Murphy's Team

Everything that can go wrong is now officially going wrong. It's May and the Yankees are in last place with little hope of climbing out anytime soon. That's how depressing this team has been so far.

The brain trust at Yankeeville looked at an offense that couldn't score as much as a soccer team the second half of last year and said, "Starlin Castro. Aaron Hicks. There ya go, done!" And waddaya know, except for the 16-run blowout a couple of weeks ago, this team has not been able to score runs.

Before the season began, what we heard was, "If the starting rotation stays healthy, they'll be as good as anyone's in the division." Well as far as we know, they're healthy. They're just not consistently good. CC Sabathia is often very good for five innings but pitches six. Nathan Eovaldi and Michael Pineda (sorry--BIG MIKE) have great "stuff," the commentators tell us, and then they throw things in the middle of the plate and guess what, it gets hit out of the park. If only we had players who could do that.

The vaunted bullpen has, with some blips, been as advertised and we haven't even seen Aroldis Chapman yet. But when the draw for your team is the bullpen, something has gone very, very wrong.

Now, it's not like nobody saw this coming. Surely Brian Cashman and his band of renown knew they had aging players and maddeningly inconsistent ones. Old: Teixeira, Beltran, Mr. Rod especially. Maddeningly Inconsistent: Ellsbury, Ellsbury, McCann and Ellsbury. Oh, and Ellsbury. Yeah, that's money well spent.

But the contract situation made this team impossible to improve on a large scale. Contracts that couldn't be moved by an earthquake: Mr. Rod, CC, Teixeira, Beltran. To some extent Gardner. And oh yeah, Ellsbury.

Didi Gregorius was supposed to have had a lousy first half last year because he was stepping in the shoes of the exalted Derek Jeter. Turns out he's just a lousy first half player. You'd think somebody would have looked up those stats.

Castro has been really good except when he's not. He needs that Yankee moment in the clutch but so far it's been elusive for... everybody. This team gets a hit with runners in scoring position as often as it gets a triple play. Largely because you need two runners on base to get a triple play.

Can this team be fixed? You have to figure people like Tex and Beltran and Gardner and yes, Ellsbury will start playing better when the temperature is higher than Donald Trump's favorable ratings. But it's never going to be a powerhouse and that's just the way it goes.

The conventional wisdom is that the Yankees can't ever be a team in transition, that they can't let things be bad while they're rebuilding. Well, that's exactly what they're doing this year. At the end of the season we'll see the last of Tex and Beltran and Ivan Nova. Next year will bring the last of CC and Mr. Rod. Then maybe we'll see Greg Bird back from injury and Aaron Judge if he can hit at AAA and Gary Sanchez if HE can hit at the Major League level, and who knows, maybe Rob Refsnyder at third base, filling in for the oh-is-he-still-on-this-team candidate Chase Headley, who is a surprise every time he comes to the plate because you're generally expecting someone else. Anyone else. Except Ellsbury.

The 2018 Yankees are looking promising. This year? Maybe they'll get to third place. Maybe. It's a long season and stuff can happen. But so far it's been Murphy's Team. Everything that can go wrong (except injuries, so far) has gone wrong. And frankly, it's been downright depressing to watch.

It takes a lot for me to reminisce about the good old days of the offseason, but at least there was some reason for optimism then. Now the best we can think is that maybe there'll be a few weeks during the summer when watching a baseball game might be a pleasant experience.

Hey, a guy can dream.