“We have won 27 World Series,” is a common phrase any baseball fan will hear this time of year, when the New York Yankees are, yet again, eliminated from the postseason.
The Yankees ring count is often followed by, “we have 23 hall of famers in our franchise history, six more than any other team.”
This is what baseball fans have become accustomed to: insecure Yankee fans, bringing up their team’s past. A past that many of today’s younger Yankee fans weren’t alive for. I guess the History Channel was made for a reason.
In the most recent years, the phrase “27 rings,” has lost its sting. The pinstripes of the past and the bruising bats of the Bronx Bombers are no longer striking fear into the hearts of baseball fans. As the decade turns to the 2020s, the reign of the New York Yankees (and their fans) is over.
For the first time since 1910, the New York Yankees failed to reach the World Series in a decade. The franchise reached the postseason seven of the last ten seasons, winning the division only three times.
The Yankees posted a 24-26 record, a .480 win percentage, in postseason play over the 10-year span. While the franchise’s all-time postseason win percentage is .586.
Since 2000, the franchise has won two world-series titles, compared to the 25 the franchise won over a 96-year span, approximately a championship every four years.
The Yankees have not only lost their dominance in the box score, but in the free agency market.
When all-star pitcher Patrick Corbin hit the market last offseason, the Yankees, like most of their previous offseasons, were the first team to make an offer. A five-year, $115 million deal was put on the table.
The Yankees deal was matched and raised by both the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals, who have two World Series championships in their combined history.
Now in this scenario, the Yankees of the last 116 years would have called Corbin’s agent and told him to name a number. They would then write out a check and be holding a press conference the following day to introduce their new star player.
But this team is no longer the Yankees of the past. Instead, the Yankees stood pat on their offer, expecting Corbin to just fall into their lap.
The Yankees eventually lost the bidding war, Corbin signed with the Nationals and helped guide them to the franchise’s first-ever World Series.
“Nationals’ Signing of Patrick Corbin Proves Yankees Can Be Outbid,” read the headline of the New York Times on Dec. 4, 2018. The failure to capitalize on a prime opportunity to snag one of the best starting pitchers in baseball passed the Yankees by. Something that would never would have happened to the “Bronx Bombers” or “The Evil Empire” of the past.
Missing out on free agents and losing in the postseason, the years of the Yankees being the big, bad bullies of baseball are over. A new class of fresh faces are being ushered into the MLB, and they aren’t wearing pinstripes.
John Pullano, Sports Editor
pullanjj18@bonaventure.edu
