Weekend decides if Yanks continue win-now brand
N OT to get all overdramatic on you, but the next three days at Tropicana Field — the facility that has entertained fewer 2016 customers than any other in Major League Baseball — could determine the Yankees’ long-term chances and brand identity and, consequently, the very course of the entire human race.
By awakening from a halfseason slumber with an 11-6 run, all against teams that are well above .500, the Yankees (52-49) have called off their massive sale for the moment. Aroldis Chapman left because he didn’t want to sign an extension and the Cubs’ offer for the impending free agent proved too good to refuse. Ivan Nova, sure to attract a healthy flock of scouts when he starts Friday night’s series opener against the Rays (unless he gets traded beforehand), also is an impending free agent, won’t be getting a qualifying offer and might be no better than potential successors Chad Green or Luis Severino, so he, too, figures to go.
Carlos Beltran and Andrew Miller, though? They’re set to stay through Monday’s non-waivers trade deadline, understanding that a terrible weekend against the awful Rays could alter that course.
Why not blow everything up, given the high odds that the Yankees face in qualifying for the postseason? It’s less about the concrete dollars and cents that would result from September relevance and more about that abstract notion of brand identity.
If the Yankees hang around in September and fall short of the postseason, as they did in 2013 and 2014, the financial impact would be marginal. While an uptick obviously results from more people actually coming to the ballpark and spending money on concessions and merchandise, most tickets already have been sold. The return of kids to school also reduces your customer pool, with the understanding that pool widens considerably for the allure of attending a playoff game in October or November.
Brand identity is a different animal. The Yankees take pride in never executing the sort of five-year rebuilding process that the Mets completed last year. and trying to win it all each and every year. While they have added nuance to that mission by sitting out the high-priced free-agent market each of the two prior offseasons, they still have put together rosters with the potential to win it all.
That potential hasn’t been realized this year, not by a long shot. Yet by coming on late, the Yankees have changed the optics some. It’s one thing for a vocal segment of their fans to plead for a sale when the team spends months teetering primarily at .500 or below. It’s something else when a team sitting with a winning record at the deadline pulls the plug, particularly when it comes to assets that aren’t expiring. You really don’t see that, regardless of the team, its brand, its budget or its playoff odds.
The Chapman trade brought back a huge return, including Adam Warren to fill the current void left by Chapman, and the Yankees still have an excellent back end of the bullpen with Miller and Dellin Betances. A trade of Beltran, who has a say thanks to a partial notrade clause, wouldn’t get the same sort of return. And it would devastate these 2016 Yankees.
Which brings us back to this coming weekend. The Rays are done for 2016. They’re a strong bet to trade some of their starting pitchers by Monday. Their 395 runs scored tied them for last in the American League with the Royals entering Kansas City’s game at Texas on Thursday night. The Yankees, after five straight, hard-fought series, now have to honor their brand identity and dispose of an inferior opponent.
“I think that the guys know how important the next three days [are],” manager Joe Girardi said late Wednesday night, after the Yankees fell short in an effort to sweep three games from the impressive Astros at Minute Maid Park.
They control their shortterm destiny now. Will they embrace that control? The human race awaits the answer.