Want hope? Move to Scranton

Watching Scranton last night, a ridiculous notion hit me: I'd happily trade their first five batters for our current Yankee lineup. At least there would be hope, or a sense of mystery - because right now, our hitters only deliver despair.  

Leading off was 24-year-old left-fielder Jake Cave, who's had a breakout season - .335 with 14 homers. While I love Brett Gardner as a person, a .260 corner outfielder isn't cutting it. (Yeah, he has 20 HRs; but so does every player on the eastern seaboard this year.) Gardy numbers are carved in stone; he is a middling LF for a middling team. Could Cave hit more than .260? I'd roll the dice. 

Batting second: Starlin Castro. Okay, that's a cheat. Obviously, we need Castro back ASAP, and we need him hitting as he did before his two - two - hammy pulls. (Not good planning Starlin.) I should note that Ronald Torreyes played wonderfully in his absence, so Starlin better come back hot.  

Batting third: Greg Bird, another cheat. Bird represents our last unplayed card of 2017. We still don't know what kind of player he'll be. (As opposed to, say, Todd Frazier, whose concrete ceiling is defined quite rigidly by years of output. If Frazier gets hot this week, it simply means he will get cold next week. He will end up hitting about .215. There is no mystery here. The past is prelude.) 

Which brings me to the guy batting fourth in Scranton: 22-year-old 3B Miguel Andujar, also enjoying a breakout season. (.326 with 8 HRs.) Frankly, I'd rather see him than Chase Headley (who has hit well lately) or Frazier. With Andujar, we are building for the future. Also, we know Headley will cool off and retreat to his .250 normalcy. I'd take a once-around-the-league from Andjuar and be happy.

Finally, in RF was Billy McKinney, 22, yet another breakout performer (.319, 10 HR in 43 games.) I hate writing this, but right now, I'd rather see Dopey Dildox play RF rather than Aaron Judge, who needs more time off than anyone on this planet. Last month, Boston rested the slumping Andrew Benintendi for several games, because he was pressing. It saved his year. Why the Yankees have not done the same with Judge is beyond bad management; it borders on insanity, and everybody in New York - everybody except the Yankees - knows this. This guy needs a reset button. How does Joe Girardi not see this?

Last year, the Yankees ditched their veterans and basically conceded the pennant race on August 1. Then a funny thing happened: They went 17-11 in August and vaulted back into wild card contention, infusing the Yankiverse with more hope than we'd seen in years. 

That "Baby Bomber" rebuilding plan ended three weeks ago. Since trading four of our ten best prospects for veterans - to the delight of the NY Gammonites, I should add - we are 9-10. We have fallen from the AL East race, and if not for a 4-game sweep of the bottomless pit known as the Mets, we'd be lagging in the one-game phony post-season wild card battle, too. The hottest teams in that race are Minnesota and Texas - both of whom were "sellers" last month. And the Boston hitter who most killed us last week was Rafael Devers, a 20-year-old that the Redsocks were forced to promote after we outbid them for Todd Frazier. (And when Bird returns, Headley likely will shift to third, making Frazier a fifth wheel on our wagon; we'll have traded Blake Rutherford for a new Chris Carter.)

In Hal Steinbrenner's last eight years of running the Yankees, we have seen at least four strategic plans launched and then pitched overboard. 

There was the Free Agent Surge of 2009, which saw CC, Tex and AJ Burnett push us to a World Series.

Then came the "Beggars Can't Be Choosers" era, when Hal was determined to cut payroll below the $186 million luxury tax limit. We refused to sign anybody, even letting Russell Martin go, rather than give him a modest two-year deal.  

Then came the "Farewell Gasp" tours for Mariano and Jeter, when we annually traded off prospects for veteran rentals (Alphonso Soriano, Ichiro, et al.) That drained our system and left us with old teams - Vernon Wells, Pronk and Ichiro - whom Hal broke his rule for and signed anyway. We went nowhere.

Last year, we trotted out the "Baby Bombers" with Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge, and actually restored hope. 

That plan lasted exactly one calendar year,. As soon as the scent of a wild card could be sniffed, Hal went back to all-or-nothing pursuit of the post-season, which now involves that miserable one-game lottery ticket. And we're losing with players who have been Yankees for three weeks.

I wonder if Hal will ever stick to a plan long enough to see whether it works. If we piss away our future, we are just three years away from the worst decade in Yankee history. But damn - it's a great time to be a fan in Scranton!