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.

Yanks trade for Marte and Nady

It's not official yet, but from what I've been able to gather from several sources is that the Yankees have picked up lefthanded reliever Damaso Marte and outfielder Xavier Nady for pitchers Ross Ohlendorf, George Kontos, Phil Coke and outfielder Jose Tabata.

I'll give a more detailed analysis after the details have been confirmed, but my initial reaction is that it's a great trade for the Yankees. Marte and Nady are both good players who fit the Yankees' needs and are under contract for next season as well. Meanwhile, of the four prospects the Yankees gave up, only Tabata has the potential to be a real star, and he's had many personal issues and injury problems which have tempered enthusiasm for his future.

Update 11:27AM:It turns out that the trade is actually for Tabata, Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens and Daniel McCutchen. This makes the price slightly higher, as Karstens and McCutchen are more ready to contribute at the major league level than Kontos or Coke, the difference is very small. In fact, I'm tempted to say that it's a better price for the Yankees, as Kontos has the highest ceiling of the four, and Coke is the only lefthander. Considering how deep the Yankee farm system is in righthanded pitching, the loss of two guys that profile as back of the rotation types isn't a big deal.

Regardless, this is a great deal for the Yankees filling two of their four big holes. Now Brian Cashman faces the task of finding a better fifth starter than Sidney Ponson and a better catcher than Jose Molina without hurting the team in the long-term. As I've said before, I doubt that the latter is possible, but the former should be.

Right now the focus is on Jarrod Washburn, but I've got another idea if that falls through. With the acquisition of Marte, the dominating performances of Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez and David Robertson, and the impending returns of Brian Bruney and Chris Britton, I think Kyle Farnsworth might be expendable. Rather than looking at teams that are out of contention and would want prospects in a trade, why not look at a contender like the Cubs, who have Rich Hill toiling away in the minors?