McAdam: Red Sox could learn a thing or two from the Yankees

As the Red Sox and New York Yankees began their weekend series Friday night at Fenway Park, they could not have appeared more different.

While the Red Sox play out the string and await the end of their worst season in decades, the Yankees were riding an eight-game winning streak and looking to cement a playoff spot. Their spot in MLB's expanded playoff format was all but assured.

Moreover, the Yankees had taken all eight head-to-head meetings this season and were 22-5 against the Sox the last two years.

But as one-sided as the rivalry has been in 2019 and 2020, and great as the distance was between the teams in the standings (11.5 games if you're counting), those are really a lopsided snapshot of the past season and a half.

There's a far bigger issue separating the franchises -- the ability of the Yankees to contend year-after-year, and correspondingly, the Red Sox' inability to do so.

Consider: the Red Sox are about to finish last in the American League East for the fourth time in the last nine years.

Care to guess the last time the Yankees finished in the basement of the East? Hint: never. Their last season with a losing record was 28 years ago. The last time the Yankees truly had a disappointing season was in 2016 when they finished fourth in the division.

But even that year, the Yanks didn't exactly bottom out. They still won 84 games, or, the same number the defending world champion Red Sox had in 2019.

And while it's true that the Red Sox have won four World Series since 2004 to the Yankees' one, the Yankees have consistently given themselves a chance to at least get to the World Series. They haven't wildly fluctuated from winning a World Series one year and finishing last -- as the Red Sox did in 2013-14. The Yankees haven't gone from first to last in the span of three seasons -- the way the Sox did from 2018 to this year.

It's the boom-or-bust, all-or-nothing pattern that Chaim Bloom is tasked with ending. Those wild variations are one thing when they happen in Kansas City or Oakland or other small-market cities. The Royals or A's have to assemble young talent, contend for a while within a narrow window, and when the times comes when the best players become too expensive, start the process all over again.

But for a big-market franchise like the Red Sox with plenty of resources, that roller coaster ride should never exist.

Part of the Yankees' consistency over the last 15 or so years is, of all things, their stability. And who would have ever believed that word would be used to describe the Yankees? Still, Brian Cashman is the longest-tenured general manager in the game, and since 1996, the Yankees have employed a grand total of three managers: Joe Torre, Joe Girardi and Aaron Boone.

For comparison's sake, the Red Sox are on their fourth GM/president of baseball operations/chief baseball officer since 2011. And presuming Ron Roenicke isn't invited back with a new contract, the 2021 season will see the Red Sox with their sixth manager in that span.

Continuity should be a priority, but it hasn't been. It's bad enough the Sox have endured seven seasons in which they didn't qualify for the postseason since 2010. But when ownership overreacts to a bad year by ordering up a philosophy or insisting on free agent splurges to spur ticket sales or NESN ratings, the problems are compounded.

If takes Bloom longer than a couple of years to put a playoff team on the field, it will be interesting to see how long ownership exhibits patience with his rebuilding project. Their track record doesn't suggest they're willing to sit idly by as Bloom methodically restocks the organization from top-to-bottom.

But deviating from that plan will only invite more yo-yo-ing in the standings.

It's worth noting that Cashman won a power struggle within the Yankee organization some 15 years ago, ensuring that he had full authority on personnel decisions without input from warring factions in the team's Tampa base.

And when Cashman recognized that the Yankees were not likely to qualify for the playoffs in 2016 -- or do much damage if they did -- he acted to deal off some veteran free-agents-to-be (Aroldis Chapman for Gleyber Torres; Andrew Miller for Clint Frazier and Justus Sheffield) and helped restock the team's dwindling prospect inventory.

By the next year, the Yankees got to Game 7 of the ALCS. The turnaround didn't take long, and there was no hitting bottom along the way.

That's the sort of trajectory the Red Sox need to see unfold in the near future. They don't have to spend dollar-for-dollar to match the Yankees.

What they need, more than anything, is a clear roadmap back to contention that isn't going to be abandoned halfway, sending them toppling to the division basement again and forcing yet another rebuild.