MLB

Cashman lieutenant: Yanks smart to stay pat at deadline

Gordon Blakeley sensed what was coming when he began to open newspapers on Monday morning. Yet, it still bothered him.

A special assistant to general manager Brian Cashman, Blakeley has worked in the Yankees organization for 20 years. So he is used to the harsh assessments from both inside and outside the pinstriped walls. Nevertheless, as he read the national perspective that the Yankees were losers at the trade deadline, that they had a failing grade, he was irked. So much, in fact, that he felt he had to say something to defend the organization.

“We weren’t losers, we were winners,” Blakeley said. “Because we are the Yankees we are supposed to do something just to say we did something. But that would have been wrong. Believe me we were ready to do something if there was someone who could make a big impact. If the kid in Seattle (Felix Hernandez) is available, that is different. But we didn’t see huge impact, and now we think we may get huge impact from kids we didn’t trade in August and September. We had big unity (among the top executives) that unless we could get a huge player let’s stand pat.”

YANKEES-RED SOX BOX SCORE

Obviously, Blakeley comes with a natural bias, considering who signs his paycheck. It is quite common for teams to deliver propaganda defending what they did (or didn’t do) at the trade deadline; and also for teams to over-inflate the abilities of their own prospects. But Blakeley did not do this anonymously and he offered some significant statements:

* That, at this moment, Ivan Nova is better than Ubaldo Jimenez, and thus why would the Yankees give up Nova and two more big prospects for Jimenez.

* That not only is Curtis Granderson better than Michael Bourn, but Brett Gardner is, too. The speedy Bourn was traded from Houston to Atlanta in a big July 31 deal.

* That the Yankees did much better shopping in the offseason for small prices with players such as Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, Russell Martin, Eric Chavez and Luis Ayala, for example, which made them less desperate to have to do something by the trade deadline.

“I think it was a small picture,” Blakeley said. “Take the bigger picture, where you can say, ‘You guys did a heckuva job in the offsesason, and so now you don’t have to do anything unless you see a serious upgrade.’ ”

The player who came the closest to filling the “serious upgrade” category was Jimenez. But the Yankees were concerned about several issues with the righty, specifically the long-term health of a pitcher who has lost velocity this year and has a violent delivery. Cashman requested a physical as part of any deal, was rejected by the Rockies and dropped out of the bidding.

Yet even if that physical had been approved, the Yankees may never have found a deal, since the minimum requirement to obtain Jimenez was going to be touted prospects Dellin Betances and Jesus Montero plus Nova. The general perception was the Yankees were reluctant to relinquish Betances and Montero. But it turns out the Yankees were not giving up Nova easily either.

“We had a lot of people see Jimenez, we had as much coverage on him as anybody,” Blakeley said. “We had a conference call with our entire pro scouting staff. We’ve always liked him, but he is not as good as the first half last year. And my personal feeling is Ivan Nova is as good as this version of Jimenez. He has a better fastball, a better curveball, a better slider, a better changeup, he is cheaper, he has won nine games [he won his 10th on Thursday after this conversation] in New York and in the American League East. I am not sure Jimenez can do that.

“The hype says one thing about what we should do, but is Jimenez really going to meet that hype? Look, a year ago, no doubt, Jimenez had a better fastball. But as of this moment, Jimenez does not have a better fastball than Nova.”

In his last seven starts, Nova is 6-0 with a 2.91 ERA, including a 10-strikeout, no-walk dominance Thursday of the White Sox that moved Cashman to say, “If someone we had acquired at the trade deadline had gone out and done what Nova did against the White Sox, he would be hailed as our no-doubt No. 2, and we would be called the team to beat. Nova does it and no one really reacts.”

Cashman was criticized, including by me, for refusing to use Nova or Nunez in a deal last year for Cliff Lee. Now both Nova and Nunez are, at the least, helpful players on a playoff-bound team. And of the prospects he made off limits for anything but a no-doubt difference maker (Betances, Montero, Manuel Banuelos and Austin Romine), Cashman said, “The next wave of prospects have a higher ceiling than Nova and Nunez.”

That the next wave is near is another factor Blakeley believed was dismissed too easily in assessments of the Yankees’ trade deadline performance.

“A lot of guys who got traded were in A-ball,” Blakeley said. “The prospects people wanted from us are Double-A or higher. That has greater value. And I think they can have great value for us. I wouldn’t be surprised if Montero was up soon and helping our lineup as a DH/catcher. I wouldn’t be surprised if Banuelos was a big factor out of our bullpen in September.

“I know it is easy to look and say, ‘The Yankees did nothing so they are losers at the trade deadline.’ But I look at it this way: We have two players we kept (Nova and Nunez) who are helping us win right now in the AL East. And we have four more guys we really like on the cusp who might start helping us win soon. So I think when we look back and consider what we could have gotten, what the cost would have been and what we didn’t trade, people are going to end up remembering us as winners.”

joel.sherman@nypost.com