This wasn’t how the Yankee season was supposed to go.
They planned to be gearing up for a big series against the Rays at Tampa Bay this weekend before a September stretch run to the playoffs.
Instead, they have lost nine straight games to slip from postseason consideration and the biggest news in recent days was the promotion of a pair of young players — Everson Pereira and Oswald Peraza — to maybe add some juice to a floundering lineup and to see whether they might be able to contribute in 2024.
While the Yankees are saying all the right things about trying to stay competitive, it’s shaping up to look something like 2016, the last time the Yankees missed the playoffs.
That season, the team’s pivot toward the future began prior to the trade deadline, when Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman and Carlos Beltran were sent to contenders and the club started to get a peek at some of their big bats from the minors.
Gary Sanchez was called up on Aug. 3 as veteran Brian McCann was moved to a backup role behind the plate.
Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin joined Sanchez from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre two weeks later — coinciding with the release of Alex Rodriguez.
At the time, the Yankees were three games over .500 and 3 ½ games out of the wild card spot.
Before his MLB debut on Aug. 13, Judge said, “It’s exciting to see what’s about to unfold here with the Yankees.”
Then he and Austin went out and hit back-to-back homers in their first MLB at-bats.
The Yankees stayed competitive the rest of the way — going 25-22 after Judge’s promotion — and then surprised many by getting to the ALCS the next season behind Judge’s rookie-record 52 home runs.
Judge is one of the few faces that remain in the clubhouse from that ’16 team, and he was asked Tuesday if the arrival of Pereira and the return of Peraza from SWB had a similar feel to that year.
“It’s different because when that happened [in 2016], I was a young guy just coming up and just got here,’’ Judge said. “I was excited to get called up to the big leagues and help the team. We were winning games. We won the first game, we won the second game. We got an opportunity to see Gary do his thing.”
And the experience played a role in setting the stage for the team’s success in 2017.
“It allowed us to see what the speed of the big leagues was all about,’’ Judge said. “This is what we were preparing for.”
They fell short of the postseason in 2016 and look to be on their way to the same fate this year, a whopping 10 ½ games out of the final AL wild-card spot, but Judge and Co. will play on.
In Tuesday night’s 2-1 loss to the Nationals, while Carlos Rodon provided a solid outing in his return from the injured list, the Yankees offense mustered just two hits — including Pereira’s 0-for-3 (with a walk) and Peraza’s 0-for-4.
“Our expectations are the same, especially with us trying to push for the playoffs,’’ Judge said. “We want to win as many games as we can and whatever happens, happens.”
The moves paid off in 2017. It remains to be seen if these will have the same dividends.
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The Yankees and Mets aren’t the only teams who started the year with lofty expectations but seem all but certain to miss the playoffs.
On the other side of the country, the Angels on Tuesday fell to 5-14 since the Aug. 1 trade deadline — before which the team opted to add to their roster and not trade free-agent-to-be superstar Shohei Ohtani.
In hopes of finally capitalizing on Ohtani’s greatness — and enticing him to stay in Anaheim — the Angels traded for Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk, and Dominic Leone.
They were just three games back of the second wild card at the deadline. Now they’re 10 games back, wallowing in the same depths as the Yankees in the AL race.
So, in addition to losing the prospects they gave up for the veteran additions, they now appear to be in even worse shape in whatever efforts they make to retain Ohtani.
Mike Trout, who signed a 12-year, $426.5 million deal prior to the 2019 season to stay with the Angels, recently acknowledged to ESPN that he and others in the organization are unsure of what the future has in store.
“There’s a lot of questions,” said Trout, who returned Tuesday from a nearly two-month stint on the injured list. “The whole Shohei situation, I don’t think anybody knows what he’s feeling or what he’s thinking. It’s ultimately gonna come down to what he thinks and what he feels.’’
The Angels haven’t reached the playoffs since 2014, having wasted the first dozen full years — and counting — of Trout’s career, as well as Ohtani’s first six years.
The NBA offseason is becoming messier by the day.
James Harden was fined $100,000 by the NBA on Tuesday over recent comments he made calling 76ers general manager Daryl Morey a “liar” and vowing never to play in an organization under Morey, which was judged to be an impermissible public trade demand.
The escalating feud stems from Harden’s accusation that Morey lied to the frequently on-the-move star about a potential trade out of Philadelphia as he exercised his 2023-24 contract option. The players’ union reportedly planned to file a grievance contesting Harden’s fine.
Adding to that, we have the bizarre lawsuit filed by the Knicks alleging the Raptors stole proprietary information from the Knicks after they hired Ikechukwu Azotam away from the team this month.
Azotam had been with the Knicks since October 2020, first as an assistant video coordinator and later as a director of video analytics/player development assistant.
He was brought to Toronto to be on new head coach Darko Rajakovic’s staff and is accused — along with others — of swiping videos and scouting reports from the Knicks.
The two teams face each other next on Dec. 1 in Toronto.