New York Yankees - The Obama / Trump Years (2010-2019)

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2010

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2012

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2019

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2016

Championships

Top New York Players of the Twenty Teens

2010 - WC Won ALDS(Twins); Lost ALCS (Texas)

2011 - Won Division, Lost ALDS (Detroit)

Pitchers:

2012 - Won Division, Won ALDS (Baltimore), Lost ALCS (Detroit)

CC Sabathia (23.91) - 64

2015 - WC; Lost WC Play-in (Houston)

Masahiro Tanaka (17.51) - 49

2017 - WC, Won WC Play-in (Twins), Won ALDS (Cleve), Lost ALCS (Houston)

Mariano Rivera (8.06) - 31

2018 - WC, Won WC-Play-In (A's), Lost ALDS (Boston)

Aroldis Chapman (5.68) - 30

2019 - Won Division, Won ALDS (Twins) Lost ALCS (Houston)

Luis Severino (12.42) - 25

Hiroki Kuroda (11.24) - 25

BallPark:

Phil Hughes (2.52) - 21

Yankee Stadium

Ivan Nova (7.49) - 19

David Robertson (12.35) - 18

Team Name:

Dellin Betances (11.61) - 15

Yankees

Andrew Miller (4.72) - 14

Michael Pineda (6.39) - 14

Owner:

Rafael Soriano (2.94) - 11

Steinbrenner Brothers

Andy Pettitte (6.96) - 11

Nathan Eovaldi (3.81) - 11

General Managers:

Domingo German (2.18) - 10

Brian Cashman (2010-2019)

James Paxton (2.42) - 8

A.J. Burnett (0.72) - 7

Managers:

Adam Warren (7.55) - 6

Joe Girardi (2010-2017)

Sonny Gray (1.64) - 5

Aaron Boone (2018-2019)

Jordan Montgomery (3.42 - 4

JA Happ (3.45) - 6

Hall of Famers:

Chad Green (5.63) - 3

Mariano Rivera

Zack Britton (2.84) - 2

Derek Jeter

Alex Rodriguez (Pending)

Catchers:

Gary Sanchez (11.31) - 30

Rookie of the Year:

Brian McCann (5.33) - 25

Aaron Judge (2017)

Russell Martin (4.21) - 12

Jorge Posada (0.92) - 8

MVP:

Austin Romine (0.07) - 7

None

Francisco Cervelli (3.63) - 3

No Hitters:

First Basemen:

None

Mark Teixeira (15.19) - 42

Luke Voigt (2.69) - 10

Cy Young

None

Second Basemen:

Robinson Cano (30.13) - 49

Notable Events:

DJ LeMahieu (5.88) - 12

Starlin Castro (3.3) - 9

2010 - Not a good decade for New York. For the first decade in a hundred

years, the Yankees don't make it to the World Series, let alone win one.

ShortStop:

The decade started out strong as the residual effects of the 2009 spending

Didi Gregorius (13.57) - 43

spree kept the Yanks at or near the top of the Division for the next three

Derek Jeter (4.86) - 23

years. After that it was five years of mediocrity, at best, missing the post

Gleyber Torres (5.88) - 18

season three times and barely squeaking in as a Wild Card twice.

The organization finally got its act together in 2018 and the Yanks topped

Third Base:

100 wins in both '18 and '19 altho' they were unable to reach the World

Alex Rodriguez (12.43) - 28

Series. The decade was very reminiscent of the 1980's where the Yanks

Chase Headley (7.46) - 14

had a lot of total wins for the decade but rarely were a serious contender.

Gio Urshela (3.9) - 9

Miguel Andujar (2.45) - 6

2010 - New York deals three youngsters LHP Mike Dunn, 25, RHP Arodys

Vizcaino, 19, and CF Melky Cabrera, 24, for RHP Javier Vazquez. 33.

Outfield:

Ironically, this is the second time the Yankees deal three youngsters

Brett Gardner (38.09) - 87

for Vazquez, the first time was in 2004.

Jacoby Ellsbury (9.83) - 39

And for the second time, it doesn't work out as Vazquez fails again.

Aaron Judge (18.68) - 37

Curtis Granderson (15.03) - 35

2010 - The Yankees pick up CF Curtis Granderson, 29, from the Tigers in

Nick Swisher (10) - 28

exchange for two more youngsters, RHP Ian Kennedy, 24, and

Aaron Hicks (9.52) - 24

CF Austin Jackson, 23. It's déjà vu all over again as now Cashman,

Carlos Beltran (2.4) - 17

instead of George, that's emptying out the farm system for the

Giancarlo Stanton (4.39) - 11

stopgap veteran du jour.

Ichiro Suzuki (2.82) - 10

Andrew McCutchen (0.76) - 2

2010 - the Yankees come into the Twenty Teens decade on a high.

They had just won the World Series in '09.

The team is loaded with veteran star callibre talent:

Notable Events:

□ C - Jorge Posada, 38, pre-Cashman core four

□ 1B Mark Teixeira, 30, high priced free agent 2009

2015 - SS Didi Gregorius, 25, is obtained from Arizona for Shane Greene.

□ 2B Robinson Cano, 27, IFA 2001

This deal is a steal.

□ SS Derek Jeter, 36, pre-Cashman core four

You have to wonder what the Diamondbacks were thinking on this one as

□ 3B Alex Rodriguez, 34, trade for Alfonso Soriano in 2004

Gregorius oozes talent.

□ CF Brett Gardner, 26, 3rd round pick 2005

□ OF Nick Swisher, 29, trade from Chicago in 2009 for 3 suspects

2015 - Closer Andrew Miller, 30, is signed as a FA from Baltimore. Nice signing

□ LHP CC Sabathia, 29, high priced free agent 2009

□ LHP Andy Pettitte, 38, pre-Cashman core four

2015 - C Gary Sanchez, 22, debuts. He was an IFA in 2009

□ RHP AJ Burnett, 33, high priced free agent 2009

The Yankees would do well to move Sanchez to another position before it's too late.

□ Closer Mariano Rivera, 40, pre-Cashman core four

He is too good a hitter to have his career cut short due to catcher's disease -

□ RHP Javier Vazquez, 33, trade with Braves 2010

heavy legs from constant squatting.

□ CF Curtis Granderson, 29, trade with Tigers 2010

And, besides, he's not a good catcher.

Note that even tho' a lot of these guys are old, they can still play

at the highest level.

2015 - RHP Luis Severino, 21, debuts. He was signed as an IFA in 2011

There are also several talented youngsters on the 2010 roster:

□ RHP - Phil Hughes, 24, 1st round pick in 2004 draft

2015 - 1B Greg Bird, 22, debuts. He was a 5th round pick in the 2011 draft

□ RHP - Joba Chamberlain, 24, 1st round pick in 2006 draft

□ Closer - David Robertson, 25, 17th round pick in 2006 draft.

2015 - The Yanks are a Wild Card, but get beaten in the Wild Card Play-in

□ Closer - Mark Melancon, 24, 9th round pick in 2006 draft

game by Houston

2010 - OF Lance Berkman, 34, is obtained from the Astros for

2016 - 2B Starlin Castro, 26, is picked up in a deal with the Cubs for Adam Warren.

Mark Melancon, 24, at the trade deadline.

Another steal of a deal altho' the Yanks dump Castro the following year.

Bad deal as Berkman is a dud, while the young Melancon turns into a stud.

2016 - OF Aaron Judge, 24, debuts, he was a first round pick in 2013

2010 - New York makes the playoffs as a Wild Card and beats the Twins

before losing to Texas in the ALCS.

2016 - Closer Aroldis Chapman, 28, is obtained in a trade from the Reds for four

Interestingly, altho' the club dropped eight games in the standings

non-prospects. He is later traded to the Cubs at the 2016 trade deadline

from '09 to '10, their run differential was almost identical both seasons.

for Gleyber Torres and Adam Warren and then re-signed after the season by the

The Yanks scored 162 runs more than they gave up in '09 and 166 in '10,

Yankees as a free agent in 2017. Nice maneuvering.

The difference can be attributed to Mariano Rivera dropping from 44 to 33

Plus Warren is back so they essentially got Castro in the earlier deal for nothing.

saves altho' the rest of his stats were almost identical. His save opportunites

went down from 46 to 38 which means that altho' the team's run differentials

2016 - Closer Andrew Miller is traded to Cleveland for four prospects at the trade

were virtually identical, there were eight less games for Mariano to save,

deadline including two former first round picks: stud outfielder Clint Frazier, 21

for what it's worth.

and stud lefty Justus Sheffield, 20.

2011 - C Russell Martin, 28, is signed as a free agent from LA

2016 - A-Rod is put out to stud during the season.

Mercifully, his Yankee career (and ordeal) is finally over.

2011 - A lot of new faces on the mound:

□ RHP Ivan Nova, 24, IFA in 2004, debuted in 2010, goes 16-4 in 2011

2016 - New York finishes fourth with an 84-78 mark.

□ RHP - Bartolo Colon, 38, FA signed from Chicago,

who knew he was still just a youngster?

2017 - OF Matt Holliday, 37, is signed as a FA. He still has some gas left in the tank

□ RHP - Freddie Garcia, 34, FA signed from Chicago

□ Closer - Rafael Soriano, 31, signed as a FA from Tampa,

2017 - LHP Jordan Montgomery, 24, is a rookie. He was a 4th round pick in 2014

he makes it clear he doesn't consider himself to be a setup man

□ Reliever - Dellin Betances, 23, he was a nice pick in the

2017 - 3B Miguel Andujar, 22, debuts. He was signed as an IFA in 2011

8th round of the 2006 draft

2017 - The Yankees pick up ace righty Sonny Gray, 27, from the A's at the

2011 - The Yanks win the Division but lose to Detroit in the ALDS.

trade deadline for three players.

New York has a far better run differential in '11 as they outscore the

opposition by a whopping 210 runs and improve in the standings by 6 games.

2017 - New York finally starts putting it together, making the wild card and taking

It's an old club but, by and large, the old guys are still producing at a

eventual WS Champs Houston to game seven of the ALCS.

high level. The core four plus one, however, is beginning to disintegrate.

The organization is loaded with young talent. It looks like, after twenty years in the

□ Rivera is still rolling along

job, that Cashman has finally figured out how to do it properly. He's been making

□ Posada is replaced behind the plate by Russell Martin

some excellent trades lately and the farm system is one of the best in baseball.

□ Pettitte prematurely retires

□ A-Rod misses a third of the season with a knee injury

it's the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" theory with Cashman.

□ Jeter continues a roller coaster ride that started in 2010 of slumping,

Time will tell, so to speak.

adjusting his swing and then hitting well afterwards.

2018 - New York acquires super star slugger Giancarlo Stanton, 28, in a deal

2012 - New York adds a bunch more really old veterans:

with the free falling Marlins.

□ Ichiro Suzuki, 38, no longer a superstar, but can still play

2B Starlin Casto and two youngsters go the other way in an extremely one sided

□ Andruw Jones, 35 going on 45

deal. Miami had tried to deal Stanton to the Cards and the Giants earlier, but

□ Eric Chavez, 34, still shows flashes of his great talent thru the injuries

Stanton vetoed the deals. Two ex Yankee superstars are running the Miami club

□ Raul Ibanez, 40, was getting better with age

in President Derek Jeter and manager Don Mattingly and there were howls of

□ Hiroki Kuroda, 37, was getting better with age

protest about how lopsided the deal was, but it was legit.

Note that Kuroda turns into the ace of the staff.

This is reminiscent of the Eighties where they Yanks are now desperately

2018 - In a questionable move, Cashman fires manager Joe Girardi.

plugging in second and third tier veterans trying to keep afloat.

Girardi had consistently year in and year out had his teams outperform their

These kinds of guys can only take you so far, however.

talent level in New York including 2017. Unclear why you would want to get rid

of one of the few managers who is a real difference maker.

2012 - The Yanks win the Division but lose to Detroit in the ALCS this time

At the end of the day, the Yankees were now talented enough where they

could succeed without Girardi, so the firing was moot.

2012 - A lot of intrigue with the core four plus one:

□ Posada retires but isn't happy about it

2018 - The Yanks win 100 games and make the Wild Card.

□ Rivera tears his ACL shagging flies in early May and is out for the season.

They beat the A's in the wild card play-in, but then get beaten in four games

For most guys over forty, this would be the end of the line.

by the Red Sox in the ALDS. The Red Sox series exposed weaknesses

Mariano wasn't most guys.

in an otherwise juggernaut team. New York bludgeoned the opposition

□ Pettitte un-retires, comes back, breaks his leg getting hit with a ground

scoring 851 runs behind OF Aaron Judge, DH Giancarlo Stanton,

ball, and, similarly to Rivera, bounces back to pitch effectively at an

3B Miguel Andujar, IF Gleyber Torres, SS Didi Gregorius and OF Aaron Hicks.

advanced age when most guys that age wouldn't be able to do it

The Bombers slugged a record 267 home runs. But they were home run or nothing.

□ A-Rod breaks his hand getting hit by a Felix Hernandez pitch and

The lineup is unbalanced righthanded, which is particularly eggregious because their

misses a bunch of games

home games are in lefty friendly Yankee Stadium, altho' that is mitigated somewhat

□ Jeter keeps rolling along despite dubious reports about his supposedly

by the fact that some of these righties' popups to right field land in the seats.

declining fielding and he leads MLB in hits. The stats about Jeter's bad

Hicks, Gregorius, Gardner and Bird are the only lefties which makes the Yankees

fielding came from a statistician working for the Red Sox. Talk about bias!

vulnerable to even mediocre right handed pitching.

Not only that, Boston would have killed to have Derek on their squad

There are several very bad defensive players among the starters:

as their shortstop, bad fielding stats or no.

C Gary Sanchez, 1B Greg Bird, and 3B Miguel Andujar.

A fast team with guys with good bat control like the Red Sox was able to expose

2013 -The Yankees fall back a notch and stay there.

the defensive weakness.

They no longer have the talent to contend.

The Yankees lineup had one way of winning, the home run. When that was taken

They had been doing it with a bunch of really old guys with the core

away, the Yankees had no plan B.

four plus one producing at a high level way past their expected shelf life

Bat control, speed, the ability to put the ball in play were all weapons for the Sox,

to help keep the Yankee ship afloat. There just wasn't any young talent

not for the Yankees. New York was overmatched.

coming up to replenish the squad.

On the mound, the Yanks had a great bullpen, but they didn't have the lights

And frugality prevailed regarding the free agent market.

out starter you need in the post season.

The Yanks had been bringing in free agents, but they were really old and,

therefore, not very expensive. There was no interest by the Steinbrenners

2019 - New York tops 100 wins for the second year in a row. Their 21st 100 win

in bringing in high priced FA's. With an awful farm system, where was the

season and the fifth time they've done it twice in a row:

high quality talent going to come from if not free agency?

□ 2002-2004 (three in a row)

□ 1977-78

2013 - The core four plus one:

□ 1941-42

□ Posada stays retired

□ 1936-37

□ Pettitte retires, this time for good.

□ 1927-28

□ A-Rod, his body clearly breaking down, has hip surgery and misses

This 100 win season was one of their most impressive because New York was

most of the season. The roids use was taking it's toll. Yankee management

besieged with injuries and yet kept on winning as second and third stringers

would use this to try to void the remainder of A-Rod's contract.

stepped in and did the job. Unfortunately, the Yankees post season woes

□ Jeter broke his ankle in the 2012 post season and spends most of '13

continued as they were unable to match the front line pitching of their opponents.

on the DL due to a hairline fracture in that same ankle as well as

While the Yankees have great organizational talent and depth both at the plate

suffering quadriceps and calf strains compensating for the pain.

and on the mound, they continue to lack top of the line aces on the mound and

□ Mariano retires after the season after saving 44 games to a 2.11 ERA

balance in their offense. Also, several of their big hitters are liabilities in the field.

after coming back from the ACL at age 43. Remarkable.

That being said, it wouldn't shock anyone to see the Yankees win a World

Series with this club.

2013 - As an aside, the Yankees team up with soccer power Manchester

City to found the new New York City FC soccer franchise.

2019 - The Yanks don't make it to a World Series, let alone win one, for the

This is only significant because Manchester City's management knows

first time in a hundred years. For a team with New York's resources and

that there's virtually no upper limit to what you should spend to keep

the fact that they are the most iconic team in the world on it's most iconic stage,

your team on top and loaded with stars when you have a team that is a

the decade cannot be considered anything but a failure.

big name brand in your sport.

Not only that, but for a four year run in the middle of the decade,

Ironically, Yankee management continues to remain ignorant of this fact

they were a mediocre, barely over .500 club. A disaster if you're a Yankee.

even with a living example camped on their doorstep as they continue to

step over dollars to save nickels with their obsession about staying out

of the baseball luxury tax zone.

2014 - Now in unmistakable decline, New York decides that it will spend a

fortune on free agents. The problem is that they're doing it in desperation.

Timing is everything. If you're going to spend big, the game needs to come

to you. i.e. When a high quality talent becomes available, pounce. With

the Yankees, they got desperate and then threw a lot of money at whatever

was around. The Yankees got lucky in 2009, the last time they decided to

spend. A couple of high quality guys like Sabbathia and Teixeira were

around back then. There was nothing of their quality around this time.

2014 - The one high quality superstar that was available, ironically, was

the Yankees' own Robinson Cano, 31, who they don't hold onto and

let him leave as a free agent to Seattle. This was an extremely foolish move.

It's one thing to BS the world. What you don't want to do is believe your

own BS. That's what the Yankees did with Cano. Yankee management

had been blaming A-Rod's contract for all of their woes. 100% BS.

Now, they were BS-ing themselves into not signing Cano because it

would turn into another A-Rod contract. They should be so lucky, A-Rod

kept them in the playoffs for years. Ironically, Cano is exactly the piece

that will be most glaringly missed for the rest of the decade. A high quality,

lefty hitter with power. The Yankees are never able to fill this gap once

they let Cano slip thru their fingers and are vulnerable to any mediocre

righthander other teams throw at them, especially at Yankee Stadium.

Dumb on dumb.

2014 - The new free agents:

At the end of the day, these guys don't move the needle much despite the

cost. Losing Cano more than offset any gains and the Yankees remain

a team struggling to stay above .500.

□ CF - Jacoby Ellsbury, 30, spent a fortune on a redundant player.

Hadn't anyone noticed that Bret Gardner was still on the team?

Ellsbury turns out to be a dud, but even if he wasn't, this signing was

pure lunacy.

□ C - Brian McCann, 30, the Yankees needed to do more of this type of

signing. McCann was worthy.

□ OF - Carlos Beltran, 37, ten years earlier, this would have been a great

signing. Carlos still has a lively bat, but is limited as a DH only

□ RHP - Masahiro Tanaka, 25, good signing.

Becomes a solid member of the rotation altho' not the ace that the Yanks

had hoped for. Even with this signing, Yankee management just couldn't

seem to get out of their own way. They instigated major league baseball to

change the bidding process for Japanese free agents and it turns out that

the original bidding process would have been much cheaper for them.

Even when they won, they lost.

2014 - Core four plus one

□ Derek retires after the season. He bats .256 at age forty

□ A-Rod is suspended for the year for drug use.

A bogus suspension by Commissioner Bud Selig who appears to be

doing this purely to do the Steinbrenners a favor by saving them a year of

A-Rod's salary. It certainly wasn't any moral stance by Selig, who deliberately

ignored steroid use in baseball for years when it was "juicing up" interest in

the sport in the late Nineties and early Naughts.