5 Moves for Hal Steinbrenner and the Yankees to Rescue Franchise
By doing a whole lotta nothing at the trade deadline, the New York Yankees hung this year's team out to dry while simultaneously hamstringing future iterations of the club.
That's the story, and there's no point in relitigating it. A more fascinating question is where the Yankees go from here, for which we've dared to come up with a five-point plan.
This wasn't about rescuing the Yankees of today, who are in last place in the American League East and just 95-92 since July 9, 2022. This was about renovating them for 2024 and beyond. And because we committed to staying within the boundaries of reason, you'll find no magic bullet here.
There's an argument (and a good one, at that) that what the Yankees really need is a new owner. They have plenty of regular-season wins under Hal Steinbrenner's stewardship, but no World Series appearances since 2009 and just two division titles since 2013. This, of course, is to say nothing of his stinginess and 20-grade ability to read the room.
This said, even a new owner would face a tall order in getting Major League Baseball's 27-time World Series champions off a path that's headed to nowhere but ruin.
The State of the Yankees...Is Not Great
1 of 6
Even setting aside fired hitting coaches and key pitchers being placed on the restricted list, the Yankees' pedestrian 57-52 record somehow overstates how good things are.
They rank 20th out of 30 teams in wins above replacement, with only two real bright spots (Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole) and one semi-bright up-and-comer (Anthony Volpe).
The Yankees are otherwise getting little to nothing out of their other high-priced stars. Carlos Rodón has a 6.29 ERA in five starts since coming off the injured list, while veteran hitters Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, Josh Donaldson and Anthony Rizzo, the latter of whom went on the IL with post-concussion syndrome on Thursday, have a combined .695 OPS.
As his $16 million mutual option for 2024 is as good as declined, Donaldson is mercifully slated to hit the open market. But only six other Yankees will be headed that way, and they'll take with them only about $63 million in average annual salaries.
Meanwhile, B/R's Joel Reuter had the Yankees' farm system ranked at No. 19 in MLB coming out of the draft in July. And that's largely predicated on the promise of outfielder Jasson Domínguez, who's long on tools but short on results to show for them in the minors.
The best way forward for the Yankees involves getting younger, more athletic and more balanced without sacrificing what prospect depth they have. But even if it's for no other sake than the long-term health of the latter, they must first shake things up at the top.
1. Replace Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone
2 of 6
After the deadline came and went with a whimper, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman pleaded with fans: "We're in it to win it. We stayed the course because of that."
Are Yankees fans buying it? Yankees fans are not buying it:
Because he's been at his post since 1998 and he only just signed a four-year extension, it's doubtful that Cashman will be shown the door. But the Yankee faithful are right. He should be.
A string of 30 straight winning seasons is all well and good, but the Yankees' decade-plus struggle to add to their championship collection is as much on Cashman as Steinbrenner. That this year's club has all of six homegrown players speaks to his inability to construct a consistent talent pipeline, and he's had more losses than wins with his recent transactions.
Manager Aaron Boone's usefulness is just as hard to determine as Cashman's, so if one goes, the other should as well. As far as who could take their places, club legend Don Mattingly might be a candidate for the manager's chair and the Yankees would do well to beat the New York Mets in the race to hire David Stearns as GM.
2. Make a Trade with the Marlins
3 of 6
Proposed Trade: Miami Marlins get 2B Gleyber Torres, INF DJ LeMahieu and cash; New York Yankees get RHP Edward Cabrera
The thought did occur to pitch a trade sending Stanton, a Los Angeles area native, to the Dodgers in a massive salary dump. But it was hard to make it work on paper and, well, why would the Dodgers clog their DH hole amid a presumptive pursuit of Shohei Ohtani?
Instead, we wondered if the Yankees might extract a building block from the Marlins.
According to Randy Miller of NJ.com, the Marlins want Torres in the worst way, but they've balked at the Yankees' demands for either Cabrera or Braxton Garrett.
But what if the Yankees threw in another infielder for free? That's how this trade would work if they paid down, say, $40 million of the $45 million LeMahieu will earn between 2024 and 2026. Think what the Mets did with their trades of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.
That's a lot of money to swallow, to be sure. But if successful, the Yankees would have traded one year of Torres and three years of a diminished LeMahieu for as many as five of Cabrera, a 25-year-old with some of the best stuff around.
.png?w=256)
3. Make a Trade with the Cardinals
4 of 6
Proposed Trade: St. Louis Cardinals get LHP Nestor Cortes; New York Yankees get OF Dylan Carlson and C Iván Herrera
If the Yankees could have had their way at the trade deadline, Carlson would already be theirs by now.
It didn't work out. Though the Yankees did make an offer for the 2021 National League Rookie of the Year finalist, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported the Cardinals wanted a controllable starter the likes of which the Yankees didn't have:
Come the winter, though, the Yankees could revisit the concept with a healthy Cortes in hand.
Ideally, he'll come off the IL this weekend and proceed to pitch like the guy who put up a 2.61 ERA across 2021 and 2022. That would reestablish trade value that would be further bolstered by his remaining club control through 2025.
Rather than settling for just Carlson, the Yankees could also try to wedge Herrera out from underneath Willson Contreras and Andrew Knizner in St. Louis' depth chart. The 23-year-old has been an offensive force at Triple-A this year, hitting .307 with a .981 OPS.
4. Make a Trade with the Padres
5 of 6
Proposed Trade: San Diego Padres get 1B Anthony Rizzo and RHP Clay Holmes; New York Yankees get INF Jake Cronenworth
There's been no chatter in recent days, weeks or months about the Yankees and Padres hooking up on a trade, so take this for what it is: pure speculation.
Yet we'll begin our defense by noting what a problem first base has been for the Padres. Cronenworth, formerly a two-time All-Star second baseman, has been miscast there defensively and has hit just .221 besides.
Further, the Padres should be thinking about trimming fat from a payroll that opened this year at a club-record $248.9 million. There would be no shame in crying uncle on the seven-year, $80 million deal they just did with Cronenworth in April.
In a straight-up swap of Cronenworth and Rizzo, the Padres would get long-term savings while the Yankees would get average annual value and, thus, luxury-tax relief from swapping a contract worth $20 million per year contract for one worth $11.4 million per year.
As for Holmes, the Yankees would likely have to give the Padres something more than just payroll relief in such a deal. Even if he's due for free agency after 2024, an ace closer who could take over for free-agent-to-be Josh Hader might entice them.
5. Go Shopping for Players Not Named Ohtani
6 of 6
Suggested Free-Agent Signings
- CF/1B Cody Bellinger
- 3B/1B Jeimer Candelario
- 1B Rhys Hoskins
- LHP Jordan Montgomery
Could the Yankees hypothetically go after Ohtani in free agency? Sure. But he might take up every last penny of the salary space they're about to have come free, and how he and Stanton would share the DH spot would be a quagmire only Dr. Strange could solve.
Instead, the Yankees should make like the 2013 Boston Red Sox and spread money around.
Bellinger was a target for the Yankees before the Chicago Cubs took him off the market. He's since upped his OPS to .903 in a resurgent season to put himself in line for a multiyear deal that won't be cheap, but which should be in New York's price range.
In lieu of splurging on Matt Chapman at third base, the Yankees could achieve better balance for what's currently an extremely right-handed lineup without losing anything defensively by aiming lower for the switch-hitting Candelario. On the other side of the diamond, Hoskins figures to be a low-risk, high-reward bet on a short-term deal in the wake of a torn ACL.
A reunion with Montgomery, meanwhile, would outfit the Yankees with a solid No. 3 starter who arguably never should have been let go in the first place. He's been 25 percent better than the average starter since he left town via the Harrison Bader trade last August.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
.png?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
