How were the Yankees assembled?

A new addition to my RSS reader is a blog called The Sports PhD. He brings some interesting ideas to the table, and some of them I’ve already riffed on, like the best worst hitters in the playoffs. Today he goes over how the Philadelphia Phillies were assembled. The obvious next step is to see how the Yankees put together their squad. I’ll do it in the same style as Sports PhD.

*Pettitte was a draft and follow, drafted in 1990 but signed in May of 91.

The Phillies assembled their team with 6 through the draft, 1 Rule 5 player, 1 amateur free agent, 4 trades, and 4 free agency signings. I added a few more players for the Yanks comparison, but they added 4 through the amateur draft, 3 through amateur free agency, 2 via trade, 4 through traditional free agency, and 1 by Japanese free agency. That looks like a good breakdown to me. The Yankees had an advantage in Latin America scouting, and it paid off. That’s the biggest difference between them and the Phillies, who had better amateur drafts — partly because they finished worse than the Yanks in most years.

Hopefully, this won’t be the last Yankees/Phillies comparison we see in the coming weeks.