Yankees’ real test awaits next year

ALEX Rodriguez batted third, Mark Teixeira cleanup and Carlos Beltran fifth in the order in the Yankees’ Opening Day lineup at the Stadium against the Astros, and not a one of them will be wearing pinstripes when 2017 begins.

In their place when next year opens on the road against the Rays, there will be Gary Sanchez, maybe Aaron Judge, maybe Greg Bird, maybe Tyler Austin, maybe Starlin Castro, maybe Clint Frazier and maybe Brian McCann in the heart of an order that wasn’t nearly as productive as required this time around.

And it will be next year, even more so than over the final nine weeks of this season, that the transformation of the Yankees will be felt most acutely because, let’s face it, when the face-lift began a week in advance of the Aug. 1 non-waivers trade deadline, the team pretty much had been left for dead.

Next year will begin without two more prominent Legends of the Fall of ’09, and the young guys who breathed life into the season and the Stadium through August and much of September will be the point guys expected to deliver under the pressure from which they were exempt this time around.

“The older guys have been through a lot more, and you have a history with them,” Joe Girardi said before his team’s 5-2 defeat to the Orioles in the season finale. “The young guys, they don’t have that history, so yes, it’s different.”

This latest phase of the Bronx reclamation project was handled about as seamlessly and gracefully as possible. Rodriguez and Hal Steinbrenner concocted an honorable discharge for No. 13 that reflected well on both parties following a couple — only a couple — uncomfortable weeks that could have but never did sabotage the season. Beltran had value on the market. And Teixeira announced his retirement in mid-August — effective with this final game — before the vultures could begin circling his locker.

The makeover could have come with recriminations that surely would have landed on the back page, but it did not. In this environment, the absence of malice surely was a welcome development in a precinct that so regularly featured so much drama.

And — surprise, surprise — the influx of young blood infused the team with energy and direction lacking for too many stretches over the season’s first four months. Even if the Yankees didn’t play quite well enough or win quite often enough down the stretch to make it to a wild-card game, they didn’t resemble a tired, fraying group.

But staying competitive and staying close won’t be good enough next time, even if all logic suggests that is likely the best the Yankees will be able to hope for next year with a top and middle of the order that is either flawed or untested — 12th in the AL in runs scored with 84 fewer than in 2015, when they were second in the league while powered primarily by Rodriguez and Teixeira — and with a starting rotation that sure seems iffy six months out.

Even as the Yankees have gone what recently would have been regarded as an unthinkable four straight years without qualifying for a postseason series and even if they have undergone an upheaval in playing personnel, the organizational hierarchy is in a period of unprecedented stability.

Brian Cashman has been the general manager since 1998, his goingon-20 year reign the longest since Ed Barrow held the position (1921-1944). In the meantime, Girardi just finished his ninth year, which, coupled with Joe Torre’s preceding 12-year reign, means the Yankees — for the first time in their history — have had only two managers in 21 seasons.

So there is stability up top, from where Steinbrenner, the managing general partner, Hal resists impulsiveness while presiding over the post-Dynasty and post-Core Four eras, the aftermaths of which have included a fair amount of trauma.

Still, this year of change was the easy part. Change was not only what the organization needed but what the fan base embraced. The failure to reach the postseason seemed less a failure than a fait accompli.

Next year is going to be the difficult one. Next year, when the passel of prospects acquired during the summer isn’t likely to make any impact at all and when the Baby Bombers who had little or no pressure this time around will be expected to produce while on center stage and when the fan base isn’t likely to be as forgiving. Next year, which they await in The Bronx as they did in Brooklyn generations ago.