1965, 1979 or 1988?

Which of those three scenarios are the Yankees living through now? Is 2005 equivalent to 1965, the end of the Second Yankee Dynasty where the Yanks won 14 pennants and nine World Series in 16 years because the team was suddenly old and decrepit, as the legend goes? Is 2005 a blip on the radar of a team with a few more good years in it, like the 1979 team that had a team-wide batting slump before rebounding in 1980 and 1981? Or is 2005 like 1988, when the last of the overpriced stiff teams of the 1980s limped home at 85-76 and stank for the next four seasons before reconstituting as a contender in 1993?

Wongdoer's answer is 1979: a team merely hitting a blip. After all, that team had acquired a top pitcher to bolster its staff (Tommy John), a solid pitcher to anchor the latter-half of the rotation (Luis Tiant) but was slammed by injuries (Gossage, Figueroa, Hunter), unexpected ineffectiveness (Figueroa, Tidrow), and down years (no one with 90+ RBI unlike 1978 [Jackson, Nettles, Chambliss] or 1977 [Jackson, Nettles, Munson, Chambliss]) with a touch of age. In 1980, the Yanks won 103 games and in 1981 they won the AL pennant.

But all those teams from 1979-81 had one thing in common that this team won't come near: a pitching staff that finished first or second in the AL in ERA. The 1979-81 Yanks finished in the bottom half of the league in batting average each year, and only Reggie Jackson's carrying the offense in 1980 made that team respectable. Those 1979-81 teams also had something else this team lacks: good young pitchers. In 1979, Ron Davis debuted; in 1981, Dav Righetti debuted; Goose Gossage would not hit 30 until 1982; Guidry reached 30 at the end of 1980. And they were younger: Willie Randolph was in his mid-20s; ditto Bucky Dent; and Thurman Munson's successor (can't call him a replacement -- no one could replace Munson on that team) was mid-20s catcher Rick Cerrone. The 2005 edition is much older.

I do not think the 1965 comparison is apt either. The Yankee loremasters continually say that team "got old fast" -- I think that claim is rubbish. Mantle was an old 33, no doubt; but Maris was only 30, the whole infield was in its 20s with Tresh, Richardson and Boyer as vets from some latter pennant years, and the starting pitchers not named Ford were all in their mid-20s. Essentially, Mantle and Maris went in the tank, the pitchers who'd anchored the '63 and '64 teams behind Ford (Stottlemyre, Bouton, Downing, Terry) suddenly sucked and the team went into a multiyear funk of mediocrity -- which indicates that the players themselves were mediocre without Mantle and Maris to bulk them up.

I think this team is parallel to the 1988 team: loads of paper talent that makes it a paper tiger. The 1988 rotation: an old Tommy John, hurt Ron Guidry, and late-in-the-career journeymen Rick Rhoden, Rich Dotson and John Candelaria, the last two brought in to replace the not-so-good Dennis Rasmussen; ERA rank -- 12th of 14 teams. The 1988 lineup: Mattingly, Winfield, Pagliarulo, Rickey Henderson, Jack Clark, et al. = #3 scoring team in the AL. The stupid trade: Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. The main difference: the lineup got old in 1989 (Winfield's injury, trading Henderson, not re-signing Clark) while the pitching still stank.

The 1988 team was the last and worst of the semi-decent Yankees teams of the 1980s that were characterized by an inability to pitch at crucial points and an excess of high-priced hitting talent that had seen better days. The Yanks did not win the AL East between 1982 and 1995, unlike their recent wins in 2002-04 with overpriced, over-the-hill and overhyped players (Giambi, Wells, Contreras, Arod). The difference: from 1976-1987, the AL East was the best division in baseball and the Yanks didn't have a Tampa, Toronto or Baltimore scuffling along year-in, year-out. Thus, the 1983-87 Yanks were just not good enough and when other teams' young talent surpassed the Yanks' stables of washouts, the Yanks fell far and fast (1989-92). Now, the same thing is happening: the Yanks are old like the 1988 team, the pitching stinks, the hitting is overpriced with key players on the downsides of their careers (Williams, Giambi, Posada) and younger improved divisional rivals are in the process of hurtling the Yanks.

All that said, the Yanks can turn all this around with incorporating young players into the existing mix, ensuring the development of the talent pools they obtained in the 2003-04 drafts (the previous five were rubbish and the scouting director took the axe for it) and making a commitment to balancing the team between youth, star power and sensible spending -- no more 7/119M contracts for Giambi, stop shelling out multiyear eight-figure deals for one-year wonder pitchers (Hammond, Wright). If that means eating Kevin Brown's and Bernie Williams' ridiculous contracts in favor of playing new faces this year, so be it. If it means trying like f--k to dump Gordon, Quantrill, F-Rod, et al., do it. Revamping will cost money, but the Yanks almost need to perform root canal on the dead tendrils of the team.

And develop the next manager -- Torre's unlikely to stay beyond 2006 and he probably should not do so. It's not the worst thing in the world to have to fight to win, instead of being expected to cruise along and do so every year. It certainly saves the Yanks from this awful mess that they're currently in.