Too many young players haven’t panned out for sinking Yankees

The 2013 Yankees just might have a lot in common with the 2009-12 Mets — and that, obviously, is no compliment.

Those Mets played better than expected in the first half, raised hope and then plummeted in the final months because a Rod Barajas or a Jeff Francoeur would turn back into a pumpkin, or just because there was too little depth to sustain excellence.

In the pinstripe scenario, Vernon Wells is Francoeur — a big name who could get hot briefly, but ultimately has become undone yet again by righty-on-righty breaking balls. And generally, like those Mets, you cannot bluff your way through 162 games with insufficient depth.

Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post

Manuel Banuelos

By now you know the Yankees' age and injuries have been blamed for everything short of global warming, and the Yankees are feeling the stings of a roster overly dependent on 30- and 40-somethings.

But what is hard to ignore when the Yankees are playing, say, the Orioles, is the disparity in 20-something excellence. Here is Baltimore with Chris Davis, Manny Machado, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis, etc., and here are the Yankees with, well, Brett Gardner, who turns 30 next month, and David Robertson.

In fact, it is arguable that the Yankees have less 20-something talent than any AL East team. Which bodes poorly over a long season in a sport with stricter drug testing. But also — more importantly — it bodes poorly for the near future.

Some of this is about not drafting high enough over the last two decades to get a shot at players such as Machado and Wieters. But some of this is about not drafting well, overevaluation, underperformance, injury and other factors.

This has left the Yankees without a position prospect of merit at Triple-A at this moment of lineup crisis for the big team while pitching hopefuls such as Dellin Betances, Brett Marshall and Mark Montgomery have regressed. For a team looking to get younger and cheaper — with an eye on dropping under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold next year — that will be nearly impossible without major contributions from the system.

Here is some of what has gone awry:

THE KILLER B'S HAD NO STING

Manny Banuelos, Dellin Betances and Andrew Brackman were supposed to be the backbone for future staffs. But they are making Generation K look like a raging success.

Brackman fit into the Yankees philosophy of gambling on players who fell in the draft because they had issues — injury, signability — but could have high first-round talent. But Brackman was a myth who now is trying to resurrect his career in Single-A with the White Sox.