Yankees' storyline of close-but-no-cigar is wearing thin

You don’t get any "World Series or Bust" proclamations from the Yankees any more at the start of spring training.

Probably because it’s been all bust and no World Series for the past 11 seasons, dating back to the franchise’s 27th title, which also happens to be their last visit to the Fall Classic.

They still make it to the October tournament virtually every year with a current run of four straight playoff appearances, nine out of 13 and 22 times in the last 26 -- a remarkable stretch of consistent success. But in the Bronx, even that gets tired if there’s no ring at the end, no downtown parade.

And those days feel like a lifetime ago, in Yankee years. The 2020 season was supposed to be the one, the return to glory. As soon as Gerrit Cole put pen to paper on that $324-million contract, there was a giddiness around the Yankees, with the usually reserved, nothing-like-his-dad Hal Steinbrenner talking about multiple titles at that news conference, not just the elusive No. 28.

Then the world went sideways, and what we all took for granted -- or thought we knew -- was forever changed. The Rays’ regular-season dominance over the Yankees held serve in ejecting them from the Division Series and here we are again, asking manager Aaron Boone why 2021 will be different.

"I do feel like it's that close," Boone said Wednesday, the Yankees’ reporting date for pitchers and catchers at Steinbrenner Field. "I felt that way in ’18, I felt that way in ’19 and last year we're late in the game against the team that goes on to the World Series again. So we’ve got to find a way to get over that last hump."

"But I also think it is important that we realize how close we are and how razor-thin that the margin is when you get into the postseason. I mean, it's the bounce of a ball, it's one play, it's one pitch. And you feel like we're certainly very close to that."

All true. Boone’s right. Last year, it was one pitch from Aroldis Chapman, a 100-mph fastball, that the Rays’ Mike Brosseau put in the seats. By the end of Game 5, that’s what ultimately separated the two AL East rivals. But if you further deconstruct that series loss, back to the Game 2 opener gambit with Deivi Garcia and J.A. Happ, further cracks are revealed. In the grand scheme of things, however, the Yankees were good enough to get past the Rays. They just didn’t.

It’s an all-too-familiar storyline since Boone took the helm, and wearing thin as the Yankees prepare for what everyone hopes is a complete 162-game season this time around. The longer grind should benefit a deeply talented team like the Yankees, who won 103 games in 2019 and 100 the previous year before COVID-19 permanently altered our lives. Boone’s clubs had made triple-digit wins -- an extraordinary feat in itself - seem routine, only to go belly-up in the postseason.

In a different era, under a different Steinbrenner, somebody in Boone’s position might have challenged his clubhouse Wednesday, maybe pushed the World Series mantra a little stronger in the public forum. But Boone doesn’t operate that way. He’s very conscious of how the modern player is wired, and he doesn’t pile on when it comes to the pressure that already surrounds this group.

"I think it's important that we take a step back and strip the emotion out of it and realize the roster and the core group of players that we have here are certainly on the short list of teams really capable of winning a championship," Boone said.

Again. One hundred percent correct. But that’s the only lingering point of frustration with the Yankees. They’re always capable. They just don’t finish the job. Shortly after last season ended, GM Brian Cashman strongly suggested that he was ready to run it back with pretty much the same group, a tactic more associated with a defending champion than a second-round loser.

And that’s what Cashman did. He essentially kept the lineup whole by re-signing DJ LeMahieu to a six-year, $90 million deal, then patched up a few key rotation vacancies with dice rolls on Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon. This was all done with an eye on staying below the $210 million luxury tax threshold -- Cashman dropped early hints about that too -- and the Yankees currently sit at roughly $199 million.

That’s second only to the Dodgers, who are approaching $260 million for tax purposes, and the team many are predicting will meet the Yankees in the World Series. Should that happen, it likely will mean Boone finally got that bounce.

"Talk is always cheap obviously at this point but I really liked the winter that we've had," Boone said. "Hopefully this is the year we get to the top of that mountain."

Or we’ll be having this same conversation, same time next year.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.