The non-waiver trade deadline has passed and we’ve made it to August. That means it is time for our monthly GM approval poll. The Yankees are having a strong season, and Brian Cashman’s approval rating has been high all year long. I started this year’s version of the poll back in January, and Pinstripe Alley readers were big fans of his offseason moves. It’s hard to argue with adding Giancarlo Stanton to the lineup. His approval rating dipped to a respectable 90% in May, but rebounded to 93% in June. Now that the trade deadline is over, it’s possible that some folks have changed their opinions based on the deals that Cashman did or didn’t make.
July wasn’t very nice to the Yankees as far as injuries go. Not only did they lose Gleyber Torres to a hip strain, but they were without their catcher for most of the month. Once Gary Sanchez finally seemed healthy, he promptly re-aggravated his groin strain and was placed back on the disabled list. Worst of all, Aaron Judge suffered a bone chip in his wrist, and hit the DL as well.
Throughout all of the injuries, the team scuffled a bit. They finished July with a 15-10 record, and wasted some opportunities against crappier teams. In addition to splitting a four-game series with the Orioles, they also lost yet another series in St. Petersburg to the Rays. Meanwhile, the Red Sox continued to win and ended the month with a five game lead over the Yankees.
The month of July revealed some glaring weaknesses. A struggling Luis Severino made an already questionable rotation look even shakier. Several key members of the bullpen had terrible outings, including Aroldis Chapman and David Robertson. The offense went through a home run outage, and Aaron Boone was forced to rely on players like Neil Walker and Kyle Higashioka more than he would have liked.
Thankfully, Cashman had plenty of time to try and correct some of these problems. The starting pitching market was weak, but he worked out fairly cheap deals to acquire J.A. Happ and Lance Lynn. Happ has already slotted into the fifth spot in the rotation, and Lynn is expected to primarily work out of the bullpen. The Yankees also added Zach Britton to the ‘pen, and the left-hander represented an obvious upgrade over Chasen Shreve.
Subsequently, Cashman shipped off Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos to the Cardinals for Luke Voit and international bonus pool money. The Yankees were very intent on collecting all of the international bonus money. In addition to flipping Caleb Frare to the White Sox for more international money, Cashman made a surprising move and sent Adam Warren to the Mariners for even more international bonus money.
The Yankees have already made good use of that money by signing top pitching prospect Osiel Rodriguez, along with shortstop Alexander Vargas.
The only thing that Cashman didn’t do was sign a backup outfielder. As the hours ticked down, the Yankees were connected to just about every outfielder out there, including Cameron Maybin, Jose Bautista, Curtis Granderson, and Andrew McCutchen. At the end of the day, Cashman decided that the asking prices were too high, and that it wouldn’t be worth it to add another outfielder for such a short time.
Do you think that Brian Cashman did enough to improve the team before the deadline? Vote in the poll below and let us know in the comment section.