Kuzul

Here come the New York Yankees.

Seriously, they’re in this thing.     

That seemed like an absurd notion when the Yankees went into full-blown sell mode just before the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline, jettisoning veteran pieces such as relievers Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller and outfielder Carlos Beltran. New York was building for the future, the narrative went, waving a white flag and restocking its farm system.

The farm system part was true. After their flurry of late-July deals, the Yankees own the richest stash of minor league talent in either league, per Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter.

But New York is also a legitimate postseason contender here and now. It’s not merely some fancy; it’s the truth.

After besting the Toronto Blue Jays 2-0 Wednesday in the Bronx and completing a three-game sweep, the Yankees sit at 73-65, 2.5 games off the wild-card pace and only four games back of the Jays for the American League East lead.

The Yankees have now won four straight and six of their last eight. They’re rolling, in other words, any way you parse it.

“We’ll get there if we continue to play like we’re playing,” infielder Starlin Castro said, per MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm and Bryan Hoch. “Especially now in September, we’re facing the teams in front of us. If we continue winning series like we did today, we’ll be all right.”

Rookie catcher Gary Sanchez has been the shiniest story, bashing 11 home runs with a 1.136 OPS in 30 games.

But the Yanks have enjoyed contributions from all over. Take Wednesday’s starter, right-hander Bryan Mitchell, who underwent surgery on an injured toe this spring and returned to throw five innings of four-hit shutout ball against Toronto.

Much-maligned Luis Severino, who sports a plus-6.00 ERA, chipped in three scoreless frames of his own out of the pen.

That’s how it’s gone for New York. Third baseman Chase Headley is hitting .296 over the past 30 contests. Second baseman Starlin Castro has eight home runs and 20 RBI during the same stretch. Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury has gone 7-for-23 over his last seven games.

On the pitching side, trade-deadline acquisition Tyler Clippard has allowed just one earned run with 18 strikeouts in 16 innings in relief, softening the loss of Miller and Chapman. And Dellin Betances remains an elite reliever, as his 115 strikeouts in 66.1 innings attest.

The rotation is anchored by Masahiro Tanaka, who has won his last five decisions and struck out 38 hitters in August next to just one walk. 

Thanks to Tanaka, Ryan Hatch of NJ Advance Media opined, “there’s a glimmer of hope, a modicum of optimism because he’s pitching every five days.”

Honestly, modicum is an understatement. 

Yes, FanGraphs puts the Yankees’ chances of nabbing a wild-card slot at 7.6 percent and their chances of winning the division at 0.8 percent. 

But New York opens a four-game set at home against the last-place AL East Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, which should theoretically be an opportunity to make hay. 

In their division, they also have seven games remaining against the first-place Boston Red Sox, four against the Jays and three against the Baltimore Orioles, who own the second wild-card spot.

That stretch, surely, will decide things. The Yankees can either sprint to unexpected glory or head into the offseason with a stacked system and money coming off the books.

It’s win-win. But Yanks fans are used to winning, period, so this house-money playoff run would do a lot to satiate the pinstripe faithful. 

As Joel Sherman of the New York Post put it:

It is turning into that kind of stretch run for the Yankees — inexplicable. Which is totally fitting for a team playing for both tomorrow and today and that somehow has gotten better after trading arguably their three best players.

The Yankees’ chances to make the playoffs remain slim. But that the discussion is still going on speaks to their ability to find a little bit of magic down the stretch.

Magic is a strong word. Probably too strong. There’s something going on here, though, and it’s more than a novelty. 

Here come the Yankees.

Seriously.

All statistics current as of Wednesday and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.   

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Fact: New York Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez went 3-for-5 on Friday, and hit his 10th home run of the season. Joe DiMaggio (39) is the only Yankee ever to have more hits through his first 22 career games than Sanchez (31).

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: MLB.com

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New York Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez became the third-fastest player in Major League Baseball history to hit 10 career home runs with a two-run shot in the bottom of the fifth inning during Friday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles.

With the Yankees already leading 10-1, Sanchez took a 1-0 pitch from Vance Worley and deposited it into the left field seats:

It was the rookie’s 84th plate appearance of the season and 86th of his career.

Friday night was also just his 20th big league game of the season and 22nd of his career. Sanchez did play one game with the Yankees on May 13, but they demoted him to Triple-A shortly afterward. He rejoined the club in early August and has since served as the everyday catcher in New York.

Per Brendan Kuty of NJ.com, only George Scott of the Boston Red Sox (1966) and Trevor Story of the Colorado Rockies (this season) hit their first 10 home runs faster. 

Scott didn’t amount to a Babe Ruth-like power hitter, though. In his 14-year career with four different teams, he hit 271 home runs while recording over 20 in just five of those seasons. In two of them, he recorded over 30, including his league-leading 36-homer campaign for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1975.

There are still plenty of at-bats and seasons left before the jury is out on Sanchez and Story.

According to ESPN Stats & Info, Sanchez also became the first rookie since 1920 to have 10 home runs and 20 RBI in the first 20 games of a season Friday. 

His 10 dingers in 20 games are tied for the third-highest season-starting total in Yankees history, per SportsCenter:

With New York 5.5 games back in the American League East and 3.5 games out of the second wild-card spot, there might not be postseason baseball at Yankee Stadium this year. But with a rising star like Sanchez, there is something special brewing in the Bronx. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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New York Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez has been a revelation. That statement is supported by a heap of numbers, but let’s start with a single figure: two.

That’s how many times Sanchez—a 23-year-old rookie with fewer than 100 big league plate appearances to his name—was intentionally walked Wednesday.

He also rapped two hits, including a double and a home run, in the Yankees’ 5-0 win over the Seattle Mariners. He’s now hitting .389 for the year with a 1.297 OPS.

Here’s the no-doubt homer, courtesy of the YES Network:

We’re in small-sample land, obviously. The list of call-ups who lit the league on fire for a few weeks before careening back to Earth is longer than a large-print copy of War and Peace stapled to the Shanghai phone book. 

But if you’re a Yankees fan and you’re not giddy about Sanchez, you may want to call the coroner.

Manager Joe Girardi described the tools Sanchez possesses that will lead to long-term success, per Billy Witz of the New York Times:

He’s able to slow the game down. You don’t ever see a panic in him. You can see him take one bad swing and see him adjust, and that makes me believe that he’s going to be fine.

I’m sure he’s going to have some bumps in the road. But you watch him behind the plate, his athleticism back there—that’s not going to change. His arm strength isn’t going to change. His ability to call games isn’t going to change. His ability to frame pitches isn’t going to change. So it leads you to believe that he’s going to be O.K.

We’ll get into Sanchez’s catching skills in a moment, but let’s not leave his bat behind just yet.

Sanchez has hit nine homers in 19 games. That’s as many as Alex Rodriguez hit in 65 games before his in-season retirement. It’s three more than Jacoby Ellsbury has hit in 115 games. This season, New York is paying Rodriguez and Ellsbury a combined $42 million and change.

That’s a cheap shot, granted. But it also highlights the Yankees’ new game plan: Shed expensive veterans and supplant them with cost-controlled young studs.

It began with the trade deadline sell-off that jettisoned relievers Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller and outfielder Carlos Beltran, among others, and netted New York the best farm system in baseball, per Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter.

Then came the promotions of Sanchez, Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin. On Aug. 14, Austin and Judge became the first MLB rookies to hit back-to-back homers in their first big league at-bats. They’ve sputtered since; nothing unusual there. Patience is always the buzzword with young players.

Sanchez, meanwhile, simply keeps raking.

OK, back to his catching skills. According to StatCorner, he’s been among the American League‘s top 10 pitch-framers (again, small sample, but still). More impressively, he’s cut down five of eight would-be base-stealers.

“I don’t know if I’ve seen an arm on a catcher like that in a while,” first baseman Mark Teixeira said, per Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News. “Pudge Rodriguez, I was a rookie and my first spring training, he was still in Texas throwing BBs. He’s one of the best catchers to ever play the game. That arm is right up there with Pudge’s when he was in his prime. That’s something to say.”

Sanchez has already shoved aside veteran Yankees backstop Brian McCann, who is owed a combined $34 million in 2017 and 2018. Soon, Sanchez could be pushing the game’s elite receivers for MLB supremacy. 

At the very least, he looks like a cornerstone of the Yankees’ burgeoning golden era.

There are plenty more glitzy prospects in the pipeline, including outfielder Clint Frazier, shortstop Gleyber Torres and left-hander Justus Sheffield, just to name three of the club’s blue-chip deadline acquisitions. 

New York could also flip its young assets and swing a blockbuster trade or two. Plus, with multiple contracts coming off the books this year and next, general manager Brian Cashman will have money to burn on the ludicrously loaded 2018-19 free-agent class. 

We’re getting ahead of ourselves. It’s far too early to anoint Sanchez the next Pudge or start engraving the Yankees’ next Commissioner’s Trophy.

The stars appear to be aligning over the Bronx, however. And right now, Sanchez is blazing across the MLB firmament.

Sure, you can poke holes in his game. He’s been a pull-happy hitter this season between the majors and minors, a tendency that opposing pitchers could exploit, as FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan outlined:

Sanchez, I’m sure, is going to run into some adjustment problems, unless he discovers right field. The way he shifts his momentum forward causes him to commit pretty early, and that can have an effect on his discipline. Sanchez probably won’t walk a ton, at least for a while. He’ll have some ugly strikeouts and rolled-over grounders. Peak Sanchez should look more polished, and that’ll take some progression. The current swing has vulnerabilities.

That’s to be expected, though. It’s the rare 23-year-old who comes up without vulnerabilities. Everything we’ve seen from Sanchez so far indicates a player with the tools to be special at a premium position.

He’s been a revelation. And he’s almost certainly just getting started.

All statistics current as of Aug. 24 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The New York Yankees lost Monday’s game against the Seattle Mariners, 7-5, but not before rookie catcher Gary Sanchez made history.

Sanchez drilled a solo home run in the first inning and a two-run shot in the sixth to give him eight for the season. According to Andrew Marchand of ESPN.com, Sanchez’s eight homers in his first 19 games have made him “the first player in the franchise’s history to hit so many long balls so quickly.”

The Yankees newcomer has tasted success early in his big league career. Earlier Monday, the 23-year-old was named the American League Player of the Week, “becoming the first Yankees catcher to win the honor since Thurman Munson in 1976,” per Marchand. In addition to serving as the everyday catcher for one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, he’s been hitting third in New York’s lineup.

Sanchez isn’t just hitting for power, either. His batting average sat at a sparkling .361 coming into Monday’s game, and he helped his cause with three hits in four at-bats against Seattle.

Sanchez has been a bright spot for a Yankees squad that is in a disappointing fourth place in the AL East. While this is not yet a lost season for the team, which was still within five games of a wild-card spot after Monday’s loss, New York doesn’t look primed to win the World Series this year unless it can turn things around quickly.

Sanchez represents a building block for the future as the team looks to establish a new dynasty moving forward after winning four World Series titles from 1996 to 2000 and another in 2009.

The Yankees also have a pair of promising 24-year-olds, outfielder Aaron Judge and first baseman Tyler Austin, alongside Sanchez. Judge and Austin each homered in their first big league at-bats against the Tampa Bay Rays on Aug. 13, and they did so in back-to-back fashion.

The fabled Yankees aren’t atop the standings this season, but Sanchez and Co. represent a bright future. The catcher is already setting records in his first season at the major league level.

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The road to recovery for New York Yankees pitcher Nathan Eovaldi has begun after he underwent surgery on his right arm.

Continue for updates. 

Eovaldi Has Tommy John Surgery

Friday, Aug. 19

Per Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Yankees announced Eovaldi had Tommy John surgery and underwent a procedure to repair his right flexor tendon. 

The 26-year-old Eovaldi last pitched on Aug. 10 against the Boston Red Sox, lasting just one inning in a start before experiencing elbow discomfort. He was placed on the disabled list almost immediately before it was later announced he would require surgery to repair his pitching arm. 

Eovaldi has battled injuries in the past, missing most of last September with elbow inflammation. He previously had Tommy John surgery during his junior year of high school in 2007, one year before the Los Angeles Dodgers drafted him in the 11th round. 

The right-hander is a fascinating pitcher. He has the overpowering stuff to be dominant, with a fastball that has averaged 97.1 mph this season, per FanGraphs, yet the performance hasn’t matched the talent, as he has a 4.76 ERA in 2016. 

Eovaldi’s upside makes him one of New York’s most valuable assets. The Yankees also lack depth in their starting rotation. The group has remained healthy so far this year, with the exception of CC Sabathia’s stint on the disabled list.

New York’s front office has already started looking toward the future by trading Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran. Eovaldi will likely not be ready to pitch again until 2018, so the team will have ample opportunity to evaluate all of its pitching options before having to make a decision about how to use him. 

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The New York Yankees waved the white flag at the trade deadline. They shifted into sell mode, abandoned all hope of making the playoffs this season and trained their gaze squarely on the future.

Yeah…about that.

The future is indeed bright in the Bronx. After all their wheeling and dealing, the Yankees boast the No. 1 farm system in baseball, per Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter. And with a Brink’s truck of expiring contracts coming off the books, they should have ample cash to burn in the potentially loaded 2018-19 free-agent class.

But reports of the Yankees’ 2016 demise were, if not greatly, at least somewhat exaggerated. As wild as it sounds, they could still crash the postseason dance.

If they do, it’ll be largely on the strength of the youth movement, which began in earnest Saturday.

One day after controversial slugger Alex Rodriguez took his curtain call, the Yankees called up youngsters Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin and inserted them into the lineup.

In a moment that would’ve been cut from a Hollywood script for being too unbelievable, the pair became the first rookies in MLB history to swat back-to-back home runs in their first big league at-bats.

New York went on to defeat the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday 8-4, and now it sits at 60-56, 3.5 games off the pace for the second wild-card spot.

We’ll talk more about that in a moment, but let’s pause to appreciate what Austin and Judge accomplished. There’s the historic component of their homers, sure, and that unmistakable new-era smell, as Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball noted:

But there’s also the fact that Austin took over at first base, a position previously held by veteran Mark Teixeira, who announced he’ll retire at season’s end. Judge, meanwhile, manned right field in place of Carlos Beltran, who was dealt to the Texas Rangers at the deadline.

Out with the old, in with the new.

The 24-year-old Judge—the Yankees’ No. 4 prospect, per Reuter—was hitting .270 with 19 home runs in 93 games at Triple-A. Austin, also age 24, didn’t even crack Reuter‘s top 10 in New York’s newly loaded system. But he owned a .294 average with 17 homers in 107 games between Double-A and Triple-A.

Now, both have been introduced to a tough but instantly appreciative New York fanbase. There will be slumps and bumps in the road, as there always are, but it’s impossible to conjure a better career kick-off.

Skipper Joe Girardi saw plenty to appreciate, per MLB.com’s Nick Suss:

[The Judge home run] gets you excited. But you also look at the athleticism. The play he makes going back, the play he makes going forward, how he stayed on balls today. I think about Tyler’s first at-bat where he gets down in the count two strikes and battles and battles and hits a home run. But besides the hit, I thought they were really good at-bats. And that’s probably more important.

Add rookie catcher Gary Sanchez, who has gone 10-for-36 with three doubles and a homer since he donned the pinstripes, and there’s a full-blown renewal going on at East 161st Street.

Surely more kids will follow, especially when rosters expand Sept. 1, though top names such as outfielder Clint Frazier and infielders Gleyber Torres and Jorge Mateo may be a year or more away.

Whatever happens this year, the Yankees are undoubtedly looking at what pieces can help them down the road, either on the field or as trade chips.

But let’s return to that AL playoff chase, and New York’s chances of staying in it. 

FanGraphs projects an 83-79 finish for the Yanks, good for fourth place in the AL East. Considering that they jettisoned two of the best relievers in baseball in left-handers Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller along with Beltran, a proven October performer, that seems reasonable.

The East, though, is flush with flawed contenders. 

The Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox have potent offenses but serious questions in their starting rotations. The Toronto Blue Jays just placed basher Jose Bautista on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained left knee. 

In fact, the Junior Circuit in general is a muddled mess.

Out West, the Texas Rangers added pieces—including Beltran and All-Star catcher Jonathan Lucroy—at the deadline, but their plus-six run differential is easily the worst of any playoff contender.

In the AL Central, the Cleveland Indians have come back to Earth, with their vaunted starting pitching wobbling and word that outfielder Michel Brantley will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery, per the Associated Press (via ESPN.com).

That’s not to say the Yankees have an easy road to late October. They trail the first-place Jays by 5.5 games, and they’d have to leapfrog the Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers before they could challenge the Red Sox and Orioles for a wild-card berth.

It’s a long(ish) shot, in other words. But with 46 games remaining, stranger things have happened.

The Yankees have a shutdown bullpen anchor in Dellin Betances, who has fanned an eye-popping 102 hitters in 56.1 innings. They still have a legitimate ace in Masahiro Tanaka. 

And now, they have an influx of fresh blood. 

It’s way, way too early to anoint Austin, Judge, Sanchez and any other minor league whippersnappers as stretch-run saviors. They’ll have to be, however, to rescue an offense that ranks in the bottom third in runs scored and OPS. Plus, there’s ample uncertainty in the starting five behind Tanaka.

Suddenly, though, the Yankees have gone from an aging franchise struggling under the weight of albatross contracts and recent disappointment to a club with that certain something.

Call it hope, call it youth, call it je ne sais quoi. But it’s tangible, if not quantifiable.

At the very least, the next month-plus will be interesting in Yankee land. At the most, it could spark one of the unlikeliest playoff pushes in team history.

The Yankees ostensibly waved the white flag at the deadline. Now, it might be time to stash it for a while.

All statistics current as of Aug. 13 and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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One day after getting a king’s send-off at Yankee Stadium, Alex Rodriguez is no longer a New York Yankees player.

Per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, the Yankees released Rodriguez prior to Saturday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The move was expected and part of a plan New York put in place when Rodriguez and the team announced Friday would be his final game.

On Sunday, Hoch reported Rodriguez would play his last game for the Yankees and then be unconditionally released before serving as a special advisor through Dec. 31, 2017.

Included in Hoch’s report was a statement from New York managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner:

After spending several days discussing this plan with Alex, I am pleased that he will remain a part of our organization moving forward and transition into a role in which I know he can flourish. We have an exciting group of talented young players at every level of our system. Our job as an organization is to utilize every resource possible to allow them to reach their potential, and I expect Alex to directly contribute to their growth and success.

As the Yankees played Friday night, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported the team would call up Tyler Austin from Triple-A to take Rodriguez’s spot on the 25-man roster.

Per the team’s public relations department, in addition to bringing Austin up, New York also added Aaron Judge to the roster.

The week leading up to Rodriguez’s farewell was a mess, with Yankees manager Joe Girardi continuing to sit the three-time American League MVP after saying Sunday, “If he wants to play in every game, I’ll find a way.” Rodriguez started Thursday against the Boston Red Sox and again Friday against the Rays.

In his final game, Rodriguez went 1-for-4 with an RBI double in the first inning. He also moved from designated hitter to third base at the start of the ninth inning, though he was removed after Yankees closer Dellin Betances struck out Mikie Mahtook to start the inning. Rodriguez then enjoyed one last ovation from the New York crowd.

If it was the end of Rodriguez’s career, he got a nice send-off considering how quickly everything came together.

Rodriguez is no longer the superstar who was on the short list of best players in Major League Baseball, but there is no denying the impact he had on the sport for 22 years. He wasn’t always liked, but his talent was incredible, and he was often a joy to watch.

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NEW YORK — With most guys, the retirement announcement comes before the ceremony.

No, not with most guys. With everyone.

Everyone but Alex Rodriguez.

It’s always complicated with him, so of course it was complicated on the night that should mark the end of a brilliant if also monumentally flawed career. Of course the skies roared with thunder Friday, just as Yankee Stadium public address announcer Paul Olden said, “Alex, you’ve spent 12 of your 22 seasons with the Yankees.”

“It was certainly, like, biblical,” Rodriguez himself said later. “You can’t make that up. I guess we went out with a bang.”

Great line, and if you’d like, you can take it as a hint. You can take a hint from him saying “it’s going to be tough to top that.”

Or maybe you can take the biggest hint of all from the last thing he said in his press conference after the New York Yankees‘ 6-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays: “I saw [rookie catcher] Gary Sanchez have a [big] series in Boston and I looked at him and said, ‘I can’t do that anymore.’ And I was happy about it. I’m at peace.”

Is it possible A-Rod knows he’s done as a player, that no matter what he has said over the last few weeks he knows he’s not good enough anymore? Or is this going-away game going to look even stranger when it’s followed in a few weeks by his comeback game in Miami or Chicago or who knows where?

Just remember, he still hasn’t said he’s retired.

He showed in his first at-bat Friday that he can still get it done if all the conditions are right. He lined a run-scoring double to right-center off Rays starter Chris Archer, and it went all the way to the wall. It even came off a 96 mph fastball, with Katie Sharp of RiverAveBlues.com quickly tweeting how unusual that was:

The fact is Rodriguez struggles with major league fastballs these days. The fact is he can’t play in the field, even if he did make an emotional return to third base for one batter in the ninth inning Friday.

Sure, he’s only four home runs away from 700, and it’s tough to leave so close to an historic milestone. But Al Kaline and Andres Galarraga both retired with exactly 399 home runs, so it wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented.

Perhaps A-Rod’s refusal to answer the retirement question is simply an acknowledgement he can’t be sure another team will want him. Or maybe he just wasn’t sure if he wanted this to be the end.

The uncertainty is perfect A-Rod, and so was Friday night.

It went beyond the thunder and lightning during the Yankees’ understated pregame ceremony. There was also the oddity that Mariano Rivera was the only one of his ex-teammates who was invited to take part, even though many others will be in town for the Yankees’ 1996 reunion Saturday afternoon.

The sellout crowd didn’t seem to mind, because it was clear from the start it only cared about Rodriguez. The fans booed manager Joe Girardi’s name during the pregame lineup announcement, then cheered at the news that A-Rod was batting third for the first time in more than a month.

The Girardi-Rodriguez relationship has become a big storyline all week, as Rodriguez admitted that he wanted to play all three games in Boston and that the manager told him no (A-Rod pinch-hit Wednesday and started Thursday). Girardi also turned down his request to play third base Friday.

The tension clearly bothered Girardi, and he seemed determined to make Friday the best A-Rod day possible.

“Some people think I wanted to make negative decisions,” Girardi said after the game. “That’s not the case. I have a huge heart.”

With that, the sometimes stoic and often combative manager broke down in tears.

“If this is the last time he plays, I wanted it to be something he’d never forget,” Girardi said.

But even that vow wasn’t iron-clad. Despite their trade-deadline sell-off, the Yankees remain on the fringe of the American League wild-card race (3.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the final playoff spot).

Because of that, Girardi said he would only play Rodriguez in the field Friday night if the Yankees led by three runs or more. Aaron Hicks’ seventh-inning home run gave them a three-run lead.

He told Rodriguez of the plan, and said it was A-Rod’s wish that it only be for one batter. So after Starlin Castro made the final out of the bottom of the eighth, Rodriguez took the field for the ninth. And after Dellin Betances struck out Mikie Mahtook for the first out, Ronald Torreyes replaced him at third base.

Rodriguez didn’t leave the field immediately, first going over to hug his teammates, then stopping in front of the dugout to salute the fans who had serenaded him all night.

It looked, for all the world, like a star saying goodbye for good.

“With all the things I’ve been through, and to have an ending like that tonight, I don’t know what else I can ask for,” Rodriguez said later.

Take that as another hint if you wish. Write in his final career numbers, the 3,115 career hits and the 548 doubles and 2,086 RBI, to go with those 696 home runs.

Just write them in pencil, at least for now.

Remember, too, that as the Yankees and Rays waited out a half-hour rain delay before Friday’s game could begin, Billy Joel’s song “Miami 2017” played over the sound system.

Take that as a hint. Or take it as just one more perfectly odd A-Rod moment on what may or may not have been the last night we’ll ever see him play.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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There’s not a lot of joy to be derived from the New York Yankees‘ present.

Their 58-56 record is far from an Atlanta Braves-level disaster, but it marks the fourth year in a row they’ve been mired in mediocrity. And for the first time in a long time, they’ve accepted they need to make things worse to get better. When New York moved Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran at the August 1 trade deadline, its first rebuild in over two decades was on.

There is, however, some joy to be derived from the Yankees’ present. At least they now have Gary Sanchez. We knew the 23-year-old was an elite catching prospect when the club called him up last week. Now we know he can do things like this:

Sanchez’s first home run was the exclamation point on his coming-out party. It was one of four hits he collected in a 9-4 romp over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, and it had the Yankees a’buzzin‘.

“We’ve liked the way this kid has swung the bats for years,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, per Craig Forde of MLB.com. “I think he’s done a good job catching. To have his first homer, and he had some big hits tonight, was really nice to see.”

Fun fact: Girardi‘s not kidding about the “for years” part.

A thunderous bat that produced a .799 OPS and 99 home runs in the minors makes Sanchez arguably the top catching prospect in baseball, but it was in 2011 that he first appeared on top-100 lists. 

As a junior member of a farm system Baseball America ranked at No. 5 in MLB, it was easy then to imagine Sanchez as the finishing touch of a new Yankees core that would already feature Jesus Montero, Dellin Betances, Manny Banuelos, Eduardo Nunez and Slade Heathcott.

Obviously, that didn’t pan out. That could be why New York is taking no chances with its latest attempt to build a winner from the ground up.

The team’s farm system was stuck in neutral just a few months ago. Nobody thought much of the system in 2014 and 2015, and they were singing the same old song going into 2016. Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and ESPN.com all put the Yankees’ farm system in the middle of the pack.

It only took about one week in late July and early August to change this. When Chapman, Miller and Beltran went out the door, 10 prospects came in. Included among them were two elites, shortstop Gleyber Torres and outfielder Clint Frazier, and other well-regarded names like left-hander Justus Sheffield, right-hander Dillon Tate and outfielder Billy McKinney.

Keith Law of ESPN.com and Jim Callis of MLB.com have both elevated the Yankees system to among the top three in baseball, with Callis offering this note: “They may come in No. 2 in our rankings, but the Yanks do have the deepest system in the game.”

That doesn’t strain the limits of believability. After all, Sanchez is just one of seven young Yankees in MLB.com’s current top 100:

Not pictured here are McKinney and Tate, who popped up on preseason top-100 lists and may do so again if they put rough 2016 seasons behind them.

Elsewhere in the system is right-hander James Kaprielian, who made it into Baseball America‘s midseason top 100. Tyler Austin, a first baseman/third baseman/outfielder, isn’t on any top-100 lists. But with a 1.061 OPS at Triple-A, he has to be on the Yankees’ radar. The same must be true of Aaron Judge, whose .844 OPS at Triple-A is a substantial improvement over what he did in a reality-check 2015 season (.680 OPS in Triple-A).

If Judge and Austin join Sanchez in The Show in the coming weeks, New York’s future will come further into focus. So it will go in 2017 and 2018. Of all the names mentioned above, the only one who doesn’t figure to be ready for the majors within the next two years is Blake Rutherford, whom the Yankees just drafted out of high school in June.

Oh, and don’t forget the other young talent the Yankees have.

Betances, 28, is set to close games for years to come. It’s too soon for anyone to give up on right-hander Luis Severino, 22, who was an elite prospect just last season. Slugging first baseman Greg Bird, 23, will be healthy next year after missing 2016 due to a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Rob Refsnyder, 25, could blossom into a useful utility player. Torres and Jorge Mateo may have higher ceilings, but Didi Gregorius and Starlin Castro are A) effective and B) only 26.

Exactly how the Yankees should handle all their young talent is a matter for another day, or one that can be left up to them. All that’s clear now is they have a lot of it, and they have a lot of it at the perfect time.

Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira are just about finished in New York. CC Sabathia will be finished after 2017. Brett Gardner, Brian McCann and Chase Headley are likely gone after 2018. These departures mark the opening of a window. Like they did with Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera in the early and mid-1990s, the Yankees can lay the foundation for a new dynasty.

And at low costs, to boot. Then whatever the Yankees don’t have after 2018, they’ll be able to buy.

Between Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Jose Fernandez and many others, the 2018-2019 class of free agents will be L-O-A-D-E-D. It was apparent last winter the Yankees were setting their sights on all that talent.

After recent events, one imagines a shopping spree that winter could do for the Yankees what the Chicago Cubs‘ shopping spree this past winter did for them: take a young team that already had a lot of potential and use a few blank checks to fill in the blanks.

It may not be until then that the Yankees are ready to contend for championships again. They’re only in a position to take whatever bright spots they can get the rest of the way this year. In 2017 and 2018, there’s bound to be growing pains.

But to build an empire, you have to start somewhere. We know where the last Yankees empire started. Years from now, we may be able to say their next empire started with Sanchez.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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