The Futility Infielder

Capping off a rather intensive month of contributions to Baseball Prospectus, I've got a new piece today that's part of BP's Setting the Stage series. It's a rather jaundiced look at the Yankee offseason, a shorter and more measured take on my "I'll Tell You About the Damn Yankees" piece of a couple months back:

I have a confession to make. I'm a fair-weather Yankee fan, bandwagoneer, carpetbagger, flip-flopper of the worst (pin)stripe. Call me what you will; I've heard it all and worse. If you've read me elsewhere you probably know all this, and it's nothing new. That's not what I'm talking about.

No, my confession is this: After a lifetime hating all that the interlocking NY stood for, I moved to Manhattan just in time to be seduced by the class and composure of the Joe Torre team thatended the Bronx's championship drought in 1996. Over the ensuing seasons, the Yankees have brought me a joy that's included celebrating their 1999 World Championship with 57,000 of my closest friends in The House That Ruth Built. Now, however, after all of that fun, I'm coming to loathe this team just as I was raised to do.

On the heels of their unprecedented collapse in last year's American League Championship Series, and on the eve of a 2005 season that opens with them facing the same archrivals who subdued them, this Yankee team fills me with dread. The jig is up; the Yankees have created severe problems for themselves, and the money they've used to solve those problems is in considerably shorter supply than they've led us to believe. They're a $200 million tightrope walker, and I have to admit, I'm curious at what the splatter would look like if they tumbled.

I have to admit that I could have gone on for three times the length of the published article -- did in fact, but reined myself in before the BP editors could publicly horsewhip me for another War and Peace-length tome. I don't really loathe the Yanks, just a lot of what they've done this offseason. More than the product on the field -- and I picked them for the Wild Card with the Red Sox taking the AL East -- I worry they're losing ground to the Red Sox in the front-office brainpower arms race. If it meant a rethinking of the team's player development and roster construction philosopies, a lonely October and a clearing out of the Tampa deadwood wouldn't be the worst thing that happened to the franchise. Fortunately, if I'm wrong, I still get to enjoy ballclub that if things break right, ought to have another shot at Championship #27. That's what we call win-win.

Off to Milwaukee for the weekend, setting the TiVo in time to catch the Opening Night festivities when I return on Sunday. The winter of my discontent is finally about to end, and I couldn't be happier.