On a long night in Seattle, the chickens come home to roost

Well, it finally happened. Last night, Seattle's emerging star outfielder, Ben Gamel, poked a sharp, flaming stick in the eye of Brian "Shoe-in-for-Cooperstown" Cashman, while the Yankiverse got to ponder four more years of Jacoby Ellsbury. Gamel homered and scored the winning run in another CIA torture tactic defeat - this one being especially gruesome, because it took extra innings for the full pineapple to be successfully inserted. 

Last August 31, Cash traded Gamel - the International League Player of the Year - to the Mariners for Juan De Paula and Jio Orozco. Yep, THE Juan De Paula and Jio Orozco. Juan is currently 2-3 with a 5.25 ERA for Staten Island in the NYP League. Jio is 3-4 with a 4.95 ERA at Charleston. The most hopeful thing you can say about either is that they are still 19. Basically, we gave Gamel away for two dirt league dice rolls, because Gamel had no place in that All Star Yankee outfield, where - as stated above - we get to ponder four more years of you-know-who (and I'm not referring to Trump.) 

Last night, Girardi all but confirmed that Ellsbury is the fourth Yankee outfielder, not exactly the most alarming statement ever uttered, considering that Jacoby is not hitting for average or power, and has a Venus de Milo arm. Nor does this factor in the return of Aaron Hicks, sometime this decade, which should make Ellsbury the fifth outfielder - except nobody truly believes this. Everybody expects the Yankees to send Clint Frazier back to Scranton (if they don't trade him for Sonny Gray or Yu Darvish on their absurd wild card goose chase) because he'll need to "play every day." In the same way we are chained to Head Caseley at first base and Todd ".204" Frazier - (who air-mailed one last night from third) - we have Ellsbury in center, appearing like a pop-up web ad that cannot be minimized or x-ed out. 

But wait... we haven't discussed next year's Ben Gamel. Currently at Scranton, poor Jake Cave is tearing up the International League and surely awaiting his own Independence Day, around August 31. Cave, 24, is hitting .361 with 9 home runs. If he keeps it up, the Yankees could sport back-to-back IL Players of the Year, with both being traded for rookie league chum. 

But wait, there's more! Also raking in Scranton is Billy McKinney, 22. In 69 ABs, he's hitting .319 with 4 home runs. A former highly touted first-rounder, McKinney came over in the trade for Arodis Chapman last July, and he seems to have found himself. Oh well, a few years in Scranton ought to straighten him out. Or maybe we can convert him into 19-year-olds. You can never have enough 19-year-olds. In fact, the only trouble with 19-year-olds is that they eventually become 23, and then you have to trade them for more 19-year-olds.

Or, the Yankees can do to Cave and McKinney what they did to Rob Refsnyder and Mason Williams - which is to bury them in Scranton so deeply and demoralizingly - (I know some of you don't share my faith in Refsnyder, but I say he should have gotten a chance at 2B, his only real opportunity) - until they play out their minor league careers. And the funniest part? This is not necessarily the sign of an organization overflowing its banks with talent - it's just a front office that values veteran contracts over youth. And of course, the Yankee-owned media praises every move as pure genius. And when Cashman someday gets inducted into Cooperstown, as the sportswriters suggest, maybe he'll wear a Seattle cap?