Winter meetings: Yankees hope to take a step (or few steps) toward title

In life, as the saying goes, you’re either moving forward or backward.

It works similarly in sports.

You’re either moving toward a championship or away from one.

After falling to the Blue Jays in four games in their American League Division Series, the Yankees have not exactly set baseball’s winter hot stove afire in their attempt to move toward their first championship since 2009.

Nothing unusual there.

Even with two of the Yankees’ rivals in the AL East already having made significant strides to get better — the Red Sox traded for Sonny Gray, a bust with the Yankees but a good pitcher everywhere else, and the suddenly all-in Blue Jays signed Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million free-agent deal to bolster their rotation — the winter meetings, which begin Sunday in Orlando, gener