The Yankees unrelenting trade deadline theme remains bent on adding starting pitching. Unplug the phones, Brian. We’re good to go.
This Yankees team, when play began on Saturday, have the best record in baseball. Better even than the juggernaut in Los Angeles and Houston. Carrying a +135 run differential into the afternoon game against the Rockies, the Yankees could have put it on cruise control, knowing a loss together with a Tampa Bay win would still have the Bombers 8 1/2 games ahead in the NL East Standings.
Savages don’t play the game that way, though. Even if temperatures soar above the 100-degree mark at Yankee Stadium, these Yankees come to play. Another offensive explosion with contributions coming from everywhere, base hits flowed everywhere.
Together with another stellar outing from Masahiro Tanaka – and voila – the Yankees are still the best in baseball following yesterday’s 11-5 trouncing of the Colorado Rockies. And nothing the teams chasing them can do will change that for today.
More than likely and against the grain of most fans and journalists, I’m hoping Brian Cashman screens all calls coming in from teams with offers for starting pitching the Yankees “desperately” need. Sorry, the Yankees are not as desperate as you might argue they were when Cashman unloaded a bundle of prospects to Oakland for Sonny Gray.
Yankees: A Unique Team In A Unique Time
This Yankees team is unique and deserves to be viewed differently from teams of the recent past. This Yankees team has a history of 100 games in the 2019 season behind it. Why upset the apple cart by introducing a new personality into the clubhouse at this stage of the season?
To the point. Marcus Stroman, despite his numbers and postseason pedigree, is not what the Yankees need. And here’s why.
Stroman has made no secret of his yearning to play for the Yankees, telling The Athletic,
Stroman will come in here like a bull in a china shop. “Give me the ball, I can’t wait a minute more. How about Game One, you figured that out yet?”
This Yankees team doesn’t need any of that. Every player, every pitcher, knows what their role is. Aaron Boone has communicated explicitly, especially with bullpen pieces like Stephen Tarpley, David Hale, and Chance Adams their role is to ride the Scranton Express. Not a peep out of them.
The team may be hoping, but no one is waiting for the arrival from rehab of Dellin Betances or Luis Severino. Similar to Stroman, they are extra pieces. And both, should they arrive in time to help are seasoned Yankees who will accept their fate in a shortened season.
They’re Not Called The Bombers For Nothing
Do not upset this Yankees team. They are battle-tested and more than capable of taking care of themselves, even when the bell rings and they peer out at Justin Verlander or Clayton Kershaw taking their warm-up pitches in a critical October game.
DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Gio Urshela, and the rest of the Yankees run-producing cast, as they’ve been doing all season, can put crooked numbers on the board in a single half-inning.
Aaron Boone‘s well-managed bullpen is there to take the game home when a starter falters in the middle innings, as Tanaka did today.
Trevor Bauer, Marcus Stroman, Madison Bumgarner, Robbie Ray, Matthew Boyd, Mike Minor – are names incessantly bandied about as trade targets of the Yankees. Typically, Brian Cashman plays the field, keeping his inner thoughts to himself.
But if I could be a fly on the wall in his office, I’m pretty sure as Cashman looks around at his 25-man roster, and even beyond for depth, he must know, as Aaron Boone and his savages already know, this Yankees team is already a cut above the rest.
Let it be, just this one time.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
