This was not about a day. This was not about the 2023 version of the trade deadline.
Their trouble in the AL East and their inability to significantly buy or sell or do anything that impacted the potential for success of this year’s team or any future Yankee squad has been a cumulative of failed strategy and player procurement layered over years.
The Yankees were the last of 30 teams to make a trade at this deadline and it feels like they did so as much to avoid the ignominy of being the only club that didn’t. Their “significant” move was to obtain a middling middle reliever named (Keynan) Middleton from the White Sox. They also bought the contract (from the Rangers) of a once top pitching prospect Spencer Howard, who over parts of four seasons has a 7.20 ERA.
Middleton has a career-best (by a lot) 30.1 strikeout percentage this year. But he dominates neither lefties nor righties, is homer susceptible and would be behind (at minimum) Clay Holmes, Michael King, Wandy Peralta, Tommy Kahnle, Ian Hamilton and Jonathan Loaisiga when he returns from the injured list on the Yankees’ relief pecking order.
So the Yankees obtained a No. 7 reliever — No. 8 or 9 depending on how you feel about Nick Ramirez and the recently demoted Ron Marinaccio. This is generally what the Yankees do well these days — maximize pen arms, so maybe they will do that with Middleton and Howard.
But they are last in the AL East for failures everywhere else, notably in the lineup. They were terrible in left field and third base last season, never addressed it in the offseason and still haven’t. Unless Bugs Bunny rules apply and they can have Aaron Judge leading off, hitting second, batting third … then how does this improve? And not just for 2023. DJ LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton, who these days look more like they should be in Jurassic Park rather than Yankee Stadium, all are under control next year. Perhaps only the Yankees will see those guys improving — as they were the last to accept that Josh Donaldson’s 2022 downturn was not an anomaly.
The Yankees, according to every outside executive with whom I spoke, were paralyzed. Close enough to a wild-card spot to not want to surrender in 2023 while the overt results screamed not to invest big prospects to upgrade — especially because it is not exactly like they are awash in big prospects.
They wanted to thread a needle and trade a walk-year player such as Harrison Bader for future collateral while using prospects to solve, particularly, left field for now and then future. They ended up with two more relievers.
But again, this wasn’t about Aug. 1, 2023. This was about mounting pathologies hard to hammer as the Yankees kept making the playoffs. Maybe they will manage that again this year, but even so, Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and baseball operations must recognize now that this is leading toward a bad place — and perhaps is already there.
It would take a book to delve deeply into how the second-highest-paid team was hitting .230, was 21st in runs per game and counted journeyman strikeout artist Jake Bauers as their most impactful hitter not named Judge.
But there are drafts that have not netted even enough average bats. There is an international market that has not brought a Juan Soto or Ronald Acuna Jr. or Wander Franco. There was the plummet of Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andujar and Clint Frazier — and holding onto them way beyond their expired warranty.
There was unrelenting arrogance to stay overly right-handed and disregard strikeouts even as one postseason after another exposed it as a failed philosophy; plus left them lacking diversity and athleticism when that is needed more than ever.
There were too many bad trades where the prospect depth was wasted on, among others, Joey Gallo and Frankie Montas. In first place last deadline, the Yankees were aggressive adding five major leaguers and too little impact. The result was familiar — beating an overmatched AL Central team early in the playoffs, getting knocked out by a team that is just better at playing baseball (usually the Astros) and then insisting the club is still incredibly close to winning it all.
The Yankees invested a little more in last year’s deadline because four players had control in 2024. Harrison Bader has been on the injured list twice while Montas, Scott Effross and Lou Trivino haven’t played. That is epic failure, like believing Isiah Kiner-Falefa could play shortstop and taking on the $50 million booby prize of Donaldson to make it happen.
You can’t keep failing in so many realms and hope the money — notably invested well to date in Judge and Gerrit Cole — will camouflage all of it. It cascaded into a deadline in which the Yanks basically stood still. Maybe inactivity will be a blessing — it would have been last year.
But their desire was not to be inactive. They were bracketed into inactivity by days and months and years that led up to Aug. 1, 2023. They couldn’t upgrade the 2023 team. They couldn’t better address the future. Instead, they added a No. 7 reliever and a used-to-be prospect.
It was a bad day years in the making.
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