Yankees have given little reason why they should be buyers at trade deadline
Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman speaks to the media prior to the start of a game against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on April 8, 2022. Credit: TNS/Mike Stobe
The surprising sight of Josh Donaldson taking batting practice before Monday’s game against the Rays almost made sense. He’s exactly the sort of trade deadline help these disappointing Yankees deserve.
Donaldson, who’s basically been exiled to the 60-day injured list for a calf strain, isn’t eligible to return until mid-September, but he remains the perfect 2023 Yankee — occasionally injured, grossly overpaid, frequently inadequate. Also, one of general manager Brian Cashman’s worst trades.
So when Cashman looks at this flawed roster, whose $294 million price tag is second only to the sell-sell-sell Mets, he wouldn’t be wrong to ask himself: How much upgrading is this team actually worth?
After Monday night’s demoralizing 5-1 loss to the Rays, who clobbered emergency starter Jhony Brito for four homers in four innings, Cashman probably hung up the phone to rethink his position with roughly 20 hours left before the trade deadline. The Yankees still are only 3 1⁄2 games out of the third wild-card spot, but they’re perhaps a bad week away from disappearing from contention — with two games left against the Rays followed by the Astros coming to the Bronx for another four.
That could end up being the knockout blow, especially with those two teams — as well as the Angels and Blue Jays — already having made trades to improve leading up to Tuesday’s 6 p.m. deadline. Cashman now has to decide whether to pull the trigger based on what we’ve witnessed to this point, and there’s not much persuasive evidence to buy for the 55-51 Yankees, who have lost 13 of their last 20.
“It’s tough to say. That’s out of my hands,” said Aaron Judge, who walked three times Monday and has six walks in three games as opposing pitchers gladly pass on him to face the rest of the Yankees’ anemic lineup.
When asked if he’d be disappointed if the front office decided to sell on Tuesday, Judge replied, “I want to win. Whatever gets us closer to being a better team and winning, that’s why I’m here.”
Getting Judge back figured to be a big boost, and his impact was immediate in Baltimore. But the Yankees still dropped two of three to the division-leading Orioles — including Sunday night, when Judge rested on the bench and they struck out 18 times in a game in which Luis Severino got shellacked. The Yankees whiffed another dozen times Monday. The 30 strikeouts are the most in a two-game span in franchise history, according to ESPN.
Judge obviously has to tread carefully with the hurting toe, which he’s tolerating rather than giving it time to heal during the season, and the Yankees don’t know how often he’ll need a break. But it will be more often than usual, given that he played 157 games a year ago.
“We’re going nowhere if we run Aaron Judge into the ground when he hasn’t had a rehab game,” Aaron Boone said.
Is a part-time Judge enough? Well, factor in that the only other All-Star on the team, Gerrit Cole, takes the mound every fifth day, and the other Yankees don’t seem capable of filling in the worrisome gaps. It also doesn’t seem likely that Cashman can secure capable outside help for all those holes, either.
In the 24-hour span leading up to Monday’s series opener, two-fifths of the Yankees’ rotation suddenly crumbled. Severino allowed six runs before recording an out Sunday night and later called himself “the worst pitcher in the game — no doubt about it.” Boone wouldn’t commit to keeping him in the rotation, saying Monday, “Everything’s on the table.”
The Yankees also had to rush Brito from Triple-A Scranton to replace Domingo German for Monday’s start because of some “discomfort in his armpit” area. Boone, as he typically does, expressed an optimistic outlook on German but felt the switch was needed to protect the bullpen against an early departure.
In a bizarre twist, German wound up pitching in relief anyway, entering in the fifth and delivering five scoreless innings. Still, it was another unanticipated obstacle for a team that already had plenty of known potholes to deal with.
At the top of that list is Anthony Rizzo, who hit a rocket single off the wall Monday but is in a 3-for-25 skid (10 strikeouts) after his 4-for-4 day on July 23. Since May 28, Rizzo has the lowest batting average (.173) and OPS (.498) among the 167 qualified players, but Boone still had him hitting third Monday night — though he said after the game that he might have to reconsider that.
Overall, the Yankees rank 20th in runs per game (4.35). Their .231 batting average was the second-worst in the majors.
Judge missing nearly eight weeks had a lot to do with that brutal offensive production, but it just seems as if the Yankees’ issues run a bit too deep to remedy at this deadline. We’ll see how far Cashman goes to come up with a solution as the teams they’re chasing continue to upgrade.
“We’ll see where the dust settles,” Boone said. “You never know, especially now, the minutes and hours where things change.”
Can the Yankees change enough at the deadline to make a difference? That’s asking a lot.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
