It’s probably trite to say this, but if George Steinbrenner were alive and running the Yankees, Steve Donohue would be out of a job. Donohue is the New York Yankees’ trainer and in Steinbrenner’s eyes would be responsible for the multitude of injuries the Yankees have encountered.

Aaron Judge, the team’s multi-talented right fielder, is its latest starting player to suffer a disabling injury. He singled in the sixth inning of last Saturday’s game with Kansas City, winced as he started out of the batter’s box, got to first base and then went directly to the dugout, not passing “Go” nor collecting $200.

On Sunday he joined a dozen teammates, most of them starters, on the major league Injured List.

Judge’s journey to the list, which was formerly known as the disabled list, enabled him to reunite with the large contingent of Yankees already there. If he thought they were missing, he has now discovered where they have been.

This is the Yankees’ latest injury-list roster (subject to updates minute by minute):

• RF Aaron Judge (left oblique)
• CF Aaron Hicks (strained lower back)
• CF Jacoby Ellsbury (multiple injures)
• LF/DH Giancarlo Stanton (strained biceps)
• C Gary Sanchez (calf)
• 1B/DH Greg Bird (foot)
• SS Didi Gregorius (elbow surgery)
• SS Troy Tulowitzki (calf)
• 3B Miguel Andujar (torn labrum)
• Pitcher Luis Severino (shoulder)
• Pitcher Dellin Betances (shoulder)
• Pitcher Jordan Montgomery (elbow)
• Pitcher Ben Heller (Tommy John surgery)

CC Sabathia started the season on the injured list following an off-season heart procedure but is back on the active roster and pitching.

So what does George Steinbrenner have to do with all of these injuries? Nothing except when he was alive, if the Yankees had suffered so many injuries he would have blamed the trainer and fired him. Donohue escapes that fate because Steinbrenner died in 2010, and his son, Hal, now the managing partner, operates 180 degrees from his father’s philosophy.

The same goes for Brian Cashman. The general manager would be working elsewhere, if at all, if the elder Steinbrenner were steering the Yankees’ ship. Sometimes a guy just gets lucky.

Think of all of the general managers who would have loved to have been in Cashman’s position, among them Cedric Tallis, Bill Bergesch, Murray Cook, Clyde King, Woody Woodward, Bob Quinn, Pete Peterson. On the other hand, Lou Piniella, Gene Michael and Bob Watson had their opportunities to remain in or return to the job and said thanks but no thanks.

Cashman seemed to come close at one point to saying no to Steinbrenner but got what he wanted and wound up outlasting Steinbrenner.

Despite spending alarmingly more money on players during Cashman’s tenure than any other team, the Yankees have won only a single World Series in the last 18 years, all under Cashman.

Cashman oversaw World Series championships in his first three seasons as general manager (1998-2000), but oversee was all he did. Gene Michael, a Cashman predecessor, constructed the foundation that put those three World Series rings on Cashman’s fingers.

Putting Cashman’s tenure in perspective, the Yankees’ 18-year stretch with a lone World Series title,a decade ago in 2009, is the franchise’s least successful period since its pre-Babe Ruth days. When the Yankees bought Ruth from the Boston Red Sox in December 1919, they had played their first 16 years without a World Series appearance (there was no Series in 1904).

They played their first three seasons with Ruth without winning the Series, meaning if they don’t win it this year they will have endured the second most futile 19-year period in the storied history of the franchise.

Ask members of the Yankees’ hierarchy, though, why they continue to employ Cashman as general manager when general managers are fired all over baseball and they say “we like him.”

Cashman, on the other hand, deserves credit for one thing. The Yankees have developed a productive minor league system. Of course, it took Cashman a decade and a half to realize the value of the system that Michael developed in the early 1990s when Steinbrenner was suspended and absent from the team’s daily operation.

You might remember names like Williams, Jeter, Pettitte, Rivera and Posada. They were the products of Michael’s plan to retain and develop promising young players whereas Steinbrenner always traded them away in exchange for established, more expensive players.

Cashman was there and saw those players grow into World Series champions, but he had a fellow in charge of the minor league system, Mark Newman, whom he refused to fire for 15 years and instead let him turn the farm system into a wasteland.

At the direction of the younger Steinbrenner, the Yankees have reduced their player payroll to avoid the luxury tax and lower their tax rate should they exceed the threshold.

They reached the playoffs in spite of their austerity plan, but didn’t go far, losing to the dreaded Red Sox, who went on to win the World Series while the Yankees went home.

The Red Sox ended last season with baseball’s highest payroll and began this season in the same position. But at $222 million, according to Ron Blum of the Associated Press, they aren’t far ahead of the Cubs’ $209 million and the Yankees’ $207 million. There’s plenty of time for those totals to change.

What is notable, however, is even with all of their injuries, the Yankees haven’t rushed out and latched onto expensive veteran players. For decades, other teams hated the Yankees because they spent lavishly, if necessary, to replace injured players. Using their farm system freely, the Yankees have abandoned that practice, too.

In Cashman’s 22 years as general manager, the Yankees have spent approximately $4 billion on player payrolls. I have not calculated corresponding payrolls for other teams, but I don’t have to do that to understand no other team is close.

Other teams have long complained that where the Yankees are concerned, baseball does not have a level playing field. Now, however, the Yankees are giving other teams a chance by offering to play on a more level field.

The question facing Cashman is if he couldn’t win spending many millions more than other teams, how is he going to win spending the same or less?