Contrary to Popular Belief...

This loss changes nothing. No, the Yanks won't be hitting the panic button and making a big blockbuster trade for Roger Clemens. If you heard Cashman before the game, he seemed almost resigned to give up this game and a few others for the next week because basically, he doesn't have many options available to him. Given the Yankees farm system and current payroll/roster there aren't many movable pieces that can be used to plug holes like they did in years past. Specifically, the Yankees have only 5 pieces they could use in a significant deal: Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang, Eric Duncan, Phillip Hughes, and Melky Cabrera. Those are the chips the Yankees can use to upgrade thier Major League roster. Any deal involving any current Major Leaguer will likely result in a net loss for the Yanks (ie Sheff for Cameron or Sheff for Burnett).

So Cashman has two options: (1) Plug Along, Stay Afloat, Ride the Wave, Struggle Through, Gut It Out... etc. Keep bringing in your Tim Reddings and Aaron Smalls and maybe make a small deal here or there for a Chacon or a Leiter and just wait for the reinforcements coming off the DL.
OR
(2) Trade the 5 chips (and it will likely have to be all of them) for the one or two "perfect" acquisitions who will play for the Yankees through 2005, maybe take them to the playoffs and then leave for greener pastures in 2006.

The deal with option 1 is simple - the Yankees keep the small but promising farm intact and look to the future without entirely giving up on the present. This is what real baseball teams with real payrolls and real farm systems do. Now that the wonderful fantasy land ride that is the Yankees of 96-04 has come to an end, its about time they start acting like a real professional baseball organization instead of a mercenary camp for the old and expensive. With some luck and healthier arms they might just make the playoffs, too.

Option 2 is the same old story. Hughes, Duncan and Wang (though he can't be traded while on the DL) are shipped for a new starter like Burnett, while Cabrera and Cano are dealt for a guy like Cameron. The Yankees panic and give in to the crazy demands of the pre-deadline trade market. The result? Yankees get the Wild Card, lose in the ALCS to Boston, and head into next year struggling to re-sign Burnett and find that they can't acquire anyone in a trade because they have no trade bait to fall back on any more. Instead of the fantasy ride coming to a stop and turning around, it crashes through a wall and everyone is thrown 300 feet to their deaths.

After listening to Cashman get berated on WFAN's Mike and the Mad Dog show Thursday and with the way he has dealt with this situation and that one, my respect for the man has gone through the roof. He should be (and has been by Theo Epstein) commended for thinking of the Yankees future while in the final year of his contract. No one would blame him for making a few hair-trigger deals and mortaging the future to win now and create a mess for the next guy, but instead Cashman has taken the high road and strived to do what's best for the organization. The fact that it's Cashman detailing the Yankee game plan and not Steinbrenner on the back pages tells me that the old man might have finally given up on being the bully and will let Cashman and Gene "Stick" Michael run this ballclub again. Maybe that's all Cashman wanted to hear and he's not planning on jumping ship, I sure hope so.