Top Very-Much-Weres of Yankees History

Yesterday at 10:00 AM

Let's take a break from remembering the near misses from Yankees' history and remember some big hits.

Over the past couple weeks, we here at Pinstripe Alley have been going over the biggest "Could-Have-Beens" from the last 50 years of Yankees history. That series has been taking a look at players who had all the talent in the world, but never quite showed it in a Yankees uniform, whether that be because they were traded away and became good elsewhere, or because they just never made it at the major league level.

As someone who has written some of those articles, while it's been fun to delve into Yankee history and try and find out what went wrong in those cases, it can also be a bit of a bummer. In cases like Brien Taylor, you can very easily visualize a path where things didn't turn out the way that they did, and the player enjoys a long, successful tenure in the Bronx.

However today, let's take a quick break from remembering the disappointment, and instead look back at some completely, unmitigated successes. Let's look back at some Yankees that got hype, and lived up to that hype. Unlike the Could-Have-Beens series where there might be some names you don't remember, I think you'll know all these guys.

In the draft era, the Yankees haven't had a ton of top ten picks. While I'll certainly take the success they've had over the last 50 years, high picks are one thing that doesn't come when you're regularly a good team. However, in the nadir of the last 50 years, the early 1990s, the Yankees were just bad enough to land some high picks, including No. 6 overall in 1992.

One of the best players in that year's draft class was a shortstop from Michigan named Derek Jeter. Some thought he should've gone No. 1 overall, famously including Astros scout Hal Newhouser, who resigned after Houston didn't take his advice and use the top selection on Jeter.

Jeter ended up falling to the Yankees at the sixth pick, and they happily took him. As he progressed through the system, some George Steinbrenner-led doubts over Jeter nearly led to the Yankees trading fellow Yankee legend Mariano Rivera for Félix Fermín ahead of the 1996 season. Instead, Steinbrenner was talked into giving a rookie Jeter a chance, and ... it worked.

After breakout 1988 and '89 seasons in the minors, Jeter's future dynasty era teammate Bernie Williams rocketed up top prospect lists, becoming No. 11 in all of MLB according to Baseball America in 1991. While he would occasionally be the subject of Steinbrenner-led trade rumors, the Yankees stuck with him, eventually trading away Roberto Kelly — a debated move, as Kelly had much more major league success at that point. The choice in who to keep as the Yankees' center fielder of the future was, suffice to say, the right one.

One of the other times the Yankees had a high pick was in 1968 when they selected a catcher out of Kent State named Thurman Munson. He made his MLB debut just one year after that, and over the next decade, he became one of the most beloved Yankees ever, being named team captain in 1976. While he left us far too early, I think it's safe to say he was and would've continued living up to his draft pick number.

Aaron Judge made quite the first impression when he hit a home run in his first career major league at-bat in 2016. However, the rest of his run with the big league team in 2016 didn't go great. He struck out 42 times in 95 plate appearances, posting an OPS just over .600 in 27 games. Between that and the fact that players with his 6-foot-7 frame are fairly rare as position players, there was some concern that the Yankees' former first round pick and top prospect would never be able to make it at the major league level. He has.

It took him a while to do it in pinstripes, but the Yankees using their first round pick on a high school pitcher named Gerrit Cole was also a very good call.

There are plenty of other options, too. While reliving some of the misses in Yankees history has been interesting, we should also remember the hits every so often.