Yankees July 2019 Approval Poll: GM Brian Cashman

The trade deadline has come and gone, and the Yankees completed another month of baseball. It is a happy coincidence that it’s time for our monthly Brian Cashman approval poll. Fans have been quite pleased with the Yankees GM all season, and his approval rating rocketed all the way up to 96% in May. Are Yankees fans still satisfied with Cashman after the deadline though?

July wasn’t too kind to the Yankees, especially over the last ten days. Although they somehow won the series against the Twins, their pitching couldn’t have been worse. Yankee pitchers continued to struggle when they dropped three out of four games against the Red Sox last weekend. All in all, the Bombers finished the month with a 13-11 record.

The Yankees still hold a large lead in the division, but there have been plenty of pain points. For one thing, injuries continue to crop up just about every day—CC Sabathia’s knee, Luke Voit’s hernia, DJ LeMahieu’s groin, Gary Sanchez’s groin, Brett Gardner’s knee, and so on. Combine the injuries with the recent ineffectiveness of the rotation, and the team had plenty of areas where they stood to improve prior to the July 31st deadline.

Instead, the Yankees failed to acquire any major league players. They poked around Robbie Ray, Mike Minor, Zack Wheeler, Marcus Stroman, Noah Syndergaard, Madison Bumgarner, etc. Rumors circulated that they might build on their strength, the bullpen, and add another reliever. That didn’t happen either. There were some late rumors that the Bombers might stand pat if they found the asking prices to be too high, but it sure seemed improbable that they wouldn’t add a Lance Lynn-type arm.

According to Jon Heyman, the asking price for Ray was Clint Frazier and three prospects. We also heard that the Mets would have charged a “Yankees premium.” Even if you agree that the asking prices for every available pitcher were exorbitant, that doesn’t explain why the Yankees whiffed on the chance to spend nothing but money to sign Dallas Keuchel or Patrick Corbin. It’s certainly something that the wealthiest franchise in baseball can’t afford to part with money or prospects to improve the team.

The Yankees floated the idea that getting some of their injured players back will be the equivalent of a deadline move. That feels like a big gamble though, especially because so many of them have experienced setbacks this season. Both Dellin Betances and Luis Severino have failed to pitch this year, and have been shutdown at different points. They are both expected to throw off a mound soon, but there is no guarantee that they will return. Likewise, Jordan Montgomery experienced a setback in his return from Tommy John surgery.

We all know that Brian Cashman is limited by what the front office is willing to do, but it seems bizarre that a postseason-bound team would sit by and do nothing. Sure, it was a boring trade deadline all around, but the Braves made a ton of moves to improve. Not to mention the fact that the rival Astros landed Zack Greinke and Aaron Sanchez. We didn’t even get a classic Ninja Cash move! Now the Yankees will have to make do with their internal options. Time will tell if that is good enough for this team to have a successful postseason run.

Are you upset that the Yankees failed to do anything at the deadline? Will you blame Cashman if they don’t make a deep playoff run? Vote in the poll below and let us know in the comments section.