If Warren Buffett was willing to give $1 billion to anyone who could fill out a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket, what might he have been willing to stake had someone on, say, the first day of spring training, correctly come up with the position-by-position identity of the Yankees infield 10 games into the season in the first meeting vs. their historical rival?
Derek Jeter was to start his 2,540th game at shortstop. Meanwhile, Kelly Johnson was making career start No. 7 at first, Dean Anna was making career start No. 2 at second and Yangervis Solarte was making career start No. 7 at third.
Yep, that is 2,540 starts at one position and 16 total at every other. This is Peyton Manning playing with Pop Warner receivers, Bono fronting a high-school band.
In a splurge with which Buffett could relate, the Yankees invested roughly a half-billion dollars in the offseason on free agents. Yet, somehow they still wound up with the Un-Million Dollar Infield. Derek Jeter and The Pips. And, of course, we are still trying to determine who this version of Jeter is.
It is yet another lesson that no team — even one with as thick a wallet as the Yankees — can buy its way out of every issue. Hal Steinbrenner was willing to extend beyond his initial budget. But, at some point, he changed the codes on the pinstriped ATM.
Which left the Yankees vulnerable in the infield — ever more so once attrition came to visit. Mark Teixeira’s hamstring injury meant Johnson — already unfamiliar to third base — had to learn first base pretty much at full speed. Brian Roberts — the textbook example of athletic fragility — actually had joined Jacoby Ellsbury as the lone Yankee to appear in each of the first nine games. So manager Joe Girardi decided caution was best applied and sat the switch-hitting Roberts for Game 10.
“Every day in spring training, I was asked how much [Roberts] was going to play and he was on pace for 162 games, so this was a day to give him off,” Girardi said.
With Alex Rodriguez suspended, Johnson at first and Eduardo Nunez traded, Yangervis Solarte has become the everyday third baseman. With Roberts getting a break, Anna played second. If you do the math — add this to that, carry the zero — those two had combined for no major league games before this year. Not one. Ever.
Now, they are being thrown into the deep water. Asked not only to help the Yankees — sorry to Mr. Buffett in advance for the NCAA analogy — survive and advance, but now to play a prominent role in Red Sox-Yankees. National TV. Historic rivalry.
Their presence underscores a huge Yankee problem. The Rangers and Padres had such deep farm systems there was just no room on the 40-man rosters for Solarte in Texas (which let him become a minor league free agent) and Anna in San Diego (which traded him to the Yankees).
“You can sit and whine about all of this or you can say, ‘let’s go get ’em,’ with who we got,” Yankees third base coach Rob Thomson said. “I have confidence in all of them. We learned a lot last year having to use so many players and finding a way to stay in contention.”
And maybe the Yankees scouts had good eyes here, saw something perhaps others missed. Both Solarte and Anna impressed the Yankees in spring, essentially forced Nunez out of the organization, forced themselves onto the roster. Solarte, in particular, has used the early season to gain folk-hero status with unexpected punch.
But — deep breath here — the initial returns on David Adams last year were good and lasted about a week. In April 2013, the Yankees thought they stole Vernon Wells from the Angels, he performed so well, before the final five months fully exposed him.
However, what you see mainly is where there is divergence with the Yankees and Red Sox. Boston’s franchise second baseman, Dustin Pedroia, took an extreme discount to stay in Boston, which Robinson Cano did not do for the Yankees. The Red Sox system has delivered Jeter 2.0 in Xander Bogaerts. The Yankees system has produced, well, Nunez — with no one on the horizon that looks like a difference-maker.
Bogaerts helped Boston win a title shuffling between short and third late last year, and has allowed the Red Sox to move on from Stephen Drew at short this season. When Steinbrenner shut the financial spigot — translation: No Drew to help at short and third — the Yankees had to go with bargain basement, neophyte and injury-prone players in the infield.
That is how they opened Game 1 of The Rivalry with an infield of Derek Jeter and The Pips.