[Azizal]

I was thinking about the sexy young arms the Yankees have, and it occurred to me that it's been quite some time since the Yanks have had several young players burst onto the scene at the same time. Obviously, in the mid 90's there was that sick crop of dudes who won a few titles. Jeter, Posada, Bernie, Pettitte, Rivera et al were all home grown and arrived fairly near each other. Since that time, the Yanks stopped bringing up talent, preferring to ship it off for major league ready players to keep the machine rolling. Shipping off the young guys slowly was soon supplemented by throwing enormous sums of money at huge players like A-Rod (I realize he was traded for), Giambi, Mussina, Matsui, Damon, Sheffield etc. Most of these moves worked out, but a few did not. This morphed the Yankees from a ridiculous force into a regular old force (extra emphasis on old, couldn't resist).

Here's a thesis point: you need youth to win in the playoffs (preferably young hitting and old pitching, really). Young player skills are huge in a low run environment. This, imo is why the Yanks kept getting to the playoffs but no longer dominating them. They got beaten pretty squarely by the young Marlins, and tho the D'backs series was close, an established closer (instead of Kim) would've easily made that series 4-2 or 4-1.

Another interesting factor is this. The Yankees have run out of players to throw money at (I don't think this is a bad policy, I wish the Braves had that much money) Some of the guys they have are not worth the money they cost, and no one will take them in trade because of said massive contracts(Giambi, Damon) so the Yanks are stuck with them for now. There is a huge silver lining, which may or not be related: this has forced them, in a way, to hang onto their youth.

I think part of it is that the young guys the Yanks were routinely shipping off were not as good as the Hughes, Joba, EWar, Cano type guys, but I think my theory holds water despite this.

I'm sure there are people on this forum who know the Yankees much better than I, but I thought this was an interesting set of theories/dynamics and was curious what others think.