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REGGIE TELLS STANTON HE BETTER ‘PLAY GOOD’:
TAMPA — In this increasingly topsy-turvy baseball universe, you should turn your telescope around to get the best feel for how the Yankees will eventually reinforce their starting rotation.
It used to be, forever plus a year, that the Yankees would brandish their dollars as their weapon of choice to pursue another World Series title. These 2018 Yankees, however, will punctuate a trend that began nearly 10 years ago and hit some speed bumps along the way before establishing rank:
Their primary currency will be not dollars, but prospects.
Which means that a July trade, fueled by prospects, remains more likely than a spring-training pouncing on the lingering free-agent starting pitchers, which would be fueled by dollars.
Before he departed George M. Steinbrenner Field for the Yankees’ game in Clearwater, Aaron Boone met with the media Sunday morning and poured cold water on the simmering scuttlebutt the Yankees would wind up with an available free-agent arm like Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb or Lance Lynn.
“At this point, I don’t really see those guys as realistic options, but that’s also something I leave with [general manager Brian Cashman],” Boone said. “I know Cash is always kicking the tires and always looking for ways to improve the club and monitoring every situation, but as we sit here today, it’s my understanding that those guys aren’t really in play for us. I’d be surprised.”
The Yankees have about $15 million to spend on their 2018 roster before hitting the $197 million luxury-tax threshold that they are determined to stay under to reset their tax rate for 2019. Maybe Cobb or Lynn could lower their asks below that range, and you’d think that some price point would entice the Yankees.
It would have to be pretty darn low, though, wouldn’t it? For if the Yankees went big now, they’d be pretty restricted come the July 31 non-waivers trade deadline.
So far, the Yankees feel optimistic about their top five returning starting pitchers — Sonny Gray, Jordan Montgomery, CC Sabathia, Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka — as well as reserve options like Luis Cessa (who will make his second start Wednesday against the Tigers), Chad Green (who will start Tuesday at the Blue Jays) and Adam Warren, with minor leaguers like Chance Adams and Justus Sheffield working their way into relevance.
“I would say I’ve been really impressed with the depth and the amount of arms that I feel l i ke are really capable of not only helping us, but if something comes up, guys with the ability to step in in an impactful role,” Boone said.
Boone said Sunday he anticipates using a sixth starter on occasion as early as April in order to get rest for everyone. The Yankees’ schedule has them playing 18 straight days, from April 19 through May 6, so that stretch would present an obvious chance for a sixth starter.
Gray, and the way the Yankees acquired him, serves as the prototype for what the Yankees hope to execute in August: a player they acquired primarily because of their farm system. Their organizational well ran so deep they felt comfortable giving up three young players (Dustin Fowler, James Kaprielian and Jorge Mateo) for the righthander, whom they control through next season.
With this summer featuring possible trade targets such as Toronto’s J.A. Happ, Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer, Texas’ Cole Hamels, San Francisco’s Jeff Samardzija and the Mets’ Matt Harvey (whose name is included here solely to generate clicks), the Yankees will rely on their robust talent reserve to outflank other teams and, if necessary, induce the other team to pay down the financial commitment so the Yankees can stay under $197 million.
When Logan Morrison, coming off a superb 2017 season, gets just a one-year, $6.5 million deal from the Twins, as he did on Sunday, you know things are wacky in the baseball world. The Yankees counting pennies and hoarding prospects rank as wacky as anything else out there. It’s so wacky, the Yankees might laugh all the way through October.