Developed Teams 2015: New York Yankees

It's hard for me to blog regularly during the baseball playoffs. There are a lot of writers who are a lot closer to the action and a lot better equipped to respond to the real time momentum shifts of a tense postseason series than I, who tends to focus more on abstract, big picture topics. One such topic is one that I've explored at length several years ago (and teased briefly earlier this year), the Developed Teams Project. Now with the 2015 regular season in the books and my copy of MLB 15: The Show purchased, I figured this would be the perfect time to reboot this project, using order of elimination from the playoffs as a guide for which teams to profile first. Since the AL Wild Card Game occurred a day before the NL's play-in extravaganza, that puts the New York Yankees in the spotlight first.

Obviously the salary and free agency columns of this chart are irrelevant for our developed team purposes, but it's still nice to get a little perspective on where these players are in their careers. For example Robinson Cano, the heart and soul of this offense, just struck free agency gold, signing the largest contract in Mariners history, and is justifiably the developed Yankees' highest paid player. Number two on that list, Japanese ace Masahiro Tanaka, brings up the same inherent problem with this project that I touched on in the above-linked sneak peek. Seeing as Tanaka was already a star in his home country for seven years before he came stateside, the Yankees didn't have a hand in his development at all. But foreign imports like Tanaka are too important to the baseball landscape to simply leave out, so I've decided to give the importing team the same status as a more traditional player's developing team. So voila: instant $20mm ace.

These Yankees also have a pair of $10mm outfielders - Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera (a star of this year's AL All-Acquired team) who would solidify the top of any batting order. The positions in left hand columns are based on actual 2015 stats, so you'll have to use your imagination to populate the depth chart sometimes - in this case placing Gardner and Austin Jackson to their secondary positions. Another brief word on the outfield, and to explain why I put three catchers on the roster: slugging DH Jimmy Paredes has played some RF and 3B in his brief career (neither of them well), but putting up with his weak defense would allow Dioner Navarro to log more time at DH.

If I were taking on this project prior to 2015 as opposed to after it, the infield corners would constitute gaping black holes, with failed catching prospect Jesus Montero the best option at first and Paredes basically forced into playing third. But two rookies - prospect Greg Bird for the Yanks and longtime minor league outfielder Adonis Garcia for the Braves, making his first appearance in my baseball database - stepped up and logged some pretty solid innings. Meanwhile Eduardo Nunez will be the first shortstop to start on a developed Yankees team in nearly two decades.

But rather than dwell on Yankees history, let's talk about the elements of New York's future that appear on this team. In addition to Greg Bird, whose immediate future is unclear with Mark Teixeira under contract for another year, Rob Refsnyder and Luis Severino look to be important cogs in the Yankees machine for years to come at 2B and SP, respectively. Severino will likely slot behind lefty Jose Quintana, who is an interesting case because he was neither initially signed nor did he make his MLB debut with the Yankees. However, given that he only managed 3 games in relief in the Mets system then spent four whole years in the Yankees farm system before debuting with the White Sox the same year in which he was acquired, his presence on this team is perfectly justified.

Once-vaunted prospects Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes underperformed expectations this year, but given that they occupy the four and five spots in the rotation with ample spot starter / long relief options lined up behind them, the starting staff looks pretty solid. But the real strength of this club is the bullpen, which features the legitimate three-headed monster of Mark Melancon, David Robertson, and Dellin Betances. There's no way all three of these relief aces equal their 2015 fantasy point totals with just one team's worth of save chances to go around, but they will give the starters an immense amount of confidence knowing that they only have to go six innings in a close game.