Changing Priorities

There was a lot to hate about last night's game. Like so many games this season, the Yankees managed to not just lose, but lose ugly, with mental mistakes and failures in big spots. With this loss, the Yankees fall back to a six game deficit in the wild-card race, and I'm about ready to declare their playoff hopes dead. In order to make the playoffs now, the Yankees would have to win their next two games, sweep Boston next month in Fenway, play one game better than the Red Sox in the other 26 games left, and erase the 3.5 game lead that the Twins have. It's a ridiculously tall order made even more ludicrous when you look at the teams' remaining schedules and see that the Yankees play only 15 of their final 31 games at home while the Red Sox play 21.

This is why I think it's time for the Yankees to shift their priorities from a futile attempt to make the playoffs this year to gearing up for next season. The Yankees are going to have a lot of decisions to make this offseason, and they can help themselves in making those decisions by using the next month to evaluate what they can expect from their prospects and young players. For example, this winter the team will need to decide whether to re-sign Bobby Abreu and continue to use an outfield of Nady-Damon-Abreu, or find a replacement. They can make this decision much easier by playing Brett Gardner regularly over the rest of the season, and letting themselves see if he's good enough to be the center fielder next year. If he is, then an outfield of Damon-Gardner-Nady becomes a very attractive option.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, but the sooner the Yankees can accept their defeat in this season, the sooner they can start to work towards victory in the next.