Time for Cashman to make a move
You have to say that July started out great for the Yankees, a Sunday night game at home, just like the kind of game they will play this Sunday against the Mets, an 11-1 victory over David Price and the Red Sox that made you wonder if Price would ever beat the Yankees in a big game, here or anywhere, on the first night of July or the last weekend of the regular season at Fenway.
The Yankees and Red Sox were still right there with each other at the top of the American League East, with the Yankees actually two games ahead in the loss column when the Red Sox left town. And since then, the Yankees have played the way they did at the start of the season, when they were 9-9 and then 10-9 at the same time the Red Sox were starting 17-2. Through Friday night, the Red Sox had lost one time since that Sunday night game. The Yankees? They ended up hanging on in the 9th on Saturday against the Mets, or would have been 8-8 since July 1.
So, out of nowhere, and even when you factor in the injuries to Gleyber Torres and Gary Sanchez — who struck out in the eighth inning on Friday night with the game on the bases against the Mets — July turned back into April for the Yankees.
So now what does Brian Cashman do as his team moves up on the non-waiver trade deadline? Maybe they really can outscore everybody through October, the way they eventually did against the Mets Saturday afternoon. Or not. A month ago I thought the Yankees were the best team in the league. Not now.
We’ll never know for sure how serious the Yankees actually were about adding Manny Machado to the stick they already have in their batting order. It would have been a dramatic and interesting play, of course, we’ve gone over that, and a statement from Cashman that he really did think his team could slug its way past the Red Sox, Astros, Indians.
But now Machado is with the Dodgers and while there are still some very good hitters out there, it is impossible to see the way the Yankees have played — and pitched — over the past three weeks (another small sampling, you bet) and not believe Cashman is going to add a pitcher, or two.
Because the object for the Yankees hasn’t changed, anymore than it has for the Red Sox: Neither one of them wants to win more than 100 games and end up playing an NCAA basketball tournament, win-or-go-home, Wild Card game. Neither wants to be the team that won more games across 162 than any Wild Card team ever has, and then go home after 163.
So do they go for another Sonny Gray, at a time when there are a bunch of Sonny Grays out there? Or do they add another arm like Zach Britton to what is already a deep and talented bullpen, which would be the bullpen equivalent of adding the kind of stick they would have added with Machado? Maybe you add somebody like Britton and tell everybody you’re not even looking for five solid innings for your starters in October, but even less than that.
It’s worth mentioning again that if you add Britton, you keep him away from the Red Sox, Astros, or even the Cubs.
The Yankees have a perfect right to think that the past three weeks look a lot differently if Torres and and Sanchez had been healthy. So no one would suggest that they aren’t still on track to win 100 games. But still: When Price (him again) beat the Tigers 1-0 on Friday night, the Red Sox were 69-30, which sort of means this:
They no longer needed to even play .500 ball the rest of the way just to get to 100 wins.
Suddenly the Yankees are chasing them in midsummer the way they chased them early, even knowing what Boston’s September schedule looks like, with two series against the Yankees, one against the Indians, one against the Astros, one against the Atlanta Braves. And, of course, everything looks differently in the East if the Yankees go into Fenway in a couple of weeks and rough up the Red Sox a couple of times the way they did on Sunday night, July 1.
It is too dramatic, and big-city panicky to suggest that whatever moves Cashman makes in the run-up to the non-waiver deadline — or whatever moves he might make as late as the Astros did when they got Justin Verlander are going to decide how far a Yankee team this talented and this appealing might go this season. But they might. The Red Sox are a win-now team because they have the kind of payroll the Yankees used to have; it’s why the Red Sox have less flexibility to make a move than Cashman does, because they’re right up against a punitive payroll tax. But because the Yankees raised the stakes the way they did last season, and even knowing how bright the future looks, they are as much a win-now as any Yankee team has been since the last time they won the Series nine years ago. That was the year they added nearly a half-billion bucks in salaries with CC Sabathia and old friend Allan James Burnett.
It means this is as important a trade deadline as Cashman has ever faced. The future isn’t lost if they lose to the Red Sox or Astros or Indians. Cashman is the one who has to decide how much of his future he’s willing to deal to get better now.
Getting up on the end of July now. Sixty-game season between now and October. Bad time for the Yankees to look like April. Good time for them to move on the Red Sox. Better time for Cashman to make a move of his own. But which one, and for whom, and how much does he give up?