Have The Yankees Lost Their Luster?

Could it be possible? One of the greatest and most successful franchises in all of professional sports have lost their luster? According to Sports Writer Jason Keidel (WFAN Columnist may have a valid point here), the New York Yankees could be losing their touch. This is a team that has won 27 World Championships, more than an other team in pro sports. The Montreal Canadiens are the only other franchise in sports that have anything close to that many titles (the team has won the Stanley Cup 24 times). Over the last few years, however, its seems as if the New York Yankees has lost some of its luster.

Jason Keidel, who covers the Yankees and baseball for WFAN, wrote a column the other day saying how he feels that the Yankees have lost some of their luster as a franchise. He may have an argument. To read his article, just check it out here.here.

So you can read the article for yourself. The way I look at it Keidel brings up many valid points. Right now, in the New York Baseball Scene, the Mets are the talk of the town not the Yankees. People really wanna come to town and see the Blue and Orange rather than the Black and White. With good reason, because the future is a little bit brighter in Queens than it is the Bronx. Nobody is ever going to dispute how good this team is and its history. But the times have changed. The Mets have taken over being THE team in New York right now. Being the defending National League Champions has a lot to do with it, sure.

As far as the Yankees go, they have lack some of that luster you've seen in the past. Lets look at this as a point of comparison. The St. Louis Cardinals are the only other team in Major League Baseball to win multiple World Series Titles (they have 11). St. Louis always finds a way to come out near the top of the NL Central almost every single year, which is something that the Yankees used to be able to do. St. Louis wins with a fraction of the Yankees’ budget, spending $80 million less for more wins. The Cardinals are a montage of harmony, a Rockwellian postcard from the heartland, where they make beer, grow corn and build baseball titans.

What that means is the Cards can sustain a model of excellence and don't have to spend a ton of money to do it. That used to be the way things worked in the Bronx. Now its not there. Now the Yankees currently have a roster full of aging stars who are injury prone and starting to get past their prime. I mean, look at the roster. Outside of Dellin Betances and Greg Bird (when he's healthy) name me one guy who's a regular on this roster who's home grown? It's hard, right? That's my point. I've been saying this for a long time now in that the New York Yankees are more interested at the moment in getting star power than winning titles. Derek Jeter was the last of the core home grown talent to leave the game. Nobody has REALLY come up to be able to fill in that hole. Instead the team tries to fill that gap by brining in established stars.

Now it's getting tougher to even do that. Not really winning (the last title was 2009) or being really a relevant threat in the American League, is making it tougher on the Bombers. They are getting older and its getting harder to draw in free agents. They had been feared for a long time, and now they aren't. Toronto is way more feared in the AL East. Nobody wants to model their game after the Bombers anymore. They have been winners for a long time now. But they aren't the gold standard anymore. They aren't interesting anymore.