Going back to July, this is the rarest of times for the Yankees, essentially admitting the need for a rebuild, and if you had any doubt that they’re selling the future in the Bronx, the proof was in their Winter-Warm-up publicity tour this week.
For while they sprinkled in a few veterans, the focus of the media events was on the highly-touted kids, including five who have yet to play in the big leagues: Clint Frazier, Gleyber Torres, James Kaprielian, Justus Sheffield, and Chance Adams.
You can call it a bit presumptuous, trotting minor-leaguers around New York City before they’ve really done anything, but, on the other hand, I like the idea that the Yankees are being honest with their fans, basically telling them they need to look beyond 2017 for the best of what’s ahead.
In fact, PR director Jazon Zillo couldn’t have been any more candid when I asked him about idea of selling minor-leaguers to their fans.
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“Some of our most exciting players are 20-21-22 year olds right now,” Zillo said on Thursday. “Should we be embarrassed about that? Should we hide that? No.
“There’s a genuine thirst by a huge swath of our fan base to know more about the pack of young kids that we believe are going to make a difference in the future of our organization. Why wouldn’t we want our most marketable players here for this?”
Fair enough. And while this isn’t a proud time for the Yankees, missing the playoffs three of the last four seasons, it’s a PR man’s dream to have so many hot prospects in this Internet era when fans seem to follow the farm system almost as closely as they follow the big-league team.
Furthermore, after Gary Sanchez bashed his way into the hearts of fans late last season, the anticipation for more of the same from the likes of Frazier and Torres, in particular, creates that thirst among the fans.
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The Yankees’ top prospects were taken on a New York City publicity tour this week.
(Kathy Willens/AP)
It was that way with the Mets a few years ago, when the fans cared more about what Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler were doing in the minors than anything that was happening at Citi Field.
The Mets, though, were careful not to raise expectations higher than the media was already making them, discouraging publicity for their young guns while they were still in the minors.
Zillo, however, said he sees the publicity this week only as beneficial. And he made it clear this was all planned with the approval of the Yankee brass, all the way up to owner Hal Steinbrenner.
“We wanted to give these guys a taste of New York and what it means to play for the Yankees,” Zillo said. “We exposed them to a lot of different things. They did things in the community, they did a town hall-type thing with our season-ticketholders and answered questions from the fans.
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“The media wasn’t invited to 75 percent of the stuff they did, but the exposure to the media was important too. People in our own organization wanted to see how the kids handled some of this stuff they’re going to have to deal with eventually anyway.
“And the feedback from the fans was that this is what they wanted. Everyone wants to get to know more about these guys right now. So I have a hard time seeing the downside.
“If you’re talking about expectations, Brian Cashman has been on record in saying it’s important to have prospect depth because they’re not all going to make it. Right now these are the names that fans are excited about.
Gleyber Torres.
“We didn’t introduce Chance Adams as the next David Cone. But he went 13-1 last year and this is a chance for fans to say I knew these guys when, rather than wondering if the 33-year-old free agent we signed has a few more good years left in him.”
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Yes, it’s quite a departure from the way the Yankees have done business for years, and, let’s be real, it’s happening now only because their big-spending ways in the free-agent market finally turned them into an old, injury-prone ballclub that desperately needed a makeover.
It started with changes in the player development system to address failures to produce home-grown talent, and now, after a few years of good drafts and then Cashman’s big trades last year, the Yankees’ farm system is ranked by various outlets as being among the very best in baseball.
On Thursday, in fact, an executive from another major league club said he envied the Yankees’ future.
“It’s not over-hype,” the exec said. “They have a ton of good, young players,” Even if not all of them make it, the Yankees should still hit it big in the next few years.”
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As such this is a rebuild that fans have embraced, which is really the root of the Yankees’ thinking in selling their prospects in such a high-profile manner this week.
After all, no one can say this isn’t the next Core Four, or Fab Five, until they prove otherwise.
Tags:
mlb
new york yankees
clint frazier
gleyber torres
james kaprielian
justus sheffield
chance adams
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Source: NY Daily News Headlines Sports News
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