Just how long has it been since the New York Yankees failed to reach the postseason? You'd have to go all the way back to 1993, a time when the highest paid baseball player was making $6.2 million, when there were zero Japanese-born players in the majors and where Derek Jeter was at the ripe old age of 19.
But as they sit eight and a half games back in the wild card race with two weeks to play, the Yankees will, in all likelihood, suffer through a time warp and miss out on October baseball for the first time in 15 years. They'll finish behind the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox, two teams whose combined payrolls still fall $31 million shy of New York's, and they will have to overtake the Toronto Blue Jays just to finish in third place.
So who's to blame for the Yankees' colossally disappointing season? At first glance, it might be the pitching staff. Four-fifths of New York's Opening Day starting rotation has been plagued either by injuries (Chien-Ming Wang), ineffectiveness (Andy Pettitte and Ian Kennedy) or both (Phil Hughes), forcing the Yankees to lean heavily on the likes of Darrell Rasner, Sidney Ponson and Carl Pavano.
But even if they had something vastly superior to their patchwork rotation, the Yankees would not have been able to overcome what was the biggest culprit for their failed season: the offense. A team that entered the season with the reigning league MVP in Alex Rodriguez at third base and that had acquired midseason reinforcements in the outfield and at catcher has somehow managed just 723 runs, eighth in the American League. Stunningly, the Yankees have been held to fewer than three runs in 47 out of 150 games this season.
As always, fans will reserve much of their criticism for Rodriguez. They will argue that even though he may very well finish as the American League's home run leader for the second year in a row — that, too, after spending the early part of May on the disabled list — Rodriguez still crumbled when his team needed him the most.
It's not an entirely invalid argument. With the Yankees just 1.5 games off the wild card pace entering August, Rodriguez had one of the worst months of his career, striking out 30 times and grounding into 11 double plays. Thanks in large part to the failures of its $300 million man, New York suffered through its first losing August since 1996 and fell out of playoff contention.
But Rodriguez doesn't deserve all the blame for the Yankees' hitting woes. The offense as a whole has consistently failed to produce, particularly with men on base. The Bombers have the fourth fewest sacrifice flies and the fifth most double plays in the majors, and their .262 average with runners in scoring position ranks in the bottom five in the American League.
Another baffling characteristic of the Yankees' offense is its consistent inability to hit inferior pitching. Take Blue Jays starter A.J. Burnett, for instance, who is sporting a 1.78 ERA against New York compared to 4.60 against the rest of the league. Baltimore Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera, who has recorded three of his eight victories against the Yankees, is another example. The most recent case came on Sept. 5, when Seattle Mariners starter Brandon Morrow came within four outs of no-hitting the Yankees in his first big league start.
On one hand, it's easy to attribute the offense's gross underperformance to its aging, plodding veterans. But the few young players in the Bombers' lineup didn't exactly help the cause either. Fresh off signing a four-year, $30 million extension in the offseason, 25-year-old Robinson Cano is hitting 40 points below his career batting average, and his .294 on-base percentage is the second-worst among major league second basemen with at least 500 at-bats.
Knowing their team was trying to rebuild and win at the same time, Yankee fans may have been willing to trade a title run in 2008 for some sign of progress from the team's young players. Instead, with Cano struggling mightily, center fielder Melky Cabrera earning a mid-August demotion and Hughes and Kennedy each posting winless seasons, the Yankees endured the worst of both worlds: a disappointing season and a great deal of uncertainty about their future.
