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Quite suddenly, the narrative in the Bronx has changed dramatically from “what will the Yankees do if Masashiro Tanaka opts out of his contract at the end of the year?” to “where are the Yankees going to go for a new top-of-the-rotation starter?”

The meltdown of Tanaka as their most reliable (if not really a legitimate No. 1) starter has indeed put the Yankees in kind of a bind. Unlike previous years, they now have the surplus of prospects to land them a No. 1 or No. 2-type (as the Red Sox did last December for Chris Sale). The problem is, this year anyway, no such animals appear to exist.

With each succeeding week as the baseball media seems increasingly consumed with the July 31 trading deadline, speculation has run rampant about the Yankees getting Gerrit Cole from Pittsburgh…or Jose Quintana from the White Sox…or Julio Teheran from the Braves — the perception being these are all No. 1 starting pitchers on bad teams that will be looking to deal them for prospects at the deadline. Let’s start with the definition of a No. 1 starter.

If you’re simply using hard stats — three or more recent seasons of 200 innings and ERAs of under 3.00 — you’ve got exactly three : Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Dallas Keuchel (assuming the pinched nerve issue in his neck doesn’t turn into a lengthy DL stint and he continues his outer-worldly dominance this year), and possibly four if Zack Greinke maintains his dominance in a comeback season. And except for his over 3.00 ERA, Sale is almost in that class. (Before injuries curtailed them, Felix Hernandez, Adam Wainwright, Johnny Cueto and Justin Verlander were in this class as well.)

The other, more indistinct definition of a No. 1 is that of a pitcher who consistently goes out there every five days and gives his team a chance to win and who inspires confidence from his teammates that they’re going to win that day. That’s the category Tanaka (along with pitchers like Jon Lester and Yu Darvish), fell into until this year. Right now, there’s no way Cole, Quintana or Teheran can