I guess I will be the contrarian again.

Let's say the Yankees win their next ten games in a row.

Let's say the Yankees can trade Carlos Beltran for a future superstar.

What do you do?

You trade Beltran:

"The stakes are simple this week as the Yankees open the second half at home against the Red Sox, Orioles and Giants.

Get back in the race or get taken apart."

They'll never get in the race, they'll never be out of the race. That's the modern-day Selig horror show.


"The deficits are hardly insurmountable. After all, the Yankees themselves held a seven-game lead in the division on July 28 last season before watching the Blue Jays storm back to win the AL East by six games.

But for a team that hasn’t been able to gain any traction through the first 88 games, they’ll have to play much better to put a scare into any of the three teams ahead of them in the division."

I am not optimistic, but I think this assessment is somewhat inaccurate.

With Chapman, they've played around .550 ball for 2 months. Keep it up and it's 83 - 84 wins. Not enough for a wild card, but not too far off. So it's keep it up and go on one nice streak.

The most likely outcome?

They tread water for the rest of the season and trade a couple of veterans for useless draft picks.

But the long-term strategy should not waver based on the outcome of the next ten games. In the unlikely event you can get significant value for some of these guys, go for it. In the likely event that you can't get significant value, your only way out is to build a time machine, travel back in time, and then refuse to sign them.