promising for our third contestant’s contract. Over the first four years on Sabathia’s seven-year $161 million deal, the left-hander averaged 32 starts and 226 innings a year, pitching to a 3.22 ERA (3.28 FIP). But a one-year extension and a dramatic decline in performance have made Sabathia a replacement player and his contract a massive burden. Unlike with our first two contestants, we have no reason to assume Sabathia will contribute any value over the remainder of his time in pinstripes. For all the fuss about A-Rod’s deal, Sabathia is actually a much worse player owed much more money.

Contestant 4 – Jacoby Ellsbury

Years remaining: Five
Dollars remaining: $110,714,285 (including $5 buyout)
WARP in 2015: 0.6
WARP over past three years: 8.4
Age: 32

While our first three contestants are all old guys whose monster contracts are almost done, Ellsbury is something scarier: a player with five years and a boatload of money remaining but rapidly diminishing value. The outfielder’s 2015 was about as bad as it gets, with injuries limiting him to 111 games and a meager .257/.318/.345 slash line mixing with uninspiring defense to produce 0.6 WARP. Five more years of that lack of production is scary to consider. On the other hand, Ellsbury has more upside than the other contestants. If he can return to his 2013-14 levels of output (3.9 WARP/year) for the next couple years this contract won’t look bad at all. It’s the worst-case scenario that makes this one so worrisome.

The winner

So who has the worst, most damaging contract on the Yankees? Well, Teixeira has only one year left, so he’s out, and A-Rod is owed less money than Sabathia and remains a better player. So our contest comes down to two very different players with two very different financial situations. Ellsbury is a slightly built center fielder with five years left on his deal and a high ceiling. Sabathia is a burly starting pitcher with two seasons remaining and little hope of ever again being a good player.

Here’s why Ellsbury’s contract is worse: Even if he bounces back from 2015 with a solid season or two, the end of his deal won’t go well. On a pure WARP-per-year basis Sabathia will likely be worse, but Ellsbury might submit three or four sub-average seasons while clogging the Yankees’ payroll for half a decade. When Teixeira, Rodriguez, Sabathia and others leave to make room for the next crop of expensive big-name stars, Ellsbury will still be around, most likely looking more like a bad investment by the day.

Lead photo: Andy Marlin/USA Today Sports

Bird will miss all of the 2016 season with a torn labrum in his right shoulder, the Yankees announced Monday. According to a news release, the injury is a recurrence of an injury first sustained last May. Bird will undergo surgery Tuesday, with the operation performed by Mets team physician Dr. David Altchek.

Losing Bird is certainly a blow to the Yankees. Playing every day in place of the injured Mark Teixeira, the 23-year-old Bird hit .261/.343/.529 in a 178 plate appearances in 2015, for a .312 TAv that ranked just behind Tex for best on the team (minimum 100 plate appearances). Bird was likely to begin 2016 either in Triple-A or on the bench but offered essential insurance in case of an injury to Teixeira and the equally brittle Alex Rodriguez.

Without Bird, the Yankees’ backup first baseman situation is cloudy, with Dustin Ackley and Brian McCann the only players on the roster outside of Teixeira with semi-substantial experience at that position. Brian Cashman might have to break his free agency silence to find someone to provide help at first.

More importantly, Bird’s injury means a lost year for one of the Yankees’ most promising young players. Bird came up last year as one of New York’s top prospects but far from a can’t-miss superstar, and while his performance in August and September gave Yankee fans hope he could be a key part of the team’s long-term future, 2016 was supposed to be the year he showed whether he’s a potential star or merely a solid contributor.

See you in 2017, #GREGBIRD. The Yankees will miss you.

Lead photo: Kim Klement/USA Today Sports

A year ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with Ben’s assessment. In fact, last September as a second straight non-playoff season wound to its end, I wrote that the Yankees were “destined for a down period, the type every other team goes through every few years, and this time there’s not much they can do about it.”

But the Yankees defied my expectations and reached the playoffs in 2015 thanks to surprising contributions from some players — notably Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran — that I had assumed to be dead money.

Still, three months ago I still assumed a short rebuild period was on the way. The Yankees’ 87 wins in 2015 didn’t seem repeatable with the team’s core aging and its depth chart stuck with some hard-to-fill holes. Brian Cashman’s commitment to youth meant the Yankees’ wouldn’t sacrifice prospects to restock the current team, which meant they would stumble through the next three years making due with what they had.

Then, Cashman went out and traded for Aaron Hicks, Starlin Castro and Aroldis Chapman and parted with only a backup catcher, middle reliever and four largely insignificant prospects. Suddenly the 2016 Yankees appear better on paper than last year’s team, and 85 wins looks like the floor for the upcoming season.

After all that’s happened in the last calendar year, from a surprise playoff berth to an impressive off-season, I’ve come to believe the Yankees can in fact have it all. Cashman is walking a tightrope, trying to contend while counting down the years until Teixeira, Rodrguez, Beltran and CC Sabathia come off the books and a crop of superstars becomes available. He’s not only kept from falling during this high-wire act, he seems to have kept himself impeccably balanced.

Despite his pessimistic view of the short-term future, Ben concedes the Yankees will probably compete for a playoff spot in 2016. This will be a team without stars, but thanks to Cashman, one without serious holes, especially if a mid-rotation starting pitcher arrives before Opening Day.

Let’s fast-forward to 2017. Teixeira and Beltran will be off the books, and Greg Bird and Aaron Judge will likely inherit playing time with their departures. The Yankees will likely still have to pay Chase Headley, Brian McCann, A-Rod and Jacoby Ellsbury more money than they’re worth, but a young position-player core will be in place, and by that time the Tanaka-Severino-Pineda-Eovaldi starting rotation will have hit its prime.

There’s little sense in predicting as far into the future as 2018, but it seems reasonable to assume much of the emerging group of 20-somethings will remain assembled, with other additions to prop them up. Cashman has shown in recent years an impressive ability to acquire real big-league value without sacrificing much of consequence. Eovaldi cost David Phelps. Didi Gregorius cost Shane Greene. Starlin Castro cost Adam Warren. No general manager wins every trade, but Cashman seems to be coming close. If there’s any executive in baseball I trust to make the kinds of incremental improvements that boost a team from 80 wins to 85, or from 85 to 90, it’s the guy running the Yankees.

Ben’s forecast for a Yankee decline rests on the idea that though the 2015 core was overpaid, it provided value that will likely dwindle over the next few years. And while this is true, it doesn’t take into account the group whose value will presumably increase between now and 2018. The progression of Gregorius, Eovaldi, Severino, Pineda, Castro, Bird and Judge, plus any additions Cashman makes over the next few off-seasons, should counteract some of the graying and keep the Yankees above water. Like the 2013-15 Yankees, the 2016-18 squads will feature several high-mileage players trending downward. But unlike recent teams, these next few will also include a promising group of youngsters.

The Yankees are rebuilding, but so far they’ve managed to prepare for the future without totally sacrificing the past. It’s a tough act to pull off, but right now it appears to be working.

They likely won’t be great team at any point during the next three years, but the Yankees might very well be better from 2016-18 than they were from 2013-15. At the very least it remains quite possible they remain above .500 and in playoff contention each season until the 2018 cavalry comes to join the prospects and restore the Yankees to glory.

Lead photo: Noah K. Murray/USA Today Sports

1 – Earle Combs

Sorry Billy Martin, managers don’t count. Combs, the first Yankee to ever wear number one, just beats out Bobby Murcer, who owned the number for most of his first stint in pinstripes.

2 – Derek Jeter

Now batting, num-bah two. Derek Jetah, numb-bah two.

3 – Babe Ruth

Babe was the first Yankee to wear number three, and it’s safe to say no one better has donned the jersey since.

4 – Lou Gehrig

This is the easiest one on the list because Gehrig is literally the only player in Yankee history to wear number four.

5 – Joe DiMaggio

Let’s pause and consider Frankie Crosetti, who wore number five, then switched to number one when DiMaggio came along, then ended up with number two. He’s one of two players in history to have worn three different single-digit numbers for the Yankees. That does not earn him a spot on this list, but it’s still cool.

6 – Tony Lazzeri 

Here’s the other guy to wear three different single-digit numbers for the Yankees. Lazzeri wore numbers five through seven in his Yankee career but spent the most time in number six. He gets the nod here over another great New York second baseman, Joe Gordon, who wore the number right after Lazzeri.

7 – Mickey Mantle

First person to wear number seven for the Yankees? Future Hall of Fame manager Leo Durocher. Last person to wear number seven for the Yankees? The Mick, of course.

8 – Yogi Berra 

Number eight was worn by a Yankee player in 35 seasons. It was worn by Berra or Bill Dickey in 31 of those seasons.

9 – Graig Nettles

Number nine is retired in honor of Roger Maris, even though four players wore it after he did, including Nettles, who had a better career, a more valuable Yankees tenure, and a longer stint in this jersey than Maris did.

10 – Phil Rizzuto

Seven players wore number 10 after Rizzuto, but no one in Yankee history donned it as long or as prosperously as the Hall of Fame shortstop.

11 – Lefty Gomez 

Gomez wore pinstriped number 11 in 11 seasons, most of any Yankee. If Brett Gardner is still on the Yankees roster come Opening Day, he’ll move past Fred Stanley and Hector Lopez for second place in that category.

12 – Gil McDougald

Number 12 has been worn by 49 Yankees, including some pretty good players. McDougald donned the number longest (10 season) and most productively (37.9 WARP), beating out Wade Boggs, Alfonso Soriano, and Ron Blomberg.

13 – Alex Rodriguez

A-Rod has made the most of a cursed number, winning two MVPs with 13 on his back. Apologies to Jim Leyritz, but no one else comes close.

14 – Moose Skowron

A real revolving-door number, 14 has been worn by an army of role players and only the occasional contributor. Lou Piniella had it longer than Skowron, but Moose provided more value in it.

15 – Thurman Munson 

Red Ruffing did the number proud back in the ’30s, but 15 will always belong to Munson.

16 – Whitey Ford 

The Chairman of the Board does not have much competition for ownership of number 16.

17 – Mickey Rivers 

Most of the 53 Yankees to wear number 17 are utterly forgettable, but Rivers, Vic Raschi, and Oscar Gamble put in some good time in this jersey.

18 – Johnny Damon 

This is probably the least impressive under-20 number in Yankee history. Damon only hung around the Bronx for four seasons, but that was long enough to beat out Don Larsen, Randy Velarde, and 51 other wearers for most valuable number 18.

19 – Dave Righetti 

The Yankees hope Masahiro Tanaka can make number 19 memorable, but for now it belongs to Rags.

20 – Jorge Posada

Before Posada, number 20 was short on history (though it was on Bucky Dent’s back that fateful day in 1978), but now it’s rightfully retired in honor of the five-time All-Star catcher.

21 – Paul O’Neill

When the Yankees tried to give away number 21 in 2008, seven years after O’Neill’s retirement, fans rebelled, booing poor Morgan Ensberg and LaTroy Hawkins. No one has worn it since.

22 – Allie Reynolds 

Even though Roger Clemens probably pitched a little better in number 22 than Reynolds did, it feels right to give this one to the ace of six World Series championship teams.

23 – Don Mattingly 

Donnie Baseball has no serious rivals for number 23.

24 – Robinson Cano 

Given how unceremoniously Cano skipped town, it will be interesting to see if he eventually gets respect as an all-time great Yankee. Regardless, he’s far and away the best to ever wear number 24 in pinstripes.

25 – Mark Teixeira 

Teixeira gets the slight edge over his 25-wearing predecessor Jason Giambi for contributing to a championship team, becoming the fourth member of the 2009 Yankees infield to crack this list.

26 – Orlando Hernandez

Here’s the list of uniform numbers worn by the most Yankees players:

Number 26 – 69 players

Number 38 – 62 players

Number 39 – 60 players

Number 22 – 60 players

Number 29 – 57 players

No one has ever held onto number 26 for very long, but El Duque, who wore it in six seasons, is a worthy representative.

27 – Elliot Maddux

This is a painfully unimpressive bunch. Maddux gets the nod because someone had to and because Bob Wickman was his closest competition.

28 – Sparky Lyle

Another underwhelming crew is saved by the 1977 Cy Young winner.

29 – Mike Stanton

Stanton wins a toss-up over Jesse Barfield because he played for the Yankees longer. After those two it’s Francisco Cervelli. Seriously.

30 – Willie Randolph

Number 30 is pretty distinguished in Yankee history, from Eddie Lopat to Mel Stottlemyre to Dave Robertson, but Randolph tops them all.

31 – Dave Winfield

Here’s an odd quirk: Number 31 for the Yankees was worn exclusively by coaches between 1930 and 1975. Winfield came along soon after and owned the digits for a decade.

32 – Elston Howard

The Yankees first black player was also the last to wear number 32.

33 – David Wells 

No one has ever consumed more hot dogs (or thrown more perfect games) while wearing number 33 for the Yankees than Wells.

34 – Brian McCann

With a respectable year in 2016, McCann can firmly grab number 34 from A.J. Burnett and Clete Boyer, who both wore it for three seasons.

35 – Mike Mussina 

The Moose may not have that spot in Cooperstown quite yet, but he does have a spot on this list!

36 – David Cone 

Cone is the only Yankee to wear number 36 for more than five seasons. His primary competition is late-career Johnny Mize and perpetually injured Nick Johnson.

37 – Gus Niarhos 

Ok, number 37 is weird. It’s retired in honor of Casey Stengel, but since we’re not counting managers here we have to choose between the only two Yankees players to ever wear it: the thoroughly irrelevant Niarhos and someone named Herb Karpel who pitched in two games in his career.

38 – Matt Nokes 

A lot of players have worn number 38 for the Yankees, and none have been any good. Hence Nokes.

39 – Roberto Kelly 

Kelly actually reached the 1992 All-Star game while wearing number 39 for the Yankees, despite a lukewarm .272/.322/.384 slash line that season.

40 – Chien-Ming Wang

Wang was a pretty good pitcher for a minute there, wearing number 40 through his rise and fall.

41 – Randy Johnson 

The pickings are pretty slim down here, so the Big Unit’s solid 2005 campaign alone earns him this spot.

42 – Mariano Rivera

Too easy.

43 – Jeff Nelson

Adam Warren was about one good year from seizing number 43, but now he’s a Cub and Nelson’s spot here is safe.

44 – Reggie Jackson 

Reggie only wore number 44 for five seasons, but that’s two more than any other Yankee has ever held onto it.

45- Danny Tartabull 

Since 2011, a whopping 13 Yankees have worn number 45, including four in 2014 alone. With that in mind, Tartabull’s claim to the number appears safe for now.

46 – Andy Pettitte 

Did you know Don Mattingly wore number 46 at the beginning of his career? His decision to cut the figure in half paved the way for Pettitte.

47 – Ivan Nova 

Believe it or not, Nova is the best Yankee to ever wear number 47. Shane Spencer leads a weak crowd of runners-up.

48 – Roy White

White wore number 48 only at the beginning of his career (he switched to number 6), just long enough to beat out Boone Logan.

49 – Ron Guidry 

Guidry is actually the only Yankee ever to don number 49 in multiple seasons. He wore it in 14.

50 – Jay Howell

It’s no exaggeration to say no one good has ever worn number 50 for the Yankees. Howell did have a 2.69 ERA in 103.2 innings (mostly out of the bullpen) in 1984 though.

51 – Bernie Williams 

Can you name the last guy to wear number 51 for the Yankees before Williams? It was pitcher Chuck Cary.

52 – CC Sabathia

Sabathia is the easy pick at number 52.

53 – Bobby Abreu 

In recent years, number 53 has become a favorite for transient Yankee bench players. But from 2006-08, Abreu wore it pretty well.

54 – Goose Gossage

Impressively, Gossage wore number 54 for nine different MLB teams and never took the field in another number. Unrelated: Only coaches have worn number 54 for the Yankees since the turn of the 21st century.

55 – Hideki Matsui 

Godzilla reigns at number 55. Ramiro Mendoza’s Yankee career would earn him the nod at a lot of these higher numbers but not here.

56 – Jim Bouton

Bouton also wins the award for best book written by someone who wore number 56 for the Yankees.

57 – Steve Howe 

Of the 31 players to wear number 57 for the Yankees, Howe is the only one to stick with it for more than one season, at least until Branden Pinder suits up in 2016.

58 – Dooley Womack 

We’re getting a little desperate down here. Womack wore number 58 from 1966-68, pitching 233.2 innings in that time.

59 – Juan Rivera

Rivera batted 276 times while wearing number 59 for the Yankees and hit .266/.307/.434 with eight home runs. He gets this spot for lack of better options.

60 – Stan Bahnsen

Not a single player in Yankee history has worn number 60 in multiple seasons, which makes this one almost impossible to choose. Bahnsen was the first Yankee to wear number 60, and though he didn’t do much while using that number in 1966, he did have a nice season two years later with 45 on his back.

61 – Shane Greene 

Another number never worn for more than a full season, 61 has hosted a motley crew of mediocre 21st-century pitchers. Greene did more with the number than the rest, however.

62 – Joba Chamberlain

Joba had his ups and downs in pinstripes, but he’ll probably own number 62 for a while.

63 – Jonathan Albaladejo

Albaladejo wore number 63 during three seasons, which is three times as many seasons as any other Yankee ever has.

64 – Rob Refsnyder

Entering 2015, eight players had worn number 64 for the Yankees. In 2015 alone, five more joined the club. Despite only 47 plate appearances, Refsnyder is already the best to have used this jersey, narrowly beating Hector Noesi.

65 – Phil Hughes

Four players wore number 65 for the Yankees in 2015, matching the number of guys who had donned those digits in all of previous franchise history. Hughes is undisputed king of the number, having worn it for almost his entire Yankee career.

66 – John Ryan Murphy

Sincere apologies to Steve Balboni.

67 – James Pazos

Number 67 went unworn by all Yankees from 1988 to 2011 but has been used by exactly one player each year since then, most recently Pazos.

68 – Dellin Betances

Two players in Yankees history have worn number 68, and sorry Dioner Navarro, but Betances has this one locked up.

68-99 – Alfredo Aceves

In Yankee history, 16 players have worn numbers higher than 68. Most of them have played in the last five years, and most of them didn’t stick around long. The best-of-the-rest award goes to Aceves, who donned number 91 in four different season spread over two stints in New York and pitched well enough to make his number proud.

Lead photo courtesy of Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

Having an incredible bullpen will obviously help the Yankees. Besides thwarting comeback attempts and controlling close games, the Betances-Miller-Chapman trio will partially compensate for New York’s underwhelming rotation by lessening the starters’ pressure to pitch deep into games.

That said, it’s not clear that trading for Chapman was the best baseball move for the Yankees given their needs, farm system, and payroll situation (leaving aside the hazy moral implications of the trade).

For one thing, this move won’t dramatically improve the Yankees’ eighth or ninth-inning situations—Chapman over Miller in the ninth and Miller over Betances in the eighth are slight upgrades if upgrades at all. The real boost comes in the sixth and seventh innings, where Betances will be considerably better than anyone else Girardi could send to the mound. The question with this trade, therefore, is whether improving the middle innings is worth the money and prospects the Yankees gave up for Chapman.

The cost for the hard-throwing lefty wasn’t absurd, in part thanks to the domestic violence charge hanging over his head. The Yankees parted with four prospects, only two of whom ranked among the team’s top 30, according to Baseball America. They’ll pay Chapman somewhere around $13 million after arbitration, a reasonable cost for a player of his caliber.

In the old days of King George Steinbrenner, when no cost was too great for the Evil Empire, this would have been no problem. The Yankees would slot Chapman in the bullpen and go spend big on a starting pitcher or maybe right fielder. But the team’s new reality includes financial prudence, which means assets spent on Chapman can’t be spent elsewhere. And if the Yankees fail to improve their starting rotation because they don’t have the money or prospects to bring in an upgrade, or if they end up a starting pitcher or infielder short one day because Rookie Davis and Eric Jagielo are gone and ownership won’t spend more to fill the holes, the Chapman trade will be a failure. Because when you’re balling on a budget, as the Yankees are, you don’t buy a Lamborghini when a Honda will do, especially if you still need to save up rent money.

Instead of filling a hole, the Yankees built on a strength. This is a fine strategy when there’s room for excess—signing a fourth elite starting pitcher when you already have three makes sense because all of them fit in a rotation—but not so much when there’s a playing-time crunch. And though Betances, Miller, and Chapman will all contribute to the 2016 Yankees, each of their respective values is diminished by the presence of the others. In a traditional bullpen, the second-best reliever doesn’t pitch as often as the best, and the third-best doesn’t pitch as often as the second-best. While Chapman, Miller, and Betances are all capable of throwing 210 combined innings in a season, there likely won’t be opportunity for all three to do so. More likely, the trio will combine for something like 180 frames. So because Chapman will take innings away from Betances and Miller, he’s not really adding 70 innings of elite relief, but something more like 40. An elite reliever is most valuable in an otherwise empty bullpen in which he’s stealing innings from replacement level bums, not in a stacked ’pen where he’s taking opportunities from All-Stars. The more top relievers you add, the more the returns inherently diminish.

There’s another reason most teams don’t have Dellin Betances-level relievers pitch the seventh inning (besides the fact that Betances-level relievers barely exist): It’s not that hard to find guys capable of handling 50-60 innings of medium-leverage work. Last offseason the Yankees got Justin Wilson for a backup catcher. In other years Girardi has found productive innings from non-prospects or cheap castoffs like Shawn Kelly, Boone Logan, Clay Rapada, Luis Ayala, and Alfredo Aceves. Dave Robertson wasn’t a highly touted prospect. Betances himself was a failed starter. A shrewd team will create valuable relievers from nothing, not spend big to acquire them.

Instead of trading for Chapman to push Betances to the seventh inning, the Yankees could have signed someone like Mark Lowe, Steve Cishek, or John Axford on the cheap or used Bryan Mitchell or Ivan Nova in middle relief. Heck, they could have kept Wilson for a fraction of Chapman’s price. Or they could have held onto Adam Warren and instead used half of the package that got them Chapman to acquire Starlin Castro. Any of these options would have moderately hurt the Yankees in the sixth and seventh inning but saved the team millions of dollars, several prospects and some potential headaches if Betances or Miller ends up dissatisfied with a diminished role (not to mention the moral and practical pitfalls that come with the domestic violence allegation).

Deep, menacing bullpens are baseball’s latest fad, ushered in by the two-year success of the Kansas City Royals. And sure, it’s cool to have three shutdown arms that can end a game in the sixth inning. But an optimal allocation of the Yankees’ resources would distribute the money and prospects spent on Chapman toward a starter, an outfielder, or next year’s trade deadline. Chapman will be fun, but for a team that’s increasingly thrifty, he wasn’t the right allocation of resources.

Lead photo courtesy of David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports

The star power in that 2009 Yankees group leads to an important question: Could that be the best infield of all time? ESPN’s Buster Olney thinks it’s up there—in 2013, he ranked that Yankees group the second-greatest infield ever, behind only the 1976 Reds. The New York Daily News explored the question back in September 2009, quoting Jim Palmer as saying the Tex-Cano-Jeter-Rodriguez quartet belonged in the conversation for best infield in history.

So I decided to compare the total WARP of the four 2009 Yankees infielders with that of other notable infields. Alas, the Big Red Machine core of Perez, Morgan, Concepcion, and Rose topped the ’09 Yanks in both 1975 and 1976. The Philadelphia Athletics’ “$100,000 infield” had the Bombers beat in 1910, 1912, 1913 and 1914.* So did the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance Cubs in 1906.* And the 1999 Mets. But the ’09 Yankees did have the best infield since… actually they didn’t even have the best infield in their division that season, bested by the Rays. But they did form the top Yankees infield since… no actually the ’07 team, despite playing Doug Mientkiewicz at first base, edged the ’09 squad thanks to a huge year from A-Rod.

*Using Baseball-Reference WAR because WARP doesn’t go back that far

Now I found myself confronting defeat. It was clear the 2009 Yankees were not quite as special as I had remembered. Here’s a partial list of infields I tabulated before giving up.

So I tried moving the goalposts. Since none of the ’09 Yankee infielders graded out particularly well on defense that year, I looked at offense-only metrics. Suddenly they scoot past the ’75 Reds, a couple of the A’s teams and the defensive-focused ’99 Mets. But even in the offense-only category, it’s hard to argue with stats that the ’09 Yanks are in the conversation for best infield of all-time. They’re still behind by the ’76 Reds, several “$100,000 infield” squads, and even those ’07 Yankees.

But even though value stats don’t quite back up my belief that the Yankees infield in 2009 was the greatest of all-time or even the best-hitting of all time, it might not be wrong to say that year (and the following three as well) the Yankees had the best infielders of any team ever.

Because check out what happens when we add together the total career WARP and bWAR of notable groups of starting infielders:

Looking at career value, that Yankees group trails the Big Red Machine in WARP, whose formula is extremely harsh on Jeter and Teixeira. But three of the four Yanks are still playing, and Cano alone could make up the remaining 11 wins over the rest of his career. Per WARP, the 2009-12 Yankees will have the most prolific infield ever by 2017.

And according to bWAR, the contest is already over. The title-winning Yankees quartet tops the mid-70s Reds (Perez, Morgan, Concepcion, Rose) early-10s A’s (McInnis, Collins, Barry, Baker), late-00s Cubs (Chance, Tinker, Evers, Steinfeldt), late-90s Orioles (Palmeiro, Alomar, Ripken, Sufhoff/Bordick), and turn-of-the-century Indians (Thome, Alomar, Vizquel, Fryman).

I’ve racked my brain for other contenders but can’t come up with any. The ’94-95 Indians would have been up there if Eddie Murray had played first as much as he DHed. The Whitaker/Trammell Tigers teams had solid corner infielders but never incredible ones. The Jackie Robinson Dodgers were missing a third baseman. Some strong duos (Bagwell and Biggio, Ripken and Murray, Greenberg and Gehringer) never fit into strong quartets.

I did find one infield, however, that beats the 2009-12 Yankees in total career value: the 2008 Yankees. That team also had Cano, Jeter and Rodriguez, but manning first base was Jason Giambi, who out-WARPs Teixeira 51.5-38.5. So according to WARP, the most talented infield in baseball history was not the group that led the Yankees to a World Series title while inspiring breathless comparisons to the Big Red Machine, but rather the squad that produced the franchise’s first non-playoff season in more than a decade.

So can we proclaim the 2008 Yankees, in a shocking upset, the best infield of all-time? Nope. Career value doesn’t totally override who the players were at that moment, and in 2008 Giambi was past-prime, Cano had the worst year of his career, and Jeter and Rodriguez were sub-standard as well.

What we can claim, after all the manipulation of stats and changing of definitions, is what I already knew going in: The 2009 Yankees infield was pretty special, whether it was the best of all-time or not.

Lead photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

If the season started tomorrow, the Yankees’ starting rotation would look something like this:

Masahiro Tanaka
Luis Severino
Michael Pineda
Nathan Eovaldi
CC Sabathia

Ivan Nova
Bryan Mitchell

Now that’s not so bad. All seven of those guys have had some degree of success one time or another and could contribute in 2016. As a bonus, six of the seven are younger than 30 years old. But, like last year, the rotation carries a number of question marks. Will Pineda be healthy? Will we see the version of Sabathia that dominated September or the one that struggled through April, May, June and July (and that’s not even touching on the fact that he’ll be pitching for the first time since checking into rehab last October)? Can Nova bounce back from a bad season? Is Mitchell truly an MLB-caliber starter?

Given the uncertainty, it’s likely the Yankees will add to their rotation before Opening Day. And given their apparent commitment to youth and austerity, we can assume they’ll look for a young, cost-controlled option. But young starters certainly don’t grow on trees, and any team that has a 25-year-old, mid-rotation pitcher won’t likely part with him easily.

With Shelby Miller off the board and Jose Fernandez’s price prohibitively high, let’s look at some young pitchers Brian Cashman might think about placing calls on.

Category I: The Deep Rebuilding Team

Though most rebuilding teams want to hold on to their mid-20s players, occasionally a team embarks on a teardown so thorough it will part with even its young major leaguers. Here, we’re looking for pitchers young enough to help the Yankees in the near future but old enough that their current teams are willing to cash in for prospects.

• Julio Teheran, Atlanta Braves

The Braves have already traded the 25-year-old Miller and 26-year-old Andrelton Simmons, so they would probably be willing to part with the 24-year-old Teheran for the right price. This would be somewhat of a buy-low move, as the righty is coming off an unimpressive season on the heels of two good ones. Teheran would cost the Yankees at least one of their top prospects (Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, Jorge Mateo), but unlike Fernandez wouldn’t require a package built around Severino.

• Taylor Jungmann, Milwaukee Brewers

Jungmann had a nice rookie year in 2015 (3.77 ERA, 3.92 FIP in 119.1 innings), but he’s already 25 years old, and the Brewers aren’t anywhere close to contention. There’s no specific indication that the 2011 first-round pick is available, but he’s the type of low-ceiling guy a rebuilding team might consider moving under the right circumstances.

• Anthony Desclafani/Rasiel Iglesias, Cincinnati Reds

This could be a stretch, but the Reds have a ton of young arms, and maybe they’d be willing to part with one of the older, more developed ones. Desclafani and Iglesias are both almost 26 with solid rookie seasons under their belts. Would Cincinnati give up guys who don’t hit arbitration for a few more years? Who knows, but it’s probably worth a call.

Category II: The Low-floor/high-ceiling guys

The Yankees could pursue a young starting pitcher whose previous teams are ready to move on following early-career injury or ineffectiveness.

• Henderson Alvarez, free agent

The Marlins non-tendered Alvarez only a year after he posted a 2.65 ERA and 3.58 FIP over 187 innings, which indicates an enormous lack of confidence in his ability to come back strong from shoulder surgery. Still, the 25-year-old has shown he can pitch at an elite level and will offer high-risk upside to whoever signs him.

• Matt Moore, Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays are supposedly discussing trades involving the 26-year-old Moore, who has thrown only 73 innings in the past two years. Once upon a time, Moore was one of the top three prospects in baseball along with Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, and the Yankees (along with everyone else) will be tempted to try to recapture that potential.

• Tyler Skaggs, Los Angeles Angels

Skaggs hasn’t lived up to his top-prospect hype, with a career 4.72 ERA in 181 innings, but his 3.55 FIP in 2015 suggests a breakout could lie ahead. The Angels have more starting pitchers (Garrett Richards, Andrew Heaney, Hector Santiago, Matt Shoemaker, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson) than they know what to do with, so perhaps they’d consider dealing the 24-year-old Skaggs.

Category III: May I interest you in Brett Gardner?

The Yankees’ willingness to trade Gardner opens up the possibility of working with a contending team that simply needs an outfielder (plus some prospects) more than a starting pitcher.

• Taijuan Walker/James Paxton, Seattle Mariners

The Mariners have already reportedly turned down a deal centered around Gardner and the 23-year-old Walker but are open to giving up 27-year-old James Paxton. Given Seattle’s need for outfielders, this one makes enough sense for the teams to eventually find some middle ground.

• Danny Salazar/Trevor Bauer/Cody Anderson, Cleveland Indians

The Indians are reportedly listening to offers on all their starting pitchers, and though Carlos Carrasco’s price tag is likely greater than the Yankees are willing to pay, Cashman could make a move for Salazar, 25, Bauer, 24 or Anderson, 25. One of these deals could require forking over some good prospects in addition to Gardner, but the 32-year-old left fielder could be an appealing target for an offense-starved Cleveland team.

• Zack Wheeler, New York Mets

The Mets have an excess of young starting pitching, and the 25-year-old Wheeler, coming off Tommy John surgery, could be the odd man out. The question is, does Sandy Alderson need an outfielder to replace Yoenis Cespedes, or are they content to start the season with a Michael Conforto/Juan Lagares/Curtis Granderson alignment.

Lead photo courtesy of Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

He’s also a 31-year-old set to begin his decline phase, and for that reason, he’s recently been the subject of some trade rumors, some of which have him headed to Seattle for a young pitcher.

Cutting ties with Gardner after all these years would sting, but it’s probably the right thing for the Yankees to do. Here’s why:

1. The Yankees should get younger in their starting lineup

Critics have been saying it for more than a decade now, but it’s as true now as ever, if not more so: The Yankees could benefit from some youth in the starting lineup. Of 10 players who received at least 350 plate appearances for New York last season, nine were 30-plus years old. And without a conscious youth movement, that won’t change much. Without a major move, next year’s Opening Day lineup will be even older than 2015’s.

For a while now, the Yankees have defeated Father Time by embracing him: They’ve just kept re-stocking with veterans, using up their final productive years and then repeating the process. But the fall of free agency (this year’s robust class notwithstanding) has made that approach less tenable, and a large chunk of the Yankees’ lineup is tied up for the next several years, meaning the team may have to (further) ride out the declines of Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Chase Headley, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Brian McCann. There’s truly no easy path to re-tooling.

Trading Gardner for a prospect or young player will help the youth movement in two ways: 1) It would add to the team’s stable of under-25 assets and 2) It would clear playing time for newly acquired 26-year-old Aaron Hicks or maybe even fellow 26-year-old Jason Heyward.

2. Gardner is one of the few movable veterans on the roster

If the Yankees hope to get younger, they don’t have many options for how to do so. Teixeira, Rodriguez, and Ellsbury have untouchable contracts. Beltran, McCann, and Headley’s deals are perhaps slightly less awful, but trading any of them would require eating a significant chunk of cash.

Gardner, on the other hand, is owed a reasonable $37.5 over three years (plus a $12.5 million team option or $2 million buy-out). The 31-year-old outfielder is one of the only veterans on the team (perhaps along with Andrew Miller) who would fetch a substantial return in a trade.

3. Gardner’s value is not maximized with the Yankees

On many teams, Gardner would play center field and steal 35 bases a year. With the Yankees, he plays left and hovers around 20 stolen bags a season.

Gardner last played center field regularly in 2013, grading out as below average in FRAA and Total Zone and about average in UZR. Though he would not be an elite defender at that position, he could likely handle it capably, which would help teams like Seattle and San Diego that are loaded with corner outfielders but lacking a man in the middle,

Meanwhile, since the Yankees’ lineup is built around home runs, they don’t ask Gardner to steal as many bases as he probably could. A manager with a roster more suited to “small-ball” might encourage Gardner to run more often than he does, thus adding to his value. And the more valuable other teams see Gardner, of course, the more they’ll be willing to fork over in a trade.

4. The Yankees have outfield depth

With or without Gardner, the outfield is not a particular area of need for the Yankees, who have Ellsbury, Beltran, and now Hicks, with prospect Aaron Judge on the way. If Brian Cashman is tempted by free agents Heyward or Yoenis Cespedes, trading Gardner becomes essentially necessary.

If there’s any position at which New York can afford to sacrifice, it’s the outfield, making Gardner more expendable than he would be if he played elsewhere.

5. New York probably won’t make the playoffs in 2016 anyway

Last season, the Yankees got better-than-expected output from just about everyone in the lineup, particularly Teixeira and Rodriguez. The bullpen was as good as could be expected and the rotation held together as well. And despite that almost best-case-scenario overachievement, the team won 87 games, snuck into the Wild-Card Game and promptly lost. Even if last year’s performance is repeatable, it’s not even that desirable.

Cashman would be best served to take a small step backwards in order to move forward. That means dealing Gardner, whose decline has already begun, for someone who will crest in time for the next great Yankee team, in 2017, 2018 or beyond.

Lead photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

For the most part, New York can’t beat itself up much for letting these guys skip town. Eiland left of his own volition, Johnson and Colon were replacement-level players, and Granderson signed a dangerously expensive contract to play in Queens. The last player in that group, however, represents one of worst trades on Brian Cashman’s mostly impressive resume.

On December 5, 2007, the Yankees traded Clippard to the Washington Nationals for fellow right-handed pitcher Jonathan Albaladejo. The trade made some sense at the time — Clippard was only 22 years old but had just posted a 6.33 ERA and 6.68 FIP in 27 innings over six starts in his debut season. Albaladejo, on the other hand, was already 25 but had pitched well out of the bullpen in a brief stint for Washington. For a franchise in win-now mode, Albaladejo seemed to offer more immediate gratification.

“He’s a big, strong, imposing guy. Six-foot-5,” Cashman said of Albaladejo at the time. “If he replicates what he did last season, then he will be an interesting character for us.”

The deal did not go well.

Albaladejo pitched 59.1 innings for the Yankees over three seasons, earning a 4.70 ERA and 5.21 FIP. After playing most of the 2010 season in Triple-A, he asked for his release so he could pursue a career in Japan. Clippard spent all most all of 2008 in the minor leagues but emerged the following season as a steady middle reliever. In 2011, with Albaladejo pitching for the Yomiuri Giants in Tokyo, Clippard reached his first All-Star Game. He remained a key cog in the Nationals’ bullpen in the ensuing years and was selected to another Summer Classic in 2014.

Clippard was traded to the Athletics before the start of this season, then redirected to the Mets at the Trade Deadline. Granted, he posted a modest 3.06 ERA in August after joining his new team and allowed five runs in 6 2/3 innings in the playoffs, including two high-leverage walks in World Series Game 4. Still, Jonathan Albaladejo pitched to a 4.91 ERA this season for the Diablos Rojos del Mexico.

Since being traded for each other in December 2007, here are the two pitchers’ Major-League WARP totals.

Clippard: 10.7

Albaladejo: -0.5

So where does Clippard-for-Albaladejo rank on the list of worst trades of the Cashman era?

Well, giving up Mike Lowell for essentially nothing in 1999 was clearly Cashman’s worst trade, but after that the field is wide open. The candidates for second-worst trade of the Cashman era:

1. The Clippard deal
2. In 2004 the Yankees gave up Jose Contreras for Esteban Loaiza. Contreras had several nice seasons in Chicago while Loaiza lasted half of one unimpressive campaign in the Bronx.
3. In 2009 the Yankees gave up Melky Cabrera, Arodys Vizcaino and Mike Dunn for Javier Vazquez and Boone Logan. The latter three players have combined for 13.4 WARP since then, while the former pair has totaled 3.9, with Vazquez now out of baseball.

Of course, every team makes the occasional bad trade, and none of these mishaps were franchise-crippling disasters. In fact, it’s quite impressive that in Cashman’s nearly two decades as Yankees’ general manager, Clippard-for-Albaladejo is among the worst trades we have to complain about.

Still, it must have stung Cashman just a bit to see Clippard on the World Series mound pitching for a crosstown rival and to know the Yankees could have held onto him if only they hadn’t preferred Jonathan Albaladejo.

(Photo: Anthony Gruppuso-USA Today Sports)