TAMPA — When the Yankees cross the state to play the Astros on Sunday in West Palm Beach, Fla., they’ll see two familiar faces looking to get Houston to the AL title, in Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann.
If the plans laid in late 2013 and early 2014 had worked out differently, the Yankees might not look the way they do heading into the 2017 season.
That’s when they invested nearly $500 million into free agency, with the most significant splurges on Masahiro Tanaka ($175 million), Jacoby Ellsbury ($153 million), McCann ($85 million) and Beltran ($45 million), with Robinson Cano leaving for Seattle.
Three years later, the Yankees have one playoff game and a youth movement to show for it.
“My expectations at that time were to compete like the Yankees do every year,” Beltran said earlier this spring in West Palm after signing a one-year deal with Houston following his midseason trade to the Rangers. “They go out and get players they feel can help them win. That’s what we wanted to do.”
Instead, the Yankees won 84, 87 and 84 games, with a wild-card loss to Houston in 2015 and a selloff a year later that enabled them to acquire some of the best young talent in the game.
“The first year was [Derek] Jeter’s last season, so that was different,” Beltran said. “Every series was a ceremony. He earned that celebration. The next year was more about baseball, and we just lost that [wild-card] game to [the Astros]. And then last year was the trades. Everything went by fast.”
Clearly, the Yankees have gone in a different direction since July and head into this season counting on Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird and perhaps down the road a bit, Gleyber Torres and James Kaprielian. They might not be such important pieces if the Yankees had made some deep playoff runs over the last three seasons.
“I have no interest in looking back,’’ general manager Brian Cashman said of that free-agent class.
“Like every year, we were trying to take our shot,’’ Cashman said. “We had a team that was capable of contending for a title. We obviously wound up contending for a playoff spot, not a title. It didn’t work out with the group that was collected. Now we’re going to try to fight for higher ground again with this team.”
McCann was shipped to the Astros in November for a pair of prospects with two years and a vesting option for 2019 remaining on his contract thanks to the emergence of Sanchez.
“It hurts that we didn’t win a championship in New York,” McCann said in West Palm. “We had a lot of talent, but it didn’t work out. From what I’ve seen, they’ve got some good young talent now.”
That’s how CC Sabathia, in the last year of his deal, chooses to look at it.
“In baseball, stuff doesn’t always go the way you want it to,’’ Sabathia said. “But I think a good thing came out of it. We’re getting younger. And it’s not just younger, these guys can really play. That’s a big difference.”
It reminds him of what the Indians did over a decade ago, led by Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore, among others.
“I went through a youth movement that I was a part of in Cleveland, and when you have guys that can play, it comes together pretty quick,’’ Sabathia said. “Torres, [Justus] Sheffield, Clint Frazier, I hadn’t seen them before this spring. They’re all really good players that have a chance to be All-Stars at the next level. I’d never thought about it before, but I guess that’s the positive in us not winning as much as we would have liked.”
And now the Yankees and Astros will see who reaches their destination first.
“Things happen for a reason,” Beltran said. “It would have been great to go to the playoffs every year and win a World Series. It’s hard, man.”