There is an old story about the time slugger Jimmie Foxx, the Albert Pujols of his day, came up to bat against the Yankees’ Lefty Gomez. Catcher Bill Dickey put down a sign. Gomez shook him off. Dickey tried something different. Gomez shook him off again. Rapidly, they cycled through every pitch in Gomez’s arsenal. Finally, Dickey trotted out to the mound for an explanation. I don’t want to throw anything, Gomez explained. If he held onto the ball, Foxx couldn’t hit it.

Approximately 70 years later, the Yankees can look to Gomez for an explanation as to why they’ve been ejected from the playoffs in the first round for three consecutive seasons. Playoff teams are preselected for good offense. When their batters make contact with the ball, it goes sailing far more often than the same spheroid struck by a member of the Kansas City Royals or the Pittsburgh Pirates. Even more so than in the regular season, it’s far safer for an at bat to end with the ball in the catcher’s mitt than one going into the field of play. Memo to the owner: the Yankees haven’t failed to advance the last three years because of their manager. To paraphrase an ancient Clintonism: It’s the pitching, stupid. Since 2003, the year of the Yankees’ last World Series appearance, the team’s starting rotation has been one-half improvisation, one-half desperation. Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, and David Wells gave way to Javier Vazquez, Jon Lieber, and Kevin Brown, plus Jose Contreras, Orlando Hernandez, and Esteban Loaiza. That didn’t work out, so the Yankees tried again with an aging Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, Chien-Ming Wang, Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small, and Al Leiter. Despite that group’s first-round exit, they were returned intact for 2006 (if at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again), with Jeff Karstens and the late Cory Lidle added after the All-Star break — not to mention Sidney Ponson.

The 2006 class graduated, or whatever it is that failed Yankees pitchers do, yielding to this season’s 14 starting pitchers. The only constant has been Mike Mussina. “Constant” really isn’t the right word; Mussina has been present but inconsistent. Having failed to pitch 200 innings in a season since 2003, he apparently achieved permanent obsolescence this year.

In the past four postseasons, the Yankees have faced Johan Santana, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Bronson Arroyo, Derek Lowe, Bartolo Colon, John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Justin Verlander, C.C. Sabathia, and Fausto Carmona. They responded to this assemblage of Cy Young award winners, All-Stars, and future Hall of Famers with the pitchers listed above. It shouldn’t be shocking that they’ve come away empty-handed.

A potent offense has carried the Yankees over the last few years, but great offensive numbers are mostly compiled against poor pitchers, not great ones (for an example of this in microcosm, examine the list of pitchers that gave up Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs in 1927, or Roger Maris’s 61 in 1961, or those victimized by Barry Bonds — the stars are vastly outnumbered by journeymen). Poor pitchers aren’t the ones you see in the postseason, so the bar for hitting gets higher. The pitchers have to raise their game to compensate. The Yankees, with mediocre staffs, haven’t been capable. Without a great deal of luck, that isn’t enough to survive in the postseason.

Now, with Andy Pettitte possibly declining his option, Roger Clemens finished, and Mussina, under contract for one more year, something less than an asset, the wheel will spin again.

Despite his postseason problems, Wang remains a solid starter. Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain deal in much-needed heat, while Ian Kennedy has pitching smarts beyond his years. They could give the Yankees a Steinbrenner-era first: a trio of homegrown aces and a painless, nigh-instant rebuilding — and while the Yankees’ system is distinctly lacking in position players, there are even more pitchers just over the horizon.

Of course, there are no guarantees. The youngsters may have given a false impression, injuries may interfere, and the Old Boss is always reluctant to trust those he terms “young elephants.” Yet, the veteran pitchers on the free agent market won’t even offer the Yankees a chance to maintain the current, lacking status quo, and even trading the young elephants for a Johan Santana wouldn’t cover the team’s needs. The old elephant must change its (pin)stripes or die.

Lefty Gomez’s strategy for dealing with a superior opponent was a sensible one. Unfortunately, in baseball you can’t hold the ball and run out the clock. Eventually you have to take your chances and make a pitch. Ownership can fire Joe Torre, replace him with Tony LaRussa, Joe Girardi, or the bleached bones of Connie Mack. Until the team comes to grips with this unalterable truth about baseball, it may continue to build teams good enough to compete in the regular season, but not good enough to win it all.

Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.