By acquiring Encarnacion, Yankees shore up 4-man starting rotation... at DH

You know the old saying: "Baseball is 90 percent DH-ing, DH-ing, DH-ing...!" And the Yankees last night placed a big fat cherry atop their already strong DH starting rotation, making it arguably the deepest in baseball.

The self-proclaimed "Death Star" obtained 36-year-old, lead-gloved slugger Edwin Encarnacion - currently hitting .241 with 21 HRs - from Seattle. (Insert Ken Phelps joke here.) - strengthening the Yankees' Designated Hitter lineup. Imagine our DH starting rotation in the playoffs.

Game One: Giancarlo Stanton, (assuming he's not hurt.) 

Game Two: Encarnacion. 

Game Three: Gary Sanchez, (day off from catching.)

Game Four: Kendrys Morales (assuming he's not bagging groceries.)

Actually, I keyboarded Morales here with disappearing ether. He will probably vanish and be deleted from the fossil record, like the classic Twilight Zone episode where the terror-stricken astronauts disappear, one by one. Within two weeks, no one will recall his name, number, statistics, or that he ever played with the Yankees. He will simply be gone, like - um - all the others we cannot remember. (Why does the name "Ji-Man Choi" pop into my head?)

Trouble is, also disappearing will be Clint Frazier, the Yankees' best hitter over the last month. We now can see the future, crystal clear and starkly painful: 

Frazier will be traded for a bum. 

We know this. For months, we have feared it. The witches foretold of it, and the red skies confirmed it. We thought there was a chance that continuing injuries would tether Frazier to the team. But a brief window of health is emerging - soon, for maybe a week or two, the lineup will be at full strength - and the Yankees will surely use that moment to push the button on a trade: Frazier for a bum. At this point, unless they want a five-man DH rotation, they have no choice.

By acquiring Encarnacion, it's hard to imagine Frazier staying through the end of June. Once Stanton and Aaron Judge return, he'll have to be demoted to Scranton- (keep in mind, he's hitting .385 over the last two weeks, .325 over the last month.) He'll be demoralized and disillusioned, until a trade liberates him. And then, of course, the injuries will return (perhaps even restoring Kendrys Morales? Don't laugh. It could happen!) 

Listen: I'm not slamming Encarnacion. The old coot can still hit, and all we gave up is a Single A pitcher, certainly a flexible commodity in the era of Tommy John. I just wonder what the Yankees intend to do about their dearth of starting pitchers, and I hate the obvious answer: They will deal the most exciting hitter we've developed since Judge. If we trade Frazier to - say -  Toronto for Marcus Stroman, we better be prepared for him to bomb us for the next decade.

In every trade, the devil is in the details, and right now, we don't have many. According to Baseball Reference, Encarnacion remains on the Cleveland payroll, due $20 million next year (with a $5 million buyout, which the Indians surely will invoke.) He won't bust us financially. Like I said, the geezer can hit, and he looks mean coming off the bus. He draws a shitload of walks, with an on base percentage of .356. He will land in the middle of the batting order and occasionally play 1B. In the short term, he's an upgrade over Frazier in one area: Strikeouts. Encarnacion has struck out 55 times in 289 at-bats; Frazier has fanned 56 times in about 90 fewer times to the plate. 

Trouble is, we're exchanging a guy who is just getting started for one who is wrapping up his career. We will trade our future for a one-shot October, and we'll end up over-paying mightily for whomever we get. One other thing: When did Cashman last successfully acquire a solid starting pitcher in a trade? Class? Anybody? Surely, he must have done it once? Can anybody refresh my memory? When has such a deal last worked?

Last night, the Yankees held on, thanks to Nestor Ocasio-Cortes Jr. - (who might also be gone in a trade, because that's how these things happen.) Let the record show that, when the Yankees obtained Encarnacion, they were leading the AL East. Cashman is about to remake this roster. And Clint Frazier is as good as gone.