Forget that we are talking about the Yankees here because if you are in their top management or part of their fan base, simply the name warps objectivity. You want to see a contender because, well, they are the Yankees and are supposed to contend.
Let’s just call them Team X instead and provide facts — not opinions — about Team X:
It had the 10th-worst run differential in the majors. At 16-26, it had the ninth-worst record against .500-or-better squads. It was averaging the fourth-fewest runs in the AL. The rotation had a 4.65 ERA, the lineup had a .699 OPS with just one player (Carlos Beltran) having an OPS above average factoring for stadium and league, and the defense was the sixth-least efficient, according to Fangraphs.
Does anyone think Team X is a contender? If not, why would we think the Yankees are, except we are so conditioned to believe a team by that name should always contend? That thinking pervades the top of the organization.
In the past 10 days, Hal Steinbrenner said, “we just have to stay healthy” to contend. But the Yankees have been relatively healthy and still have all those Team X facts fueling a below-.500 record. And team president Randy Levine called talk of the Yankees being sellers at the deadline “nonsense.” But would we call it “nonsense” if we were talking about Team X?
At a time when so many teams have gone into extended tanking to procure high draft picks and more slot and international money, the Yankees have admirably continued to try to win. But to not accept they are Team X now will slow winning in the future. Now is the opportunity to add more young talent while creating more financial flexibility — the daily double on creating a serial contender.
Yankees officials keep talking about letting the team declare itself. But Sunday will be Game 81, exactly halfway through the schedule. This is not a small sample in which the Yankees have been Team X; in which they had sunk nine games out in the AL East.
The siren’s song of the wild card remains. The Yankees were just 3½ out of the second wild card, but there were five teams ahead of them for just the second wild card. The AL wild-card leaders through Tuesday were the flawed Red Sox and Blue Jays. But, as defective as they are, the Red Sox and Blue Jays were a combined 11-4 against the Yankees.
The Yankees could conceivably combine good enough play with enough climbing to reach the playoffs. Fangraphs gave them an 8.1 percent chance. But that is a 92 percent chance they do not. If there were a 92 percent chance New York would be hit by a hurricane, you would prepare for it, even recognizing the storm might deviate off path.
The Yankees, therefore, must be preparing for the 92 percent likelihood. To ignore that would not be bold. It would be negligent.
Think of it this way: Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein is considered among the game’s best executives. He has thought it worth his franchise’s money and concentration to have multiple scouts recently tailing the Yankees. If one of the best executives in the game sees the logic of the Yankees as a seller, shouldn’t the Yankees too by having their scouts overindulge in not just the Cubs system, but those of likely buyers such as the Giants, Nationals, Rangers, Dodgers and Astros?
When I asked general manager Brian Cashman if he has diverted scouts to do just that, he responded, “I wouldn’t answer that. … ‘We scout everything’ is the best way to answer it.”
I assume Cashman does not want to contradict his bosses’ public proclamations by saying, yes, he is deploying his scouting apparatus to reflect a selling team. After all, if it were status quo go-for-it Yankees, he would have just said that because he would be simpatico with his superiors.
The Yankees probably don’t have to make the sell choice now and can continue trying to turn around their season. Traditionally, teams are not willing to overpay until closer to the non-waiver trade deadline, so the Yankees are probably not yet hearing offers to motivate a deal.
But their mindset has to be open to selling now, in case an opportunity arises with an Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Carlos Beltran or anyone else. Because a half-season of statistical and visual information has declared that they are not the Yankees of expectations, but rather Team X. And Team X would be a seller.