What A Difference Five Years Can Make…Sometimes
If I would have told you, five years ago from today, that Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez would be bench players for the Yankees in five years, what would your reaction have been? Seriously, look at the careers of Jones and Chavez through 2005. How old were they? What did they accomplish to date at that time? Did anyone see this coming?
Ditto Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden at the end of the 1991 season. If I would have told you then, at that time, that they would be supporting players on the Yankees in five years, what would your reaction have been?
Makes you wonder where Phil Hughes and Robinson Cano will be five years from now.
Sometimes, in baseball, those who look like they’ll be around with your team, and stars, forever, don’t always work out that way.
As with most guys it depends on performance. If they become great players the Yanks can afford to keep them a la the Core 4. If not…goodbye.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Given the aging curve for second basemen which has the great majority of them fading by age 32, I imagine Cano will be in New York for the next five years which, coindicentally, will be through his age 32 season. Thereafter, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’s let go as he begins to break down (it happens to nearly all 2B around that time).
Well, combine injuries with declining skills, a desire for one last pay day, and a yearning to play on a contender, and there you go.
Who’s to say in 2016, perhaps, Matt Kemp or Ryan Zimmerman in Tampa trying to make the Yankee roster out of spring training? You never know.