MLB Trade Rumors: Will New York Yankees Target Royals Closer Joakim Soria?

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It’s disgusting looking at the Yankees’ starting rotation. It really is.

The worst part is the Yankees front office and fans are delusional heading into the trade deadline. They fail to realize that this motley crew of starting pitchers will surely break down and crumble down the stretch. Even if they make the postseason, their overachieving rotation is not good enough to win in the postseason and as we saw last year, pitching beats slugging.

A.J. Burnett, Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon? It’s absolutely hysterical. Yet instead of rumors surrounding starting pitching, all we hear about is the Yankees bringing in another team’s closer to bridge the gap between a potential Burnett-Garcia-Colon meltdown and the greatest closer ever in Mariano Rivera.

“The Royals, like most clubs, will listen on all of their players. But rival executives say their price for Soria is so high, it is doubtful he will be moved.

Soria, 27, remains quite affordable, earning $4 million this season with club options of $6 million in 2012, $8 million in 2013 and $8.75 million in 2014.

The Royals believe their window to compete is between '12 and '14. If they trade Soria, they will want players who can help them almost right away.

The Yankees reportedly offered Triple-A catcher Jesus Montero as part of a package for Soria a year ago, but the Royals had little interest in Montero then and are one of many clubs that continue to doubt whether he will remain at catcher long-term,” according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal.

I didn’t even know we were playing MLB The Show. Why is the game plan now to bring in closers to bolster the set up position instead of bringing in middle relievers who can actually do the job.

Closers are closers. They close the game, it’s a completely different mentality. It’s difficult to go from Batman to Robin. It must be even more difficult to go from Batman to Alfred, considering that’s exactly who Soria, Bell or K-Rod would be with Rafael Soriano filling the Robin role once he returns from injury.

Rivera is still the future closer for the Yanks. The best closer in the history of the game is still the best closer in today’s game. He has a few years left in the tank as evident by his remarkable production, which makes these deals even worse. New York is looking to bring in two of the better closers in the game in Bell and Soria when they have little future in the Bronx.

It’s great the Royals don’t want Montero, given that the Yanks seemed to refuse to ship him off last year for Cliff Lee to secure a World Series Championship. If Brian Cashman included him in a package then the fans should revolt.

The bullpen is actually solid going forward since it should be healthy for the second half with Soriano set to return shortly. It is imperative the front office bring in a quality starter or at least somebody with the potential or track record to bounce back.

Whoever believes Burnett, Garcia and Colon will continue to astronomically exceed their expectations and duplicate their first half success is simply out of their mind and out of this world, probably on the dark side of the moon with the Transformers.

-Brandon Galvin is a Bleacher Report Featured Columnist and Syndicated Writer. Follow Him on Twitter.

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