An offer Cash couldn’t refuse
Brian Cashman doesn’t see the sense in passing up an opportunity. The Yankees GM knows he has to improve the team’s starting pitching, but presented with a chance to make his already formidable lineup even more dangerous at a low cost, he wouldn’t pass it up.
So while he is shopping for starters, he made the deal to bring in slugger Edwin Encarnación.
“If anybody said a Yankees’ acquisition was supposed to be announced at a certain time, everybody would probably bet pitching. But in the meantime, if I can’t reinforce that pitching just yet, but I have a chance to add more firepower on the other side of this thing, ..... then we’re going to go that route,” Cashman said before Monday night’s victory. “Hopefully we’ll add to that run creation side and stay tuned to see how long it takes for me to get the other side fixed or improved.”
Monday night, Encarnación was in the lineup, hitting fifth. He will be joined by Giancarlo Stanton, who is still on schedule to return from the injured list before tonight’s game. Aaron Judge could be back as soon as this week, Aaron Boone said Monday.
That’s a lot of firepower added to a lineup that already has Gary Sánchez, who has 20 homers this season, and Luke Voit who has 17.
While it certainly helps on the run-production side of the game, Cashman sees the move as providing flexibility and insurance for injuries, which have plagued the Yankees this season.
“With the interest in resting people, I think there’s a viable way to get everybody consistent playing time,” Cashman explained. “Voit and Edwin would be playing off first and DH. We already
see what we’ve got going on with the infield. We felt it was a real impact bat, not an area of need, but an area that does upgrade us. It does give Aaron Boone a lot of flexibility for coverage on a day in, day out basis. I feel like every day Aaron Boone comes to the park, he has a chance to rest somebody of importance. That will benefit us moving forward. We have a chance to be covered injury-wise because we have alternatives. He can play matchups a lot of different ways, too.”
But it does not directly address the Yankees’ biggest concern. Their starters are stretched thin and struggling. The move does, however, put Cashman in a position to be able to deal from his strength —position players — to address that need.
“You always worry about the pitching and we’ll continue to try to reinforce it to the best of our abilities. Obviously when we entered the season, we were a strong offensive club and a great bullpen, our two strengths were bullpen and our offense and that’s still the case,” Cashman said. “It’s our job to reinforce that rotation. We tried to do that when we brought in (James) Paxton to go with (Luis Severino) to join the rest of the staff. Obviously Paxton’s been hurt for a period time and he’s back now and pitched a good game yesterday. Sevy, we obviously have to wait a while on. For the meantime, we’re going to continue to mix and match and reinforce and see where it takes us. I don’t know. I can’t predict what’s going to happen here as we move forward to that neverending, eventually ending July 31, where it’s pencils down and there is no other ability to reinforce, so we’ll just stay at it and see where it takes us. It doesn’t preclude us from being open-minded.”