The Yankees were at par with one batter facing and two relief pitchers vacating the plate at the deadline.
It was basically the bare minimum.
Would par be enough? An AL East title. And, of course, more than that, because these Yankees weren’t assembled for par. This should be a make-or-break season, made even more so by Juan Soto’s only sure season with the Yankees.
The Yankees didn’t have a win-or-lose trade deadline, they had financial constraints imposed by Hal Steinbrenner and a shrunken and broken farm system that prevented them from acquiring Garrett Crochette and Yandy Diaz and becoming much better than average.
But no team got Crochette or Diaz. No team got Tarik Skubal or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Blake Snell. So the best assessment of the Yankees’ deadline is that the Orioles didn’t make an impact, either. Zach Eflin is a good starter, but he’s not the type of guy who shows up in a playoff series and dominates in the pregame. Trevor Rogers is a work in progress. The Phillies traded two of them, and the two they were willing to part with in struggling but willing players, Serantony Dominguez and Gregory Soto, went to the Orioles. Eloy Jimenez was a payroll cut for the White Sox.
And in many ways, this defined the sport’s deadline. The market was full of supporting players rather than stars. Sales from the Blue Jays, White Sox and two Florida teams were the main factors, but it will be interesting to see which teams ultimately unearthed the most useful and best players. In fact, MLB should probably limit play there to spring training only.
One scenario, for example, is that the bright lights and big city bring out the best in Jazz Chisholm Jr., who has the right mix of skills the Yankees need: defensive mobility, left-handed power and basepath threat. But his play has lacked consistency over the years. Would meaningful games against a veteran team keep him focused?
Mark Leiter Jr. struck out 34.9 percent of the batters he faced for the Cubs this year. Eniel de los Santos struck out 28.2 percent of his batters for the Padres. Yankees relief pitchers struck out 23 percent of their batters, good for 17th in the major leagues. Can Leiter and de los Santos increase their strikeouts late in games?
The best thing the Yankees made was the potential of Agustin Ramirez’s bat, according to evaluators who follow the team. The Yankees never included Jason Dominguez in the trade, and were reluctant to move outfielder Spencer Jones or shortstop George Lombard Jr. The Yankees’ system has traded so many top prospects (especially pitchers) in recent years that injuries and poor performances have left them without the quality organizational depth to make a big trade profitable.
Of all the players the Yankees drafted, perhaps the best one they traded for was Trey Sweeney. He was part of a disappointing package the Dodgers sent to the Tigers in exchange for Jack Flaherty. In the offseason, Sweeney, a former first-round draft pick by the Yankees, was traded to Los Angeles for Victor Gonzalez. To say the Yankees need Leiter and De Los Santos to be much better than Gonzalez is an understatement.
But even if they are good, and Chisholm is good, that would be high-end complementary excellence. In many ways, the Yankees doubled down on what they had, but that was a bit worrying when Gerrit Cole was announced on Tuesday as suspended for what the team described as full-body soreness. Manager Aaron Boone suggested Cole might start over the weekend. But the Yankees have seen very little from Cole yet this year, and certainly not his best Cy Young-winning performance. Instead, making his major league debut on Tuesday was Will Warren, one of the top prospects who has had a down season and didn’t do much to reverse that against the Phillies.
So Lewis Hill and Carlos Rodon will have to continue to play as well as they have recently, trade talks with Nestor Cortes and Marcus Stroman will have to redo their first two months, and Clarke Schmidt would be helped if he could return to full fitness for the final five weeks.
Besides De Los Santos and Leiter, could the Yankees essentially get Ian Hamilton back off the injured list, and maybe Nick Birdy and Lou Trivino, and could we see the best of Clay Holmes again?
And will the hitters behind the great Soto and Aaron Judge continue to perform as they have over the past few games, turning the Yankees’ lineup into something more than a modern-day Ruth-Gehrig? And will players like Trent Grisham, Gleyber Torres and Alex Verdugo be fully engaged and fully focused enough to play the full games the rest of the year will see?
That may not matter when the Yankees are dominating opponents, but when the games are close, they tend to become complacent and lethargic, which leads to failure rather than championship success.
The Yankees have done well in a star-starved market — as good as Chisholm, Reiter and De Los Santos are — and the best they can do should complement what the Yankees have. But the greatest compliment to this 2024 roster would be to conclusively prove they’re already championship heavyweights.
