Yankees Drowning in a Sea of their own Wealth

Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay have been great fill-ins for the Yankees, but the team needs a miracle if they want to make the playoffs (Credits: AP Photo)

Usually it's a good thing to be the Yankees. The money, the championships, the legacy, the Hall-of-Famers, the history, almost everything. There's something about everything they do that works, sometimes the little stuff, sometimes the big stuff; it just results in positives for the Bronx Bombers. However, that all might change in the near future. The Yankees might not be a sinking ship just yet, but their most fruitful asset might be their undoing at the moment.

For the Yankees, money is never an issue. There is no free agent to big, no free agent to bold to chase with some dead presidents. Since the Steinbrenners took over in 1973, the Bronx has been home to some of the most high-profile players and lucrative contracts. Screwing any type of a farm system, the Yankees rarely wasted time building for the future except for a oddly long playoff hiatus starting in 1982 and lasting until 1994. Since '95 the Pinstripes have played October baseball every year except for one, and have done it by slapping Major League Baseball around with their wallet. It was a system that worked wonders, giving the franchise five World Series trophies in that 17 year period. But the system of trading money for wins might be reaching its peak. A disastrous downfall could be lurking in the shadows.

As of Friday the Yankees sat 2.5 games out of the last wild card spot and 6.5 behind their AL East leading rival Boston Red Sox. It's actually been quite a successful season if you see the Yankees lineup which consists of over-the-hill veterans Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells and Travis Hafner. I'd call it a minor miracle. Yet, we're in mid-July and we've only seen Kevin Youkilis play 28 games, Mark Teixeira play 15 games, Curtis Granderson play eight games, Derek Jeter play one game and Alex Rodriguez play a whopping zero games this season. That's $103 million tied up in extended DL stints, a total salary worth more than 16 different teams' entire payrolls. But you've heard these stats and you don't want to hear them again.

My question is this, how far can the Yankees actually take this? You'd assume that they've lined their pockets enough to keep just adding salary until things work out (i.e. adding an aging Alfonso Soriano for his second Pinstripes stint), but Hank Steinbrenner has said there's going to be some reeling back of the frivolous spending. Obviously that's not true with the Yanks bringing on Soriano's $16.2 this season. As much as George Steinbrenner's heir apparent wants to curb the spending, he can't when Yankee Stadium's lower bowl remains a ghost town. The Yankees must put a winner out there. Absolutely Must. They're the Yankees, there is no rebuilding, there is no future; it's all about now.

Well now, no matter how the Yankees want to slice it, is not a good time. They're sitting on the outside of a brutally tough AL East and AL wild card race with three exciting, young teams ahead of them. This is no cake walk to October, not when your entire starting lineup can't even touch the diamond. Forget this A-Rod nonsense, the Yankees have to pull off miracles to make the playoffs and I'm not sure it can happen. Not when the only starting pitcher worth anything right now is 38-year-old Hiroki Kuroda and the putrid lineup is...well...putrid. I'll tell you right now, Alfonso Soriano isn't going to reach back and find his inner 2002. He can help, but is he going to change the Yankees fortunes? Highly unlikely. This team and potentially this entire franchise, is in dire straits.

One thing I've learned all my life is you can never doubt the Yankees, but then again those were George's Yankees. This team has a different feel, a feel of absolute lifelessness. And while the fill-ins have filled in quite nicely, this squad as currently constructed, has no chance of catching those teams in front of it, not without some sort of miracle. Yet, if I'm a Yankees fan I don't fear this season. I fear the future, especially with the team's best player entering free agency. Especially with the team's best player wanting the sort of money that will catapult the Yankees payroll even further into the red zone. Fear should run deep.

The Yankees, as we know it, might not be the Yankees as we knew it. Then again they are the Yankees and usually money solves everything. It's just, at this point, how much is too much?

We're about to find out. Get out your checkbooks folks, this could get ugly.