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A tale of two rebuilds: Phillies and Yankees | David Murphy

At the end of 2014, when the Phillies finally conceded their need to rebuild, many of the Yankees' new stars were already in their system.

New York Yankees star slugger Aaron Judge was drafted 16 spots after the Philadelphia Phillies drafted J.P. Crawford in 2013.
New York Yankees star slugger Aaron Judge was drafted 16 spots after the Philadelphia Phillies drafted J.P. Crawford in 2013.Read morePedro Portal/Miami Herald/TNS

A month or two ago, a reader emailed me a question that I'm sure a lot of Phillies fans have wondered over the course of this season: Given all that we've heard about the necessity of the current rebuild, how does one explain the success of a team like the Yankees, who appear to have succeeded in bridging the gap between generations without resigning themselves to reaching rock bottom?

It's a question worth exploring, given the similar arcs of the teams after they met in the 2009 World Series. Like the Phillies, the Yankees got old and expensive fast. After their last AL East title in 2012, they fell from 95 wins to 85 with veterans Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter limping to the finish lines of their careers. Yet here they are in July of 2017, very much alive in the playoff race, their win total never dipping lower than the 84 they posted in 2014. Their only playoff appearance in that stretch was a wild-card loss in 2015, and they've done some significant remodeling with the future in view, but they've done it without subjecting their fan base to the level of misery that those in Philly have had to endure.

One piece of the answer lies in the simple truth that the Yankees' financial position means they are never in a similar situation to anybody else. Before we get to that, though, a second critical piece is something we've detailed in this space before: The Yankees were building toward the future before it was time.

At the end of 2014, when the Phillies finally conceded their need to rebuild, the following members of the current Yankees team were already somewhere in New York's system: all five starting pitchers (including young star Luis Severino), all three outfielders (Aaron Judge, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner), setup man Dellin Betances and catcher Gary Sanchez.

Brian Cashman has performed excellent work complementing those players with a series of calculated gambles that have paid off, buying low on Starlin Castro (.309 average, .828 OPS, 12 HRs), Didi Gregorius (.284, 11, .766) and Aaron Hicks (.290, 10, .913). But the biggest factor in this season's success has been the triumverate of Judge, Sanchez and Severino. The Yankees ended 2014 with those three players in their system. The Phillies didn't.

Sanchez, a 24-year-old who has 34 home runs and a .937 OPS since breaking into the majors last season, entered the Yankees system in 2010, the same year Maikel Franco began working his way through the Phillies' minor leagues. Severino, a 23-year-old who has a 3.40 ERA and 130 strikeouts in 113 2/3 innings, joined the Yankees organization in 2012, when the Phillies had a couple of Top 100 pitching prospects named Jesse Biddle and Trevor May. Judge, who needs no introduction, was drafted 16 spots after the Phillies selected J.P. Crawford with the 16th pick in the first round of the 2013 draft.

None of those players is meant to be compared as equivalencies. But the talent you have is the talent you chose when they were amateurs. The Phillies have what they have, and so do the Yankees.

While that talent was developing, the Yankees were able to make things look a little more respectable mostly by way of their economic might: in 2013, they spent nearly $70 million more on payroll than the Phillies, whose $160 million ranked fourth in the majors and was right up against the luxury-tax threshold. At no point since has the Yankees' payroll dipped below $196 million, and in the two seasons before this one it was $217 million and $226 million.

Cashman once memorably said that as general manager of the Yankees, he doesn't have the luxury of rebuilding the way teams like the Phillies, Cubs and Astros have chosen to. A rough eyeballing of the finances shows why: Last year, when the Yankees won 84 games, they drew 1.15 million more fans than the 71-91 Phillies. Multiply that by some average revenue figure per head and you can at least get an idea of the amount the Yankees earned back by remaining competitive (one unscientific survey in 2016 pegged the average cost of attendance league-wide at around $40 per ticket sold, though the Yankees remain one of the sport's pricier admissions). But spending that kind of money at the margins comes with a significant level of risk. If your team doesn't end up playing well enough to keep people coming through the gates, you better have the cash in reserve or in other revenue streams to make up the difference. The Yankees' market share gives them that ability. The Phillies, whatever their advantages over most of the rest of the major leagues, do not occupy nearly as strong a position as that.

At the end of 2014, the Phillies faced a choice: Expand the payroll even further in hopes of remaining competitive enough to convince their fan base the team had a chance at the playoffs, or begin the process of turning the roster over. Since making that choice, they haven't done much to second-guess. One thing the Yankees' trajectory does show is that you only need a small handful of prospects to make good. Until it happens for the Phillies, we wait.