Ties to Dynasty Dwindling, but Yankees Are Bound to Reload

TAMPA -- The New York Yankees added Andy Pettitte and subtracted Bernie Williams this offseason, a net push for the keepers of the Yankee hagiography, as if the team could not bear to dissolve one more link to its last era of greatness without adding one somewhere else on the chain. Thus, the critical number remains four, as in the four present-day Yankees who have won World Series rings in pinstripes. Four members of Joe Torre's old guard who know firsthand that singular ecstasy of celebrating a title at Yankee Stadium.

"In New York," said shortstop Derek Jeter, one of the four, "you are remembered for winning. They'll bring you back for Old Timer's Day. They'll have you in uniform at spring training. They never forget you here, if you win."

But these are uneasy days for that old guard -- Jeter, Pettitte (who returned after three seasons in Houston), closer Mariano Rivera and catcher Jorge Posada. In what is clearly a transitional year in the Bronx, with the organization grooming a new core of homegrown talent to carry it into the next decade, it seems certain this quartet will be reduced again, to a threesome, a twosome or even a onesome -- Jeter -- by this time a year from now.

"They don't keep an old crew together just to keep them together," Jeter said. "You have to perform. No one keeps a guy on a team just because he was great a long time ago. You have to look at it as a business."

It was a business decision that ultimately cost Williams his place on the old guard, as the Yankees preferred 22-year-old Melky Cabrera as their fourth outfielder over the 38-year-old Williams, who, rather than suit up for another franchise, has disappeared into quasi-retirement. It was a decision the Yankees made without an ounce of nostalgia.

"It was hard," General Manager Brian Cashman said of the decision to sever ties with Williams. "But I have to be true to our system. The dynamic of our organization has changed. Now we have a 22-year old, switch-hitting center fielder who's ready to go. He's a younger version of Bernie. Bernie wasn't a good pinch hitter. He's not a guy who's going to come off the bench and steal a base. With Melky here, what role would Bernie serve?

"It wouldn't make sense. We didn't want to just carry someone for nostalgia's sake."

If that mind-set persists seven months from now, it could also bring an end to the careers of Posada and Rivera in pinstripes. Both are free agents after this season and are among the highest-paid players at their positions. Pettitte, meantime, has a player option to return in 2008, but has said he will not pitch beyond 2007 if his left elbow continues to trouble him.

That would leave only Jeter, who will be 33 in June and whose rookie year, 1996, coincides with the start of that last great Yankee dynasty, the one that won four World Series titles in five years.

"Baseball moves on, with you or without you," Posada said. "It's going to happen to all of us, sooner or later. [The team is] not going to want you anymore, and you're gone."

The potential changes, however, could go beyond the 25-man roster. Torre also is in the final year of his contract, and according to one published report, owner George Steinbrenner was prepared to fire him after last year's loss to Detroit in the first round of the playoffs, before Cashman talked him out of it.

Steinbrenner himself is far less visible than in years past, his age (76) and health leading to constant speculation in the New York media that he is slowly making arrangements for his exit from the franchise. And that other venerable Bronx icon, Yankee Stadium, will itself be replaced following the 2008 season by a newer version next door.

Still, the most glaring changes are taking place on the field and in the organizational philosophy being championed by Cashman. Despite their healthy appetite for pricey free agents, the Yankees actually built their late-1990s dynasty on their farm system. Williams, Pettitte, Posada, Rivera and Jeter -- the enduring core of the team -- all were homegrown players in their 20s when the run began.

But the pipeline essentially shut down after that, as the Yankees' constant dabbling in the free agent market became an obsession and their farm system became little more than a breeding ground for trade bait, which was used to bring in expensive veterans whose previous teams could no longer afford them. The Yankees became less a cohesive unit than a collection of mercenaries, and while they have made the playoffs every year beginning with 1995, they have not won a World Series title since 2000 -- a lapse that is treated like a six-year losing streak in the Bronx.

But over the past year and a half, the Yankees have begun amassing another core of young players that could form the foundation of another dynasty. Second baseman Robinson Cano, 24, emerged in 2005 then exploded in 2006. Pitcher Chien-Ming Wang, 26, was runner up for the Cy Young Award last year. And 20-year-old right-hander Philip Hughes, whose much-anticipated ascension to the big leagues could come by Memorial Day, consistently is rated among the top handful of pitching prospects in baseball.

This season, then, could be the old guard's last stand, before the inexorable march of time claims more victims. There is perhaps only one thing that can prevent Williams's fate from befalling the others.

"One good thing the owner has done [is], when we've won he's kept us together," Jeter said. "When we lose, that's when he starts changing things around. If we want to keep it together, all we have to do is win."