On the eve of Dallas Keuchel's debut with Atlanta, Hal Steinbrenner talks about being a big-spender

Yesterday, Yankee owner Hal Steinbrenner emerged from his burrow, saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of austerity. Outside the owners meetings, presumably between martinis and lap dances, the beloved family trustee whom we call "Food Stamps" vowed to shoot his wad, money-wise, sometime around Aug. 1, even if it thrusts the Yankee budget above the de facto payroll cap, which his billionaire colleagues have illegally enforced for the last three years.

He said:

“If we feel we need another starting pitcher or even more help in the bullpen, we’re going to look at it. If I really felt we needed that deal that takes us over the top then, yes, I would, but we still have a decent amount of cushion.”

Translation: Fuck you, Yankee fans.

Okay, wait, fine, great. Hal says he plans to spend... maybe next month, yep, if the occasion warrants it, who knows? We'll see.

Well, Friday, Dallas Keuchel will start for the Braves. His first appearance of 2019 will come 24 hours after the Yankees employ their current fifth starter - The Entire Bullpen - against Keuchel's old team, the Astros.

Why rant? If a Yankee fan screams in the grandstand, does anybody hear? Instead of spending about $13 million on Keuchel, we have Edwin Encarnacion (for $3 million) and an impending salary dump trade, which will likely include Clint Frazier and the cast of Empire. Until then, our rotation will include a weekly stint by Chad Green (who hasn't appeared late in games, making him a two-inning starter), followed by Nestor (Octavio) Cortes Jr., a rookie. Some would call it "smoke and mirrors."  

But in the category of having-cake-and-eating-it, Steinbrenner also addressed the issue of Frazier. He said.

“I think he’s got a great career ahead of him. He’s got a lot of talent. He’s been working very hard on his defense and will continue to do so... He’ll be a big part of this team going forward. He certainly has the capability of doing that.”

This is sweet. It's also surgically worded bullshit. If Hal really wanted to keep Frazier in pinstripes, he would have ponied up for Keuchel instead of wallowing deeper into the DH hole for Encarnacion. Both moves effectively sealed Frazier's fate as a Yankee, and if Steinbrenner doesn't know this, he must be even dimmer than we thought.

Listen: It's hard to mope when we just swept the second place team in the AL East. But from now on, it's a two-team race, and I'm not referring to Tampa. The Redsocks are surging, and if they reach the wild card, it's hard not to see them as favorites, considering their rotation. I don't know what Hal has in mind. What should bother us all is that I don't think Hal does either. I hope he enjoys his martinis.