We just started this blog so I can’t back this statement up with anything but my word, but I’ve been saying for a couple months now that this year’s version of the New York Yankees will be the first to not make the playoffs since 1993.

It certainly sounds like a less gutty prediction with only 40-something games left in the season. But as I was scanning the headlines this morning my belief was backed up by one statement: The Yankees are considering bringing Carl Pavano up to take the fifth spot in their starting rotation.

Yes, Pavano, aka the “American Idle,” according to New York tabloids, the same guy who signed a $39.95 million, four-year contract before the 2005 season only to go 5-6 in 19 appearances in the years since, could pitch as early as Saturday or Sunday. That’s how desperate this year’s Bronx Bombers are for pitching.

Chien-Ming Wang is recovering but expected to be out until October. Dan Giese (who?) is on the disabled list, as is Joba Chamberlain, who should be a setup man anyway. Phil Hughes is also in contention with Pavano to pitch this weekend but he was terrible early in the season when he did pitch, as was Ian Kennedy – the other highly-touted prospect the Yankees wouldn’t trade to Minnesota for Johan Santana.

This outcome was predictable in the offseason. Andy Pettitte has had a fantastic career but he’s about 80. Mike Mussina, who has discovered the fountain of youth a year after it looked like he was done and has an outside shot at his first 20-win season, is even older. Wang is a respectable ace with great, albeit not overpowering stuff. Beyond that trio the rotation was patchwork. Guesswork. A shadow of the championship seasons when New York would trot out a five-some of pitchers that left teams quaking – and if they didn’t have five they would trade for one or two more before the deadline to make sure they could.

Under the brothers Steinbrenner and general manager Cashman last offseason the Yankees crumbled. Hank bloviated publicly about not bending to the demands of the “small market” Twins while Hal and Brian Cashman fidgeted nervously, gnawing on their fingernails and professing to a desire to build from within.

That never would have happened under George Steinbrenner. He’d have ponied up. Like him or hate him, George spared no expense in putting together a team that would contend each and every year. Hank, Hal and Cash left the Yanks relying on guys like Darrell Rasner and the aforementioned prospects heading into the season. Acquisitions of Xavier Nady, Damaso Marte, Richie Sexson (now gone) and Ivan Rodriguez were interesting, but uninspiring. And they clearly solved no problems, as they’re now selling Pavano as the next possible answer to the pitching woes.

And so the Yankees sit at 66-58, certainly a good record, but not one that is acceptable by the standards of the Bronx. They’re 10 games out of first place with 38 to play and five-and-a-half behind the Red Sox for even second in the AL East.

In truth, many baseball fans across the country must be gleeful at this long-awaited collapse. The Yankees, right or wrong, have oft-been looked at as the villains with the bottomless wallets. Can’t say I haven’t been guilty of making that accusation from time to time.

And it was bound to happen sometime. Santana may or may not have made the Yankees contenders this year. You could argue that even with him, the rejuvenated Mussina and Pettitte atop the rotation that they still lack solid depth. But they’d have the true ace that they’ve lacked with Wang out.

But whether it worked or not that would have been a move befitting of the Yankees. Had they made that deal, packaging Hughes and Kennedy with Melky Cabrera (also now in the minors) and perhaps another prospect, the Yankees would either have been a contender or they would have gone out with a roar. As it stands now they’re just another non-contender finishing August and September with offseason tee times already moving front-of-mind.