Now that we’ve lived through a Yankee trade deadline unlike any other in recent memory, it’s time for the club to back up all this selling by doing something else we’re not used to — playing young players in the big leagues, en masse, to see what they’ve got.
Call it two months of advance evaluation on the 2017 club, or at least parts of it.
That means Rob Refsnyder should play every day, regardless of who’s pitching, Luis Severino takes over Ivan Nova’s vacated rotation spot and Chad Green pitches high-leverage relief innings. Let Aaron Hicks continue to get at-bats so they can see if he can do anything in his dreadful season to remind the Yankees why they thought he’d be a significant piece of a contending (snicker) team this year.
Aaron Judge, who is supposed to be activated at Triple-A on Tuesday from a recent stint on the disabled list, should be given right field now that Carlos Beltran was swapped at the deadline for pitching prospect Dillon Tate and two other hopefuls. Call up Gary Sanchez and give him some catching assignments, that way we can all stop guessing if his defense is good enough to keep him behind the plate long-term. Brian McCann can get some work at first base, share some designated-hitter at-bats with Alex Rodriguez. It’ll be fine.
Tyler Austin has had a nice season at Triple-A, a year after being off the roster. Reward him for reshaping his career and see if he’s a first-base option next year if Greg Bird’s return from shoulder surgery has hitches.
It sounds like more changes are coming beyond the deals, based on what both Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman were saying Monday before the Subway Series began at Citi Field. The Yanks added outfielder Ben Gamel and relievers Tyler Clippard and Nick Goody to the roster Monday, but they may make other moves once they are back in their own park Wednesday and not playing under National League rules.
Girardi sort of let that slip when he said, “I’m not so sure there won’t be other things done during the course of this week, too.”
At first, it seemed like that had to do with A-Rod — a recent popular narrative is that the Yankees ought to release him — but Girardi said he wasn’t talking about that. Cashman said Rodriguez would continue to be a lineup choice. Why not? Sit back and watch the Chase for 700 Homers while the kids play. Plus, Rodriguez genuinely is a mentor to younger players.
At no time in recent years have Yankee fans seemed as accepting of a fire sale than now. The second wildcard makes optimists of us all — yes, here in this space we are guilty as charged. But this team did not have enough and it finally proved that to the deliberate Hal Steinbrenner by getting bowled over in Tampa. It’s clear Cashman knew it for a while.
If you want a model for this kind of approach, look in the same division. The Red Sox have sold in recent years and then won and they’re contenders now after two lean years. They’ve been right about a certain amount of young players and then they let them play in the majors to get the hang of it when even the Fenway faithful didn’t believe they could add to the shelves of trophies.
In other words, that’s exactly where the Yanks are now, except we don’t yet know if they’re right about Judge and their other youngsters.
Both Cashman and Girardi talked Monday about the idea of still trying to win this year, maybe surprising some teams. Girardi stressed he’s “going to do what I think gives us the best chance to win” when he picks lineups. He’s not giving up, he says. “Some people are probably going to think I’m delusional,” he said.
That sort of lip service is nice, but unnecessary. Of course Girardi will strive to win; that’s his job, just like it’s the job of all the players who didn’t get traded.
But this goes deeper than that. The Yanks are in dutch right now, but they may have some assets who can help, as long as they develop. Now that they’ve traded their three best players, it’s time to get more data on the ones they have left.
Girardi sounds like he’s heading toward that conclusion, too. It just might take awhile for him to realize it’s a new pinstriped chapter.
“I don’t think you ever want to feel that it is that time, in a sense,” Girardi said. “Because I really believe in the guys in that room. But I think we put the organization in this position — me, the players, the coaches — where we didn’t perform at the level that we were supposed to perform.
“I understand why they did it. Obviously I had good relationships with the players that we lost, and that’s always hard, but I completely understand why they did it.”
