Prime Examples of Yankees Buying Before the Deadline & Still Rebuilding

Earlier this week I ran a pretty simple Twitter Poll on twitter and on the blog, will the Yankees be buyers or will the Yankees be sellers at the 2016 trading deadline? In the posts I detailed how I wanted a huge fire sale for the ages originally but I have somewhat regressed towards a new strategy, buying and selling but only buying if the buying makes sense. This lead to some telling me I “talk out of both sides of my mouth” and that I can’t pick a side in an argument because I play both sides of the fence but I call it being a fan who was shown a better way. If that’s talking out of both sides of my mouth, that’s fine, but here is a few examples of what I am talking about when I say buying now, and buying low, while still rebuilding for the future. 

Let’s shoot for the stars and give the doubters a reason to hate the article and the thought process right off the bat. No I don’t find this to be realistic for the Yankees, the article post said “examples” not moves the Yankees should absolutely make. Felix Hernandez. Hernandez has been an ace and a Yankees killer for a long time on a team that hasn’t competed for much in a long time. The reason Hernandez may be touchable this season as opposed to any other season is the fact that he’s only made 10 starts due to injury, a calf injury, and the Mariners are out of it in the AL West. His value is at an all-time low this season but he’s signed, albeit to a lucrative deal, through the 2019 season with a team option for the 2020 season. Pitching is expensive and so is Hernandez but it’s only going to get more expensive, not less, so buying him now fits in with the Yankees future plans. 

Now here’s a realistic trade option for you, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim starter Matt Shoemaker. At the time of this writing the Angels are almost 20 games behind the Texas Rangers in the AL West and are one of the worst teams in all of the American League so you know, 100%, that they will be sellers. Shoemaker is not having a great year but you’re not buying him for this year, you’re buying him for the future. Just two years ago Shoemaker was a 16-game winner so the talent is there and so is the experience at just age 29. Shoemaker in a down year is still better than what the team is getting out of Ivan Nova, Nathan Eovaldi or CC Sabathia over the past month or so. Shoemaker is not arbitration eligible until the 2017 season and is under team control through 2021 at a steep discount to place at the back end of the rotation. 

The back end of the rotation means nothing without an ace and while King Felix may be a pipe dream you can never count out anyone when it comes to a player on the Oakland Athletics. Sonny Gray. Gray, again having a down year by his standards, but has an absolute ton of upside and has been a proven commodity as recently as the 2015 season. Gray finished third in last season’s AL Cy Young Award vote and the Yankees have taken notice, they’ve at least inquired about him for two straight seasons now in trade reportedly. This is someone you steal low, catch lightning in a bottle with or hope that a change of scenery helps with and ride the 26-year old all the way through the 2020 season before he becomes a free agent in 2021.

Let the Brian Cashman bashing begin.