Dismiss the Yankees At Your Peril

The clouds are gathering in the collective wisdom and coalescing into dismissal of the New York Yankees. Go ahead, at your own peril.

For sure, the Yankees are a pale shadow of their former selves. Their stockpile of big ticket free agents are nursing osteoporosis now. Many of their richest players pass the season on the disabled list -- or the suspended list. They have made a habit for two years now of auditioning one reclamation project after another in the hopes of catching lighting in a bottle for 300 at-bats.

It's certainly nothing like 1996-2012, when NYY was a post-season lock -- 16 times in 17 years, reaching seven World Series and capturing five championships. Last year, Joe Girardi's nine won 52.5% of their games, their worst performance in more than two decades. This season, it's a tick below that. The Yankees are basically a .500 team.

And yet, the Bombers are 58-53, just five games out of first in the limp AL East and a mere game out of the Wild Card. In another week or two, Michael Pineda returns to the mound, and ace Masahiro Tanaka could be hurling for them again in September.

They would complement new additions Chase Headley at third and Martin Prado anywhere they want.

Could the Yankees emerge from the scrum among Toronto, Seattle, KC, Cleveland and Tampa for the last playoff slot? Sure, why not? Every team on that list has an Achilles Heel as vulnerable as New York's punchless outfield. Could the Yankees overtake Baltimore for the AL East with a few hot weeks? Stranger things have happened. Heck, Hunter Pence parallel parked yesterday.

Then once they're in, all bets are off. Or on. Or...whichever it is. Baseball playoff series are only slightly less random than GEICO ads.

Which brings us to another piece of conventional wisdom gone astray. Since the trade deadline, it has become doctrine that the Tigers, with their three Cy Young starters, or Oakland, with their own trio of aces, are locks to compete for the pennant. As if Max Scherzer has never lost 2-1 (to the Yankees yesterday). Or Justin Verlander, blown up (seven starts of five runs or more allowed this year). 

It's certainly an advantage to throw three aces at an opponent in a seven-game series than not. It's an advantage to throw three aces at opponents all year. But it's not a guarantee of anything, particularly over a handful of games.

The Yankees aren't the favorites. the Tigers and A's are. (Perhaps the stacked Angels' lineup too.) But the favorite entering baseball's playoffs -- much less entering August -- hasn't won the championship the last four years. For that, you have to go back to 2009 when -- well whaddaya know! -- the Yankees won it all.

Montero for Pineda: The Prospect Swap That Failed Everyone

Remember the blockbuster 2011 trade between the Yankees and Mariners? Of if not blockbuster, not by New York standards, but a star vehicle with a big opening weekend at the box office? The one in which top prospect Jesus Montero left the Bronx for promising sophomore hurler Michael Pineda?

Well, about that.

Pineda had a season under his belt of 3.74 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 171 innings. He killed lefties and righties by pounding the strike zone from his 6'7" frame. Yankee brass saw through the 9-10 record and liked the way a 3.2 K/BB ratio sounded. And they were done with Montero, whose bashing minor league pedigree and 996 OPS in 18 Major League games had other teams in a lather.

The Mariners figured that even if Montero's backstop development was a lost cause, he could rip the ball from the DH slot and reverse years of historically putrid run scoring in Seattle. In a ballpark that seemed to develop pitchers all by itself, they reasoned that they could replace Pineda.

The logic seemed sound on both ends: the Bombers needed another DH like Julia Fordham needed another good friend. The M's believed Montero's "Can't Miss" status meant he could hit.

And now, as Paul Harvey said, you know the rest of the story. Pineda's Spring training velocity last year took a dive before the Yankees discovered a torn labrum. He hasn't thrown a baseball in anger since. Montero has struck fear only in the hearts of the Mariners' front office, posting replacement-level performances in 2012 and 2013 only on his good days. Yesterday, Montero and his .669 Seattle OPS went to Tacoma for some freshening up.

After 200 games, the Yankees have gotten nothing from the trade and the Mariners actually less than nothing, in the sense that Montero has added (-.4) wins against replacement. Except that replacement-level batters win starting jobs in Seattle, so actual replacement level for them is a glove-first Double-A middle infielder.

Pineda is expected to pitch again this year and (Warning: Obligatory Jesus humor ahead) Jesus could return to Seattle. (There's no team in Bethlehem, PA.) For now, what looked like a blockbuster was more like a ball buster for both sides.