Yankees fans should want the Astros to keep losing, and not just because they hate the Astros more than any other team.
But with the trade deadline looming, Alex Bregman and Ryan Pressly are ideal fits for the Yankees, and many other teams too.
Both will be free agents after the season. Both had rough starts but bounced back. Both are fearless and have won championships. Pressly is one of the best postseason relief pitchers of all time.
The right-hander would be a great late-inning companion and ally for Clay Holmes, and would add some much-needed strikeout ability to a bullpen that needs at least two additions, ideally including a left-hander.
Bregman, a great defensive player with a low strikeout rate, would be ideal for the Yankees at third base, with DJ LeMahieu likely to play second, first or even on the bench depending on the health and performance of him, Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo.
Now, before any Astros fans see if they can save up some frequent flyer miles to come to New York and protest at the Washington Post, my gut feeling is that the Astros will not sell. If they do, multiple teams will put their name forward for this team and many other Astros teams, not just the Yankees. This is just to highlight what the Yankees need, where they might get it, and how many teams are adamantly opposed to a sale. Houston is the most interesting case.
“The door never closes as long as I’m here,” Astros owner Jim Crane declared in February when he announced Jose Altuve’s five-year contract extension, and general manager Dana Brown has consistently said the team has no plans to sell.
But there’s intent and rhetoric there, and then there’s reality: The Astros were 35-40 going into the weekend. What if that doesn’t change by mid-July, or even worse?
The Yankees had never sold before 2016 when Steinbrenner owned the team, and they had no plans to sell that year either, but they did, and the following year they were back in the AL Championship Series (against the sign-stealing Astros), symbolizing that selling now doesn’t necessarily mean a rebuild is underway.
The 2023 Mets are coming off a 100-win season and have the most expensive roster in history, so they weren’t expected to make any major trades, but they did notable trades for Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander at last year’s deadline.
But the Astros’ current situation, after seven straight ALCS appearances (and two championships) and an owner determined not to back down, makes it apt to compare them to the 2015 Tigers, who had appeared in the ALCS for each of the past four years (2011-2014) with pitchers Scherzer and Verlander (a coincidence, since Verlander was with the Astros and Scherzer with the Rangers, who are also a sub-.500 team that will have to ask some tough questions in the coming weeks).
Mike Ilitch, the Tigers’ owner at the time and a man willing to support a franchise-record salary, was obsessed with winning a championship in his career (he never did), but even more than Crane, who could count on a title, he hated the idea of giving in.
But Scherzer left the team as a free agent after the 2014 season, leaving the Tigers, under current Yankees coach Brad Ausmus, in disarray. Then-general Dave Dombrowski, now the Phillies’ president of baseball operations, recalled that they “went back and forth” wondering what to do in July.
Dombrowski, known as a big-game hunter and a veteran of decades of leading the team, helped the Mets win the National League pennant in July by trading closer Joakim Soria, starter David Price and outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.
“We have to be realistic with ourselves. Everyone [with the Tigers]”Even at that point, I was in agreement with the decision,” Dombrowski recalled. [Ilitch] He ultimately agreed with the decision but ultimately approved it. I was fired a few days later, so if I had stayed on the team, he might have kept me. At the end of the day, like a lot of things in this game, you have to do what your heart feels is right and make that decision.”
In his heart, Dombrowski didn’t think the 2015 Tigers team was a championship contender, so what will manager Clayne Brown think about the Astros three weeks from now?
Now, things have changed a lot since 2015, when five teams from each league made the playoffs and two wild cards played in a sudden-death game. Now there are six teams, the first round is a best-of-three format, and the fact that the NL’s sixth seed has made it to the World Series the past two years with 87 wins (2022 Phillies) and 84 wins (2023 Diamondbacks), respectively, is encouraging even more teams to try to make the playoffs.
Of course, some teams who made the status quo or challenge decision will have regrets, such as the 2023 Angels, who scoured a thin farm system to become challenger buyers, then started a season-defining seven-game losing streak on deadline day and ultimately couldn’t convince Shohei Ohtani to stay because of their enthusiasm.
Also, in 2015, the draft began on June 8. Since the draft is being held at the All-Star Game starting in 2021, this year it will be held on July 14-16, or within two weeks of the trade deadline at 6 p.m. on July 30.
“I only have two eyes: one to draft, one to buy and one to sell,” joked a top team executive, unsure of what he’ll do by the deadline. With limited time and limited scouting resources, it’s impossible to spread them out to more places in a tighter window.
And many teams are teetering around in buy-or-sell mode. All but two National League teams (Colorado, Miami) were in or within 1¹/₂ games of a playoff spot heading into the weekend. In the American League, the Astros are one of several 2023 playoff teams below .500 but not hopelessly out of the woods with lofty ambitions for 2024, along with Tampa Bay, Toronto and defending champion Texas.
Everyone will insist they’re not selling. “What else can I say?” Dombrowski explained. “If you’re on the borderline, I don’t think you can publicly tell the organization or the fans, ‘Hey, we’re going to sell players, we’re going to move players,’ unless you’re 100 percent sure, because that would be demoralizing to the team, because we’re still trying to make the playoffs.”
So it doesn’t really matter what Astros executives say right now. It’s the team’s performance that tells the truest story. Dombrowski’s Phillies, Brian Cashman’s Yankees, and all the championship contenders expect multiple borderline teams to lose over the next 3 weeks or so. More sellers means more inventory, which could drive prices down (see capitalism, supply and demand).
Dombrowski said even top contenders tend to wait until the deadline is near because it’s not dangerously close, sellers don’t feel pressured to act immediately, and they also feel they should get more in return because the player has spent more time with his new team.
But Dombrowski also explained that the buyer has limited collateral and is nervous about doing business today, only to suddenly have another problem emerge by late July with no prospect of resolving it.
At this point, the Yankees appear to need two relief pitchers and an infield corner hitter, and perennial playoff nemesis the Astros could help with reinforcements in October, but will Houston (and other teams) continue to lose by July 30th, and will reality overwhelm the no-sell statements, leading to a serious deadline market?
