The Yankees weren’t good enough to win the World Series in 2020. They weren’t good enough to get out of the division series. They weren’t even good enough to win the division in the regular season. And it looks like they are going to try to erase their soon-to-be-12-year championship drought with nearly the same roster in 2021.

During the 2010s, when the Yankees failed to reach the World Series for the first time in a decade since the 1910s, the team would use corny slogans to try to depict the organization and help boost ticket sales. Everyone remembers “Pride. Power. Pinstripes.” and “Our History. Your Tradition” and “A Timeless Legacy” from in-game commercials on YES. Well, if there’s a new one for 2021, it might as well be “Complacency” or maybe “Luxury-Tax Threshold.”

The Yankees have grown complacent since their last championship with the goal of simply getting in the playoffs, not caring how they get there. Home-field advantage doesn’t seem to matter for a team that keeps losing because of it, and having a strong, durable rotation or a lineup that can frequently put the ball in play aren’t important either.

Brian Cashman has made it clear the Yankees’ goal is to reach the playoffs and then hope to have luck and random chance on their side once they get there. Many times Cashman has called the playoffs a crapshoot, which means the general manager thinks the Yankees were just one really, really, really lucky team in four out of the five years from 1996 through 2000. They were extremely fortunate to have the dice land the way they did in 2009 as well.

It’s obvious the Yankees are doing everything they can to stay under the luxury-tax threshold for 2021 and have to avoid forfeiting an amount of money that’s probably equal to a homestand’s worth of Coors Light sales in the at the Stadium. (If Coors Light was $12 in 2019, what’s it going to be the next time fans are allowed to attend games with all of the supposed lost revenue the Yankees have suffered? $15? $18? $20?!) DJ LeMahieu’s contract says as much with the Yankees spreading his $90 million across six years rather than the expected four or even five. Their decision to replicate their pre-2008 season plans by possibly having both Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt in their rotation like they did Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy also makes it clear: avoid the luxury-tux penalty.

That means the team you see today (with LeMahieu and Corey Kluber counted as sure-things even though the team has yet to announce either as officially signed) is the team you will see on Opening Day. You can probably add Brett Gardner as well though it wouldn’t surprise me if the Yankees are prepared to replace an inevitably injured Aaron Hicks or Aaron Judge with Mike Tauchman and Greg Allen. But after Gardner, that’s it. There’s barely enough room under the luxury-tax threshold to add Gardner and have space for any in-season call-ups or potential trade acquisitions. Then again, after the Yankees stood completely pat during the 2020 deadline when they had glaring weaknesses and needs, why would they be active at the 2021 deadline, especially with no wiggle room before the penalty.

When Cashman finally decided to pull the plug on Sonny Gray as a Yankee because Cashman’s pitching department couldn’t tap into the pitcher who David Ortiz referred to in 2015 as “the toughest guy I’ve faced in the last few seasons,” Cashman said the following: “I don’t feel like we can go through the same exercise and expect different results.”

Each time Cashman has had a chance to put the Yankees over the top in the last four seasons, he has failed to do so and ownership has failed to allow him to do so. The Yankees could have had Justin Verlander at the August 2017 deadline, but they didn’t want to take on his salary. So he went to the Astros and single-handedly swung the ALCS with wins in Games 2 and 6.

The 2017 Yankees came within one win of the World Series after not trading for Verlander, and then they decided to cut payroll by $50 million for 2018. The Red Sox and Dodgers greatly outspent them that season, and guess which two teams met in the 2018 World Series?

Cashman tried to bolster the team’s staff for 2019 by trading top pitching prospect Justus Sheffield for the oft-injured James Paxton, who had never thrown more than 160 1/3 innings in a season in his career, a career which had been and still is one long injured-list stint with some innings in between rather than the other way around. In two seasons with the Yankees, Paxton was bad then hurt then good then hurt then bad then hurt again. The 24-year-old, left-handed Sheffield didn’t miss a start for the 2020 Mariners, pitched to a 3.58 ERA and 3.17 FIP and allowed only two home runs in 55 1/3 innings. The Yankees could have used that arm against the Rays in the ALDS.

For 2020, the Yankees finally had starting pitching depth. Cashman and the Yankees created a rotation of Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ with Jordan Montgomery as insurance. But that was in February and before Severino needed Tommy John surgery and before Paxton underwent back surgery. The Yankees’ inability to properly diagnose Severino’s elbow injury from the previous October and Paxton’s back injury from the previous September had altered their 2020 plans. The Yankees had four months from the time the 2020 season was shut down until it finally started to add to their rotation, and they didn’t. When Tommy Kahnle went down in the first weekend of the shortened season, the Yankees decided not to add to their bullpen. The trade deadline came and went and the Yankees willingly decided to take their chances with a makeshift rotation, the kind of makeshift rotation they always seem have to by the time October rolls around, and three trustworthy bullpen arms.

Right now, the Yankees’ rotation is Cole, Corey Kluber and his eight starts over the last two seasons, Montgomery who is 11 starts removed from Tommy John surgery, and two rookies. The other rotation option is noted scumbag Domingo German, who it’s now impossible to root for, the same way it’s impossible to feel anything other than awful to need to also root for noted scumbag Aroldis Chapman to close out games for the Yankees. Unfortunately for Hal Steinbrenner, I haven’t forgotten that either is a scumbag, the way he hoped Yankees fans would when he allowed the Yankees to trade for Chapman and then gave him a five-year deal and said, “Look, he admitted he messed up. He paid the penalty. Sooner or later, we forget, right?” I haven’t forgotten, and I certainly didn’t forget when for the second straight season the highest-paid reliever of all time gave up a home run to end the Yankees’ season.

The Yankees are going to try to win in 2021 with the same lineup that wasn’t good enough in 2020 or 2019. They are going to try to win it all with a rotation that desperately needs Luis Severino to return completely healthy midseason and have no adjustment period after having only made five starts in what will be nearly two years. They are going to try to win it all with a bullpen that is now down to three trustworthy relievers in Chad Green, Zack Britton and Chapman with the departures of Kahnle and Dellin Betances over the last two years and the disappearance of an effective Adam Ottavino.

It’s a wild, ill-advised and irresponsible plan for a team in a supposed championship window, but it’s the Yankees’ plan. The Yankees are going to go through the same exercise and expect different results.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees don’t want to pay DJ LeMahieu, and it’s not a surprise. The Yankees never want to pay their own players. Other teams’ players? Overpay them. But when it comes to the Yankees having to pay players who have produced for them, well, that’s a different story.

It was easy for the Yankees to give A.J. Burnett a five-year, $82.5 million contract, eventually paying him to pitch for Pittsburgh for the final two years of the deal. They didn’t even blink when they bid against themselves in handing Jacoby Ellsbury a seven-year, $153 million contract, for which he only played in games in four of the seven years before being released. Brian McCann? Here’s five years and $85 million, and we’ll pay you to play for the Astros for the final two. Carlos Beltran? How about $45 million for three years, and you can finish the contract in Texas. It’s always been easy for the Yankees to overpay and hand out ill-advised free-agent contracts for other team’s free agents.

It’s always been this way with the Yankees. At least in the Brian Cashman era it’s been this way. Bernie Williams was seconds away from signing with the Red Sox and rewriting baseball history before George Steinbrenner met his modest salary request. Mariano Rivera was allowed to meet with the Red Sox as a free agent despite being the best relief pitcher of all time. Derek Jeter was told to test the market as the face of the franchise, team captain and everyday shortstop of 15 seasons. If the organization could treat 51, 42 and 2 so poorly, it should come as no surprise that spring training is a month away and LeMahieu is still without a contract. He didn’t have his best years with another team.

LeMahieu isn’t seeking franchise player money. LeMahieu isn’t 51, 42 or 2 in terms of Yankees history, but in terms of 2019 and 2020, he was the team’s best player. (Sorry, Aaron Judge, but you actually have to play to be the team’s best player.) He’s seeking his earned value for being the most important player on a team in a championship window. Cashman likes to refer to his players as “assets” like they are a piece of land or a random stock in his portfolio, and LeMahieu is an asset the Yankees can’t afford to lose.

I don’t know what the Yankees’ offseason plan is. It’s been more than three months since they were eliminated by the Rays in Game 5 of the ALDS, and they have done nothing, absolutely nothing in that time. Unless you consider stocking up on minor-league depth pieces who have had close to no success at the major-league level in recent seasons. If stocking up on players who will hopefully never appear in a game for the Yankees is the goal for this offseason, then yes, the Yankees are dominating the winter. I can’t imagine a team with the highest payroll in the league trying to win their first championship in 12 years is content with adding Greg Allen, Tyler Lyons, Jhoulys Chain and Socrates Brito.

Needing starting pitching (reminder: Jordan Montgomery is the team’s No. 2 starter), the Yankees watched the Padres take on Yu Darvish’s salary in a clear salary dump by the Cubs. They sat idle while the Mets gave up a bunch of mediocre prospects for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco when they desperately need a middle infielder and starting pitcher. With three trustworthy relievers in an aging and declining bullpen, they let Liam Hendriks sign with the White Sox, who are trying to emerge as the best team in the American League. The Yankees didn’t even care to bring Tommy Kahnle back. They let the Dodgers sign Kahnle, knowing 2021 would be a lost season for the reliever, but hoping he would return to form for 2022. The Dodgers’ front office is what the Yankees’ front office has been striving to be for years with a perfect balance of player development and financial might. The Yankees haven’t come close to realizing that balance.

It’s hard to be enthusiastic or excited about the upcoming Yankees season when it seems like the organization’s strategy is to improve simply by having the other postseason teams from their league sell off their best players to the National League. The Yankees can separate themselves from the AL East and the entire AL with a couple of free-agent moves, and they aren’t. They can make sure the path to the World Series in the AL goes through them, but like they have been for the last 12 years, they are fine if the path goes through other AL cities, and they are fine having to take that path even though it’s ended well for them zero times.

There isn’t a backup plan if LeMahieu signs elsewhere. That plan was likely doing whatever it takes to trade for Lindor, but their cross-city rival took that option off the board under new ownership. The Yankees are close to losing LeMahieu to a team that decides to meet his reported five-year demand. All it will take is the Mets wanting to further increase their World Series odds and put a dent in the Yankees’ and their fan base, or the Dodgers deciding to go over the top to win back-to-back championships or another team to decide they want the best second baseman in baseball on their team. It’s dangerously close to happening.

It will be nearly impossible to get behind the Yankees and believe in them and want to root for them if they fail to sign their best player in the middle of a championship window. It’s inexplicable it’s gotten to the point where LeMahieu not re-signing with the Yankees might happen, but that’s the way the Yankees do business. If LeMahieu had produced his last two seasons with one of the other 29 teams, the Yankees would have already signed him.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!