Every time the Yankees failed to make a big move over the past few years, and defended that non-move with some iteration of "we tried, but we thought we'd be fine passing", an uncomfortable truth hung over it all; they were, technically, right. The Yankees didn’t sign Manny Machado or Bryce Harper last year, and they were still great. They didn’t add a pitcher at the trade deadline, yet nearly made the World Series, and only failed to do so because of a sputtering offense.
We decried each of those decisions here, not because the Yankees needed to sign Machado or Harper or trade for Justin Verlander or Madison Bumgarner, but because they could do so, and chose not to.