Trade Deadline Looms and the Yankees Need to Stay Quiet

Losing two out of three in Baltimore was no way to start making up ground in the playoff chase, but the reality here is that it has become plainly obvious, at least to me, that the Yankees just aren’t capable of making up ground. To the new subscribers, welcome, and away we go.

The next time you hear from me following the three-game series against the Rays Thursday morning, the MLB trade deadline will have come and gone and there is absolutely no doubt what the Yankees should not be doing this week.

I’ve said this for weeks, but if I was Brian Cashman, there’s no way I’m trying to add bodies to this mess at a cost of depleting the farm system even further. What sense would that make? We got another glimpse over the weekend of just how ridiculous it is to continue believing that this team has any chance of competing for a championship, which is all that matters to the Yankees.

They aren’t in the business of just trying to make the playoffs; they’re in it to win it, and that’s just not happening in 2023. Never mind a championship; I have a hard time believing they can grab one of the three wild-card berths (at 55-50 they’re 3.5 games out of the last spot now), and even if that were to happen, do we really think the Yankees have some postseason magic stored up for a glorious run through October? No way.

Think about this: Since they were 61-23 on July 8, 2022 - a start that was never sustainable and has now proven to be a gross anomaly - the Yankees are 93-90, the very definition of mediocre.

You can also think about this: This season the Yankees are 8-1 with a plus-41 run differential against the A’s and Royals, two of the worst teams in recent MLB history. Against everyone else they are 47-49 with a minus-32 run differential. This is a playoff team?

Forget this season and stop trying to squeeze blood from this corpse of a team. If Cashman wants to do what is best for the Yankees, he would be looking to sell off a few parts, the best trade chip probably being Gleyber Torres because he might actually bring back a worthwhile prospect or two.

Short of that, just do nothing and rely on returning players like Aaron Judge (who is already back), Nestor Cortes and Jonathan Loaisiga to perhaps provide a boost, hope the underperforming so-called stars like Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo, and DJ LeMahieu find some late-season energy, and ride with it.

Keep the farm system intact, and use the money that they didn’t take on at the trade deadline, plus everything that will be coming off the books after 2023 - Josh Donaldson’s albatross of a contract, for instance, plus free agents Severino, Frankie Montas, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Harrison Bader - and spend wisely in free agency to fill the holes on this sagging roster.

If they somehow get to the postseason, great. If not, that’s fine, too. But the benefit of missing the playoffs might actually be that Hal Steinbrenner wakes from his coma and makes meaningful change to the organization in the form of getting rid of Cashman and Aaron Boone. As dead as this roster is, it also is in desperate need of fresh eyes, voices and perspectives at the top of the operation for them to execute a meaningful overhaul of the team.

Of course, I also realize there’s no way Cashman will choose one of the two proper options - selling or standing pat - because he stubbornly still thinks the Yankees are a championship threat, even though there is zero evidence of that.

You know damn well he’s been working the phones for weeks, and the likelihood is that he’s going to bring in a veteran player, or two, or even three, and tell us that these guys will make a difference. To do so, he’ll send more prospects on their way, and thus will continue a business model that has produced exactly zero AL pennants and World Series titles since 2009.

Here are my observations on the three games against the Orioles.

July 28: Orioles 1, Yankees 0

➤ As I asked in the last newsletter, will the return of Judge to the lineup even matter given how horrible the Yankees offense is? Well, for one night, the answer was no. Judge got on base three times - all via walks - while the rest of the team got on base five times. Billy McKinney walked, LeMahieu had two hits, and Rizzo and Jake Bauers had one hit each. That was it, and the result - thanks to some great pitching by future Orioles star Grayson Rodriguez and their dynamic bullpen, plus outstanding defense by the Orioles - was zero Yankee runs.

➤ Any team that throws a pitch over the plate to Judge is stupid. Until the rest of these bums can actually do something, Judge should be getting walked nearly every time he steps into the box. Again, as I said the other day, Judge coming back would really be impactful if he could bat four or five times every pass through the order. Sadly, he only gets one crack at it and then we have to sit through eight generally fruitless at bats before it’s his turn again.

➤ The Yankees had only three chances to score all night. They had men on first and second with one out in both the fourth and seventh innings, only to see the Stanton and Harrison Bader ground into double plays. And with first and second and two outs in the eighth, second baseman Adam Frazier made a diving play to rob Rizzo of what might have been an RBI single.

➤ What an utter waste of a brilliant pitching performance by Gerrit Cole. Seven shutout innings allowing just three hits and no walks on a season-high 110 pitches and nothing to show for it. Just disgusting. This is the 17th time he has permitted two earned runs or fewer this season and the Yankees have found a way to lose six of those games. Cole has an AL-leading 2.64 ERA and a 1.049 WHIP yet the Yankees are now just 15-7 in his starts. By the end of the series, in games Cole doesn’t start, the Yankees are 40-43.

➤ The game was scoreless going to the bottom of the ninth and Tommy Kahnle was pitching. Kahnle threw eight pitches, and all of them were changeups. He struck out Adley Rutschman, but then gave up a walk-off homer to Anthony Santander. Here’s a thought: If you throw eight straight changeups, doesn’t that just end up looking like a batting practice fastball? What the hell are these guys thinking? Kahnle had Ben Rortvedt behind the plate, and they decided to keep throwing changeups and it burned them. Kahnle has 95-96 gas, why not mix in a fastball? Just dumb.

BOX SCORE

July 29: Yankees 8, Orioles 3

➤ Well, this was certainly an unusual night when the Yankees hit the ball all over the yard and even mixed in a few runs. “That’s what it’s supposed to look like, right there,” Boone said. Yeah, it is given all the impressive back-of-the-baseball-card you have in this lineup. Sadly, it has rarely looked like this, so it was a nice little gift on a Saturday night to see eight runs on 12 hits plus as a bonus no defensive errors.

➤ The Orioles seemed like they were pitching around Judge in the first game, but for some reason they came right at him in this one and he pummeled a two-run homer off Tyler Wells in the third to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead, then had two singles and came around to score after one of those. That made nine plate appearances so far in the series and he was on base in six of them.

➤ What was nice is this time he had some help. Stanton got things started in the first with a laser beam homer and he later added a single (probably should have been ruled an error but at this point I’ve given up on official scoring) during the Yankees big four-run sixth inning.

➤ And what an inning that was. Kyle Higashioka - who had singled in the fourth to move Bader to third from where he scored on a Torres sacrifice fly - led off with a solo homer that made it 5-3. Then Judge, Stanton and Rizzo all singled but because none of them can run, it was bases loaded with one out. When LeMahieu whiffed it looked like a chance to blow it open was going to die. Instead, Kiner-Falefa came through with a double into the left-field corner scoring all three runners to make it 8-3. That was a huge at bat.

➤ Clarke Schmidt once again hung tough and gave the Yankees a chance to win. It wasn’t great - three runs on five hits and a walk kn five innings - but it was gritty, especially when he struck out Ryan O’Hearn looking on a nasty slider with the tying run on third in the fifth.

➤ After that, the Yankees bullpen did great work as Ian Hamilton and Nick Ramirez retired the last 12 Orioles in order.

BOX SCORE

July 30: Orioles 9, Yankees 3

➤ Severino is washed. It’s over for him in New York. What a debacle of an outing this was, and that’s saying something given the season he’s had. Six batters into the game the Orioles were up 6-0 and Severino hadn’t even recorded an out. Ultimately, they kicked the extra point and led 7-0. Yes, 7-0 in the first inning. ESPN should have just signed off right then and given us a 30-for-30 or something.

➤ By the time his night was over he had given up nine runs on 10 hits and two walks. This was the fourth time he has allowed at least seven earned runs and his season ERA is now 7.49. This can’t go on and they need to demote him to the bullpen and try something else. Maybe with Cortes close to returning, he slots into that rotation spot, but if the Yankees still believe they can earn a playoff berth, they can’t keep sending Severino to the hill. “Right now, I feel like I’m the worst pitcher in the game. No doubt about it,” Severino said. He’s not lying. One thing I’ve always liked about Sevy is he shoots it straight, unlike so many other pro athletes who just spit meaningless cliches.

➤ Not that anything mattered after the first inning, but there was this: The Yankee lineup struck out 18 times, tying a franchise futility record for a nine-inning game. That’s right, two-thirds of the outs were whiffs, including a stupefying first of his career five-strikeout night for Rizzo. It is simply incomprehensible how horrible this offense is, and it just goes back to what I talked about at the top - why would you buy at the deadline, unless you were somehow able to revamp the entire lineup?

➤ The next question you might ask is how did Judge do? Well, he didn’t play. In a game the Yankees really needed to win, which is no different than any other game given their position in the standings, the best player on the team did not play. Why? Because the moronic manager - or whoever is actually telling him who to play - thought it wise to rest him after he was the DH Friday and the right fielder Saturday, games in which he reached base a combined six times.

➤ This was Boone’s explanation: “Difficult to not have him in there. You don’t like that part of it. But the decision, feel like we kind of had to do it. I think it’s important to know, he didn’t have a rehab assignment. Part of him coming back (when he did) was these were going to be, in essence, his rehab games for us. And we’ve gotten the benefit of Aaron Judge in the last two days when maybe normally that would have been done in Somerset or somewhere else.”

➤ Boone said Judge might be available off the bench. When he was pressed on this issue, and it was pointed out in a roundabout way how stupid it was that he could possibly pinch hit but batting four or five times as the DH was too much of a workload, here’s what he said. “I would say your premise there would suggest they’re the same. I would disagree with that. Getting ready to play a major league game right now and going through all your pregame (routine) to be prepared at seven o’clock, you would hope the baserunning that follows that. While it’s not playing right field, it is still playing. Again, we’re talking about him not being 100 percent with the toe. But just as much as that, he just hasn’t worked up a lot of volume of stuff.”

➤ Honestly, that statement alone is enough for him to be fired on the spot, let alone the horrible job he has done with this team this season. But then there was this after the game. When he was asked about his team striking out 18 goddamn times, you won’t even believe what came out of his mouth. “Outside of the strikeouts, I thought at-bats were building off of last night. I thought we grinded out really well. We made it really tough on (Orioles starter Dean) Kremer. We couldn't finish off. So I thought we carried some of that momentum in from last night, but obviously, they beat us up with the strikeout.” I have no words here. This guy can’t even acknowledge, after his team struck out 18 goddamn times, that they had an awful night. Boone must go.

BOX SCORE

➤ July 31, 2007: With Alex Rodriguez sitting on 499 career home runs, you would have naturally assumed that on a day when the Yankees tied a franchise record with eight long balls in a 16-3 blowout of the White Sox that A-Rod must have hit the milestone dinger. Incredibly, seven of his teammates went deep - Hideki Matsui did so twice - but A-Rod went 0-for-5.

Joining Matsui in this impromptu home run derby at Yankee Stadium were Bobby Abreu, Jorge Posada, Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera, Johnny Damon and Shelley Duncan who came off the bench to hit one. The only starters who didn’t homer were A-Rod, Derek Jeter and first baseman Andy Phillips.

“There were lots of pictures taken today; they took pictures of the wrong guy,” said A-Rod, referencing all the photographers who were clicking away every time he swung in the hope that they would capture his big moment. “That was awesome; guys were swinging the bats really well.”

The only other time the Yankees hit eight homers in one game was June 28, 1939 in a 23-2 romp over the Philadelphia A’s. Joe DiMaggio and Babe Dahlgren had two each while Bill Dickey, George Selkirk, Joe Gordon and Tommy Henrich had one each.

“I definitely felt left out,” A-Rod said. “I was getting lonely in the corner by Gator (pitching coach Ron Guidry), so I just kept switching seats around. Tonight, none of them worked, but it was a good win for us.”

A-Rod had hit No. 499 on July 25 and it took until Aug. 4 at the stadium against the Royals before he became the 22nd player in MLB history to reach 500. Six players have joined the list since then.

It has been a while since the Yankees have seen the Rays, and you’d have to say this is a different Tampa Bay team than the one that was rolling through the first portion of the season. Since winning their first 13 games, the Rays have gone a pretty mundane 51-44 and they have gone from leading the AL East by as much as 6.5 games on July 1, to trailing the upstart Orioles by 1.5 games.

They did, however, take two of three from the Astros in Houston over the weekend, so maybe they’re getting back into the groove. It would figure, just in time to play the Yankees who they are 4-3 against so far this season.

Despite their struggles, the Rays still have the third-best record in MLB because they have outstanding players who are still doing great things. They rank fourth in runs scored per game at 5.17, they’re fifth in team OPS at .773, and fourth in home runs with 155. On the pitching side, they rank third in ERA at 3.81 and tied for second in WHIP at 1.19, and that despite taking some big injury hits to their starting rotation, though things are going to work out quite nicely in this series as they’ll be throwing probably their best three starters at New York.

Monday at 7:05 p.m. on YES it’ll be Domingo German (4.77 ERA) against Tyler Glasnow (3.36); Tuesday at 7:05 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (5.75) against Zach Eflin (3.64); and Wednesday at 7:05 on Amazon Prime it’s Cole (2.64) against Shane McClanahan (3.00).