If YOU love prospects, this is not the column for you.
Because the Yankees surrendered three to obtain Kansas City outfielder Andrew Benintendi on Wednesday. And even if that signals that they are out of the Juan Soto sweepstakes, they can’t stop here. Reds ace Luis Castilo is still available and the Yankees need a bullpen arm and, hell, it is Juan Soto. So if you’re the Yankees, you better be sure that you can’t beat the offer of the Cardinals or Padres or Mariners or wherever he is going.
For it is hard to be among the 50-100 players who really matter in a major league season. And if you think you have five of them percolating in your system, you are almost certainly delusional.
The only time in my 30-plus years of doing this that I saw one New York team actually have this kind of accumulation at one time was the Yankees of the early 1990s. And the magic of then GM Stick Michael was that he knew the most important organization to scout was your own. He protected, especially Bernie Williams, but then Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera too.
Everyone else was available to pursue championships. I remember in 1995 that the minor league wing of the Yankees organization fought like hell not to include a pitching prospect named Marty Janzen for David Cone. The Yankees don’t make the playoffs for the first time in 14 years without Cone. Janzen had a 6.39 ERA in 27 career major league games.
The following season there was outrage about trading a first-round pick named Matt Drews for Cecil Fielder, who only helped the Yanks win a World Series. Drews never appeared in a major league game. In 2003, Brandon Claussen pitched wonderfully in his major league debut in the Subway Series, so it was treated as if Whitey Ford was dispatched when a month later he was dealt to the Reds for Aaron Boone, who later in that season would hit a pretty huge homer you might have seen or heard about.
Brian Cashman, a Gene Michael disciple, has excelled at scouting his own. His worst trades probably are one of his first big ones (sending Mike Lowell to the Marlins for three turned into nobodies) and one of his most recent big ones (sending four appealing prospects to Texas for turned into a nobody Joey Gallo). That is an excellent track record for two-plus decades.
If anything, Cashman’s greatest regrets are not about trades he made, but ones he didn’t — as examples: for Justin Verlander during the 2017 season or Gerrit Cole after that year.
He has a team this year good enough to win a championship. It is foundering a bit now after being swept two games by the Mets to drop to 10-12 in July. Like every roster, it has defects. One was having Joey Gallo’s strikeout-prone bat taking too many at-bats. He is hitting .161 and striking out 38.1 percent of the time, both second worst among players with 250 plate appearances. Benintendi is hitting .320 (fifth best) and striking out 13.3 percent (18th best). Gallo probably will not be a Yankee by the trade deadline — 6 p.m. Tuesday. And for the cost of pitching prospects Chandler Champlain, TJ Sikkema and Beck Way, the Yankees have a lineup-lengthening alternative.
He can’t stop now. Because if history is the guide, the Yankees probably don’t have as good a prospect base as they want to project. Cashman’s success has been mainly in duping others that it is better than it is.
Consider that through Tuesday, there were 54 players in the majors who signed their first pro contract with the Yankees. That was third to the Astros (61) and Cardinals (57). But Houston and St. Louis have a higher volume of above-average players who started on their farms. Among position players, the Yankees have Aaron Judge and … The second best is possibly Orioles defensive whiz shortstop Jorge Mateo or Giants second baseman Thairo Estrada (remember that Gleyber Torres was originally a Cub). The next best drafted position player this year has been Rob Refsnyder (has anybody seen Brett Gardner?). The pitching is better with Nestor Cortes, Jordan Montgomery, David Robertson, Luis Severino and Garrett Whitlock. But it is not overwhelming.
So is Anthony Volpe going to be as great as the Yanks believe? Oswald Peraza? Jasson Dominguez? Austin Wells? The phalanx of strong-armed pitchers the Yanks have up and down their system? Maybe like the Astros and Cardinals and now the Dodgers, they have figured out how to have not only volume, but lots of quality. But history says don’t bet on that.
And if you make a mistake, you make a mistake. The Dodgers have survived trading Yordan Alvarez for Josh Fields, the Astros trading Josh Hader for Carlos Gomez. Good organizations keep finding more talent. Volpe was the 30th pick in a draft, Judge 31st.
Consider that five years ago, the Yanks were viewed as having an elite system. If going into that year they were asked for their best five prospects for, say, Mike Trout, there would have been screams that you can’t trade five players who are in the overall top 87 according to Baseball America. But, of course, you could have traded Torres, Clint Frazier, Blake Rutherford, Mateo and James Kaprielian.
These lists are imperfect. Judge was sixth on the Yankees’ list and nearly won the AL MVP that year. It is bizarre to me how many media members and fans who have never seen a prospect lift his arm or swing a bat will scream that a prospect can’t be traded based on where he is on one of these lists. Again, maybe Volpe will be great or maybe he will be Jesus Montero.
It is Cashman’s job to separate the Judges from the Rutherfords. But even if it hurts to move the years of control, low prices and possibility, the Yanks need certainty for a championship chase. Castillo, for example, came into Yankee Stadium a few weeks back and was winking at Yankee personnel he knew — enjoying himself during an audition in front of 41,000 plus in The Bronx while taming the home team for one run in seven innings.
He stopped being a prospect long ago, just like Soto. They are in that small group that really matter — major league difference-makers. The kind you move whatever prospects are necessary to go get.