The New York Yankees have played 74 games and won exactly half of them. They sit in fourth place in the American League East, 7.5 games behind the Orioles and eighth place in the AL Wild Card standings, 2.5 games behind the Blue Jays. FiveThirtyEight gives them a 13 percent chance of making the postseason, Baseball Prospectus gives them a 9.4 percent chance of doing the same while Fangraphs’ model gives them a 12.6 percent chance. With that in mind, it’s time for the organization to stop deluding itself into thinking it can compete. It’s time to blow it up
The current iteration of the Yankees is not only mediocre, it’s old. Overwhelmingly old. On a given day, their lineup features Brian McCann, age 32, Mark Teixeira, age 36, Chase Headley, age 32, Brett Gardner, age 32, Jacoby Ellsbury, age 32, Carlos Beltran, age 39, and Alex Rodriguez, age 40. Their best starting pitcher, CC Sabathia is 35 and their best relief pitcher, Andrew Miller, is 31. It’s one thing to keep an older team together if you think it has a chance of winning but this team does not have a chance of winning. In their last 11 games, all against Minnesota and Colorado, two decisively bad teams, the Yankees went 6-5, blowing a chance to make a run at a playoff spot. Had they done well in those 11 games, there would be a reasonable argument to keep this team together and maybe even become buyers at the trade deadline. But they didn’t do well and now their schedule gets much harder with series against the Rangers, White Sox, Indians, Red Sox, Orioles and Giants making up most of their upcoming games.
Keeping this team together is a futile exercise, hurting the future of the team to keep up a charade of a contention to a fanbase that should know better. The Yankees should move Carlos Beltran to a team in need of a DH that has prospects to sell, perhaps Houston if they can continue to pull back into contention. They should trade Aroldis Chapman’s expiring contract to a bullpen-needy Cubs and try to get Kyle Schwarber in return, a young player on a good contract who’s a perfect hitter for Yankee Stadium. If it all possible[1], the Yankees should move CC Sabathia before his home run rate regresses, even if they can’t get all that much for his inflated contract.
It’s probably close to impossible to move more than those three unless they decide to trade Andrew Miller, a potentially regrettable move given that he’s under contract for two more seasons at just $9 million per year. That being said, the Yankees simply need to do what they can to build for the future. It’s overwhelmingly clear that this core isn’t winning a championship and it probably isn’t even winning a division. The organization needs to operate with realistic expectations of what this team is capable of, which means selling off assets and building for next season.
All stats are from baseball-reference.com or fangraphs.com unless otherwise noted
All stats are accurate as of 6/27
[1] And I’m realistic to know it probably isn’t.
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