Better days ahead
Yankees a win from Series before ’16 deals even pay off
The Yankees are on the verge of the World Series and their best players may not even be in the majors yet, thanks to last year’s haul at the trade deadline.
HOUSTON — The way this works — the way it has worked for decades and decades — is if you do a massive sell-off one year, you do not get to the brink of the World Series the next.
You certainly don’t start eliminating the teams to which you sent the veteran goodies.
No way you have any chance to defy Rules 1 and 2 unless you receive the quick benefits of the sell-off.
Except here are the 2017 Yankees, a year removed from being the maestros of the everything-mustgo sell-a-thon — five significant veterans unloaded in a 115-day period in 2016 — now one win away from the World Series without yet truly enjoying the bounty of those trades.
They beat Andrew Miller and the Indians with Clint Frazier on the bench, but not on the active roster, and Justus Sheffield in the Arizona Fall League.
They have a three-games-to-two lead on Brian McCann and the Astros with Albert Abreu — “the best pitcher I have seen [in the AFL],” according to one scout — and Jorge Guzman having left evaluators pondering the future impact of his constantly triple-digit fastballs in Staten Island.
The Yankees still might face the Cubs in the World Series, who won it all with Aroldis Chapman last year at the cost of Gleyber Torres, who just this week started hitting again after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his non-throwing arm in June. He is generally considered one of the top prospects in the game — perhaps the top prospect.
Before the 2016 trade deadline. the Yankees traded Miller, Chapman, Ivan Nova and Carlos Beltran, who is an Astro now but was dealt to the Rangers for Dillon Tate, who this season regained much of his prospect status after faltering initially as the No. 4 overall pick by Texas in 2015. McCann was traded to Houston in November.
That is 20 percent of a roster moved and in the case of Miller, Chapman and Beltran, perhaps their three best players at the moment of their trades.
At this point, the only player acquired from the sell-off on the postseason roster is Adam Warren, who was a secondary piece in the Chapman deal. Tito Polo was acquired from the Pirates for Nova and was a minor inclusion sent to the White Sox in July when the Yankees landed Todd Frazier, Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson.
So the Yankees are here, with Game 6 of the ALCS on Friday, and still have not yet seen the fruits of their sell-off.
“We haven’t even seen everything that this team is going to be,” said a scout who covers the Yankee system. “They are going to be scary good for a while.”
Now, these things hardly ever work as scripted — case in point, the Yankees being this deep in the playoffs this year. For example, the Yanks might be lucky if Aaron Judge and Luis Severino ever per- form again at their 2017 level. Injury and unexpected decrease in performance are part of any team’s reality.
When the Mets made their magical and unexpected ride to the World Series in 2015, it was easy to believe it was the beginning of serial contention.
However, the difference between the New York teams is meaningful. Sandy Alderson had to pretty much empty the depth of what was not a great system to make that run. Those Mets were built on pitching, which is more fragile and volatile then hitting. And the financial will of the Mets will never match the Yankees.
The Yankees made two huge trades in July, notably surrendering Blake Rutherford (to the White Sox) and Dustin Fowler, James Kaprielian and Jorge Mateo to the A’s for Sonny Gray, yet still are viewed as having one of the majors’ deepest systems, in part because they are considered to have talented prospects both pitching and hitting at multiple levels.
“There is no doubt they are primed for a real run again,” said a top baseball operations official for an NL team. “They have a lot of young talent and they are really good already.”
Torres should arrive next year to join a young lineup core with Judge, Greg Bird, Didi Gregorius, Gary Sanchez, plus maybe Clint Frazier and Aaron Hicks. Billy McKinney, part of the Chapman package, might yet be a factor as a reserve outfielder.
Sheffield could be a rotation possibility at some point in 2018 and so may Abreu, with the scout who praised him saying, “It is not just that he pitches at 96 [mph] and gets to 100, but he has a changeup, a curveball, command and pitchability.”
And there are more prospects with Miguel Andujar, Estevan Florial and Nick Solak among position players, and pitchers Domingo Acevedo, Chance Adams and Freicer Perez all coming off of strong years, providing potential over the next few years to help the Yankees roster or be used in trades.
The Yanks are one win from the World Series — and their best team still might be in the near future.