Worst timing ever? A brutal week flushes us into the trade deadline

According to the Interweb, JA Happ is on his way! Like Santa on Christmas Eve, reporters are tracking his flight down from the North Pole, with his bountiful sack of toys for good Yankee fans. Hoo-ray! If last night's reports are true - and how could they not be? - we're about to win the JA Happ Rental Sweepstakes! 

Yesterday, we were Happ-less. Today, we're Happ-ening! 


Insert barf here.

Listen: If you were to design a checklist of incantations to conjure up the quintessential doomsday Yankee deadline trade, JA Happ would magically appear in your mirror, like Beetlejuice, or Slenderman, or Candyman, or - holy crap, this is getting scary - Sonny Gray. 

Let's look at what Happ brings.

Advanced age? Yep. He'd instantly become the oldest Yankee, turning 36 in October.

Declining skill set? Check. His ERA has risen in each of the last four years. 

Signs of being done? Uh-huh. In his last four starts, he hasn't seen a six inning. He's given up 19 runs in 15 innings. Nineteen runs in fifteen innings.

Overvalued? For now, we can only guess the price tag. Fortunately, our good friends, the Blue Jays, only want the best for us. Surely, they'll give the Yankees a discount, hoping to help their AL East comrades. And our watchdog media, the rapidly disappearing Gammonites of NYC, will ignore whatever prospects we trade, explaining that they were over-rated and never going to play for the Yankees anyway. They will note that Happ is "an all-star," the lone Toronto rep to last week's game. 

But the potential worst part of any deal would be that we become inexorably handcuffed to Happ. He will receive the rest of the season to sort things out. After a clunker outing, Domingo German - (assuming he's not traded for Happ) - would be banished to Scranton to work on a pitch. But Happ joins Sonny Gray as being "too big to fail." Regardless of his performance, the Yankees have no choice but to pitch him again and again. That's a recipe ripe for disaster, especially in New York, and it couldn't come at a worse time.

Suddenly, we cannot beat the lowly Rays, who have taken five out of six. Suddenly, the one-game Wild Card looms over us like the shadow of an executioner. Suddenly, we have no surefire starter for that one-game season. Suddenly, Gary Sanchez looks like a lost cause, and we are still wondering if Aroldis Chapman will ever throw another strike. 

Surely, between now and the end, the Yankees will make a run. We'll win six or seven straight, something like that. Surely, Boston will cool, and injuries could dramatically reshape either team. We're not dead yet. But here we are, lost in the heat of July, unable to beat the Rays and waiting to hear who we're about to give up for the latest tin can rental. Let's just hope this is the darkest trench of 2018. And let's hope we emerge without the kind of disastrous trade that shapes a decade.