Yankees Can't Ignore The Elephant In The Room Anymore

There’s no sugar coating what happened the past week. After an incredible winning streak the Yankees dropped a series to the Los Angeles Angels without star player Mike Trout and then went on to Oakland and got SWEPT in a four game series to a team with the worst record and run differential in the American League. The Yankees should have dominated the A’s. The Yankees have some serious problems they can no longer ignore.

Here’s what needs to happen. The Yankees need to work on the solutions and skip making any excuses. The Red Sox are banging on the door and first place and the division is now at stake. The Yankees have three major areas of weakness, and some of those are the same as division rivals.

1. Pitching
CC Sabathia is out, and will likely be out until after the All-Star break read DOUBTFUL CC WILL BE BACK BEFORE TRADE DEADLINE for more. I don’t know what the hell is going on with Masahiro Tanaka but he can’t be trusted. That’s two anchors of the Yankee rotation that will be missing. The Yankees are going to need starting pitching and Joel Sherman had a great piece this week HERE highlighting Brian Cashman and his trade deadline strategy.

The Yankees are still tied to the Jose Quintana rumors, and as the deadline gets closer the rumors will likely heat up. Sherman is right, Cashman does “deal from strength” and right now that is our middle infielders and starting pitching. The Yankees also need a lefty reliever. So who does Cashman get and who does he give up?

2. Third Base
The Yankees have been rumored to be considering upgrades at third base for weeks now. Chase Headley is having one of the worst offensive seasons of his career and he has committed the second-most errors at third base this year. Many expect the Yankees to improve the position form within, especially with Gleyber Torres rising quickly through the minors. That may be the long term plan, but now that he has an injured elbow those plans are temporarily on hold. The Yankees will need to consider upgrades outside of the organization and the Kansas City Royals are a good trade partner. The Royals are in third place after posting the worst record in April.

Their bad start has them at a slim 6.7% chance to make the playoffs so that makes Mike Moustakas a prime trade target, read more HERE. He is in the middle of a career season and the most intriguing trade target for the team. Boston is desperately trying to solve their own third place weakness with Pablo Sandoval, so the competition may cause a higher price tag.

3. First Base
We all love Greg Bird. He is a big part of the Yankees future but he’s not ready right now. Now that the Yankees have shut him down again the Yankees need to look at another solution potentially longer term because Rob Refsnyder and Chris Carter just don’t work. The Yankees have Tyler Austin down in AAA. There was a lot of speculation that the Yankees were going to call him up on their last home stand but it never happened.

I guess the Yankees just don’t feel like he is good enough right now. If that is the case, the Yankees could consider Yonder Alonso from the A’s. He is having a breakout season and rumored to be interested in signing an extension with the team but are rarely successful in retaining high-dollar free agents. The A’s are likely to make Alonso available on the trade market and his one-year, $4 million salary will make him easy to move. Division rivals the Angels and Mariners are interested in him, so maybe moving him to the Yankees will be ore appealing to the A’s instead.

The Yankees just lost two series the should have won. The Angels were a sub .500 team until they dropped the last two games. The A’s series was a nightmare. The Yankees should be dominating teams like this. As the season goes on the weaknesses of this team will only continue to be more obvious and the Yankees can no longer ignore the elephant in the room and they need to start making the right moves if they want to contend now.