Ninja Cashman, I Have A Plan! Please Read?

This is going to seem a little far fetched and honestly unrealistic but that's usually when Ninja Cashman, Brian Cashman's alter ego when he is actually a good GM, is at his best. Enter the Philadelphia Phillies and their lackluster 2014 season. The Yankees need pitching and the Philadelphia Phillies definitively have it, but would they be willing to trade some of it? Sure, why not?

The Yankees may have lost CC Sabathia for the season, and possibly forever, while Michael Pineda is still playing catch, Brandon McCarthy and his three win season and plus five ERA is considered an upgrade, and Chase Whitley may have hit an innings wall in the rotation. The Yankees have gotten by with this makeshift pitching staff and it's finally starting to show holes, let's plug them. The Phillies have three starting pitchers this season to trade, but only two of them the Yankees would want, in AJ Burnett, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels. Ninja Cashman, make the call.

Lee looks like a pure salary dump at this point of the season as he struggles to come back from an elbow injury. Lee is owed $25 million this year and next and the Phillies franchise isn't going anywhere with that contract on the books. To take on that kind of salary the Yankees could pay less in prospects and save their better pieces for a run at Hamels. Hamels, like Lee, is weighing down the club with $22.5 million a season through the 2018 season and a has a club option written into his contract for 2019 worth $19 million. Whether Sabathia and/or Alex Rodriguez retires or not the Yankees could easily absorb these contracts with the likes of Hiroki Kuroda and others coming off the books after this season.

Before you jump down my throat saying how I am out of touch the Phillies are going nowhere, they know it and we know it. The only players Philadelphia has under the age of 30 years old are Ben Revere, Cody Asche, and Domonic Brown who are hitting a combined .221 in 2014. The Phillies have finished in third, fourth, and look likely to finish in last place in their last three seasons respectively and it may be time to hit the reset button in Philadelphia.

The Phillies could sell off their high priced talent much like the Red Sox did a few seasons ago and re-tool and rebuild. Gary Sanchez or John Ryan Murphy could replace the departing Carlos Ruiz. Robert Refsnyder could replace the departing Chase Utley. Abi Avelino could replace the departing Jimmy Rollins. Ian Clarkin and throw in Shane Greene/Chase Whitley could replace Hamels and Lee and the rest is history.