The Baby Bombers: We're Witnessing the Beginning of MLB's Next Powerhouse

NEW YORK — Alex Rodriguez was the cleanup hitter the last time the New York Yankees played a postseason game.

It was the 2015 American League Wild Card Game, and it felt like the end for a franchise that had been winning for two decades. The Houston Astros won 3-0, and they were the team on the rise. The Yankees had three hits. They were not.

Two years later, the American League Wild Card Game has come back to Yankee Stadium. But if 2015 felt like the end of something, 2017 feels like the beginning.

In 2015, the Yankees players who started the most games in the field and on the mound included just one player in his 20s. That was shortstop Didi Gregorius, and he's still here. But on this Yankees team, five of the nine players who will join Gregorius in the lineup against the Minnesota Twins Tuesday night are younger than he is.

A-Rod isn't here anymore. These are Aaron Judge's Yankees.

"It's an exciting time to be a Yankee," Judge said. "And an exciting time to be a Yankee fan. Bright future ahead."

Judge, 25, has been their best player, their MVP candidate. Gary Sanchez, 24, regularly bats third. Luis Severino, 23, leads the rotation.

This would be what rebuilding looks like, except for the win total (91). Even if all those wins and a spot in the postseason mean it can't be called rebuilding, it sure looks like something to build on.

It's interesting how it has all come together. It's impressive how it has happened so quickly, and without the 100-loss seasons and high draft picks that come with most rebuilding projects in this era. It helps to have tons of money to spend, obviously, but other high-payroll teams haven't been able to do what the Yankees have done. And it's hard to say those teams that accumulated prospects through trades and high draft picks have a brighter future than the Yankees do.

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Midway through July, I was sitting at a minor league game with an American League scout who had just been through the Yankees farm system.

"Everyone is talking about the talent the White Sox have in the minors," the scout said. "But I don't think anybody has as much as the Yankees do."

That night, as I was driving home, the story broke that the Yankees had traded three of those prospects to the White Sox in exchange for relievers David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle and third baseman Todd Frazier. Two weeks later, they traded three more prospects to the Oakland A's for starting pitcher Sonny Gray.

They made both deals without giving up any of the young players on their major league roster and without touching the players they considered the best in their system. They traded six minor leaguers and promoted others to the major leagues, and yet, according to scouts, their system is stronger now than it was before they dealt Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller in exchange for prospects last summer.

"There's a lot more to come," agreed Clint Frazier, who was one of those prospects acquired last summer (in the Miller deal with the Cleveland Indians). "It's going to be very exciting for a long time in this organization."

MLB.com ranks 20-year-old shortstop Gleyber Torres as the top prospect in all of baseball. Torres, who was part of the Chapman deal with the Chicago Cubs, was already at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery ended his season in June.

Beyond Torres, the Yankees have some promising pitchers (right-handers Chance Adams, Domingo Acevedo and Albert Abreu and left-hander Justus Sheffield) and some promising hitters (center fielder Estevan Florial and third baseman Miguel Andujar). A National League scout who saw Scranton/Wilkes-Barre said outfielders Billy McKinney and Jake Cave would already be in the big leagues with some other teams but have their paths blocked by even more talented players with the Yankees.

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It's tempting to say this is a rerun of the mid-1990s, when the Yankees first made it to the postseason in 1995, the year Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte all debuted. But for this group to have anywhere near the success that group did, it'll need to develop, have lasting power and have the organization make the right decisions in building a team around it.

As in that era, the Yankees will have money to spend. Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reported Sept. 21 that they intend to get under the $197 million luxury tax threshold in 2018, but that would only set them up to be able to spend big on the 2018-19 free-agent class, which is expected to include Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and possibly Clayton Kershaw, among others. With big money coming off the books after this season (CC Sabathia's deal runs out, as does the A-Rod contract the Yankees are still paying), the Yankees could reset their tax rate to a lower level while preparing to add one or two more stars.

Even this winter, they could go after Shohei Ohtani, assuming the two-way Japanese star follows through on reported plans to come to the major leagues. Ohtani's ability as a starting pitcher would be particularly attractive, because the rotation is probably the least certain part of the Yankees' future.

The current rotation is also a reminder of how quickly things can change. Severino looked like an ace of the future when he debuted in 2015, but by the end of 2016 there were people saying he would need to stay in the bullpen. Now he's the ace of the present, let alone the future.

He'll start against the Twins, when the Yankees go after their first postseason win since Oct. 12, 2012. That night, Sabathia pitched a four-hit complete game against the Baltimore Orioles in a winner-take-all Game 5 of an American League Division Series.

Jeter was the leadoff hitter. Robinson Cano batted third. Not one of the nine players in the order remains in the organization today.

Those Yankees, it turned out, had no future. Win or lose in the Wild Card Game, the Yankees who face the Twins should have a bright one.

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

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