On his blog, in a post called “Yankees Hot Tub Time Machine,” Joe Posnanski pointed out how long in the tooth (a long-in-the-tooth phrase if there ever was one) the 2014 New York Yankees are.

Currently, Brian McCann is 29, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner are each 30, Mark Teixeira is 33, Brian Roberts 36, Alex Rodriguez 38, Derek Jeter 39, and Ichiro is 40.

More, for each of them, their best year was a while back, mostly between 2005 and 2007. Then Poz writes this

Oh, if only the Yankees had a Hot Tub Time Machine — or the phone booth from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure — they could put together one of the greatest teams in baseball history. Heck, let’s say it, if they could have all nine of those players, in their prime, that would be the greatest team ever. You have (by performance) three SURE Hall of Famers (A-Rod, Jeter, Ichiro), a possible Hall of Famer (Beltran) and four All-Star superstars.

Instead, Tex is old and played just 15 games last year, Jeter is old and played in 17 games, A-Rod is old and with a pending suspension that would last more than a year, Ichiro is old and has not even managed a .300 average since 2010, Roberts is old and is hitting .231/.289/.344 the last three seasons. Soriano and Beltran are old too, though they still had something left last year. Even McCann and Ellsbury, who are like One Direction compared to this gang of Rolling Stones, will be 30 on Opening Day.

Michael Schur and I argue about the Yankees all the time. I believe this team is about to become an all-time fiasco … something that has been building for a few years now with these gigantic and back-loaded contracts that, sooner or later, come due. I look at this creaky team — and the fact the Yankees had to pay a huge luxury tax just to put it together — and see doom.

That last graf warmed my heart on this cold, cold Seattle day.