Yankees Have Forgotten There's Only One Metric That Matters

Yankee Stadium. Photo by Jason Schott.

On Wednesday night, the Yankees were swept in the American League Division Series by the Tampa Bay Rays.

This gives the Yankees their longest World Series championship drought of 17 seasons, eclipsing the gap between the 1978 to '96 championships, which was one season less than this one merely because the 1994 World Series was scrapped due to the strike.

Since 2001, the Yankees have only one World Championship, won in 2009, the last gasp for the '90s dynasty that won four in five years.

That used to be the only metric that mattered. When Derek Jeter and Joe Torre said "World Series or it's a failure," they meant it!

Since 2004, compared to the Boston Red Sox, the tally of championships is pretty stark:

RED SOX: 4

YANKEES 1

If the Los Angeles Dodgers win it this year, they will join Boston as having four World Championships this century.

The San Francisco Giants have three, while the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros have two.

Other teams with one, like the Yankees, include the Anaheim Angels, Florida Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, Kansas City Royals, Washington Nationals - a mix of big money teams like them and small market clubs that broke through. Ask any of those fan bases are happy they haven't added to it.

This is while the Yankees tout bullshit metrics like "33 winning seasons," "We're always in it," and "We put a representative team on the field every year."

None of that matters, as they rarely even win the American League East! They whooped it up clinching a Wild Card spot while the AL East race was still alive.

And, who can forget last week when they celebrated ridiculously for beating the Red Sox in the Wild Card round, a series they didn't break a sweat in. If that were Torre and Jeter, even A-Rod, maybe a champagne toast and asking when they hit the plane for Tampa Bay.

On a larger point, Major League Baseball - now with four rounds of playoffs like the NFL, NBA, and NHL - should remove ceremonial names from the first two rounds, so teams won't have to go through the motions of getting "championship" t-shirts and celebrating with champagne.

Last year, since they beat the Red Sox in the Wild Card and then won a game in the ALDS against the Toronto Blue Jays, they convinced themselves they should "run it back" - an absurd thought after exiting so early. That's a phrase you use if you're thisclose and want to bring the same group back, which the Jays certainly could have used after losing to the Dodgers in seven games.

If the Yankees don't fire Manager Aaron Boone - which nobody believes they will due to the BS metrics stated above - he would be entering his 10th season at the helm, with incredibly little to show for it.

It would match Joe Girardi, the last skipper to win a title, and would be just two away from tying Joe Torre, who won four World Series and six pennants in his 12 years, but the second that dried up, he was gone.

Joe, of course, managed when the Yankees still had standards, still had the facial hair ban, didn't have Nike and insurance company patches on the jerseys and play incredibly undisciplined baseball.

If the Yankees want to restore that standard, they really should consider Don Mattingly or Buck Showalter to take over, but who would believe that either.

Call me when Boone has his farewell presser and says "it's right there in front of us!"