Cashman's Casino is about to open

(Thanks, Tony)

Hey, it's nice to see the Death Star, at the season's traditional midway point, with the best record in the American League. 

It would also be nice to think the players who built that lead will be here in September. 

But that probably won't happen. We're about to greet another mid-summer tradition: the gutting of the farm. In this annual human sacrifice, the Yankee front office - aka Brian Cooperstown Cashman - dismantles the current lineup and trades our future for salary-bloated stars of yesteryear. 

Folks, it's going to happen. Period. It doesn't matter what we say or think. It will happen because Cashman cannot handle the tabloid-fueled howls that would flow his way by standing pat, and letting the Yankees grow on their own.

That would mean finding a place for Clint Frazier, probably at the expense of Edwin Encarnacion. Nope. Won't happen. The slumping Encarnacion, jettisoned by Seattle, will get the full months of August and September to find his stroke. If he's still cuddling with .150 in October, they'll bench him for the playoffs. Until then, it doesn't matter how he hits. He's the DH. Deal with it.

Same goes for Giancarlo Stanton, when if he returns. That could be August, unless he cuts off his foot with a pencil sharpener, in which case it'll be September. By then, his bat might be made of Jello. Won't matter. He'll play. He cannot be benched. He cannot be ignored. He's our LF. Deal with it.

What's that? You wonder about JA Happ? Wonder no more. He'll pitch. Every fifth day. Nope, doesn't matter what he does. Every fifth game. Don't bother looking for Deivy, or Jonathan, or Chance, or Nestor Jr.. When they have a bad outing, they're held accountable. They'll vanish off to Scranton faster than you can say "Chris Bootcheck." As for Happ? Won't matter. He will pitch. 

Likewise, so will the guys for which they trade the farm. Last year, they turned out to be the comedy team of Sonny Gray and Lance Lynn. That's the deal with deadline deals: You spend April and May judging players by performance. If they don't hit, they go bye-bye. (Sometimes, even if they do hit, they go bye-bye.) Come July and August, we ditch those lovable, courageous, over-achieving no-names with the all-stars of five years ago. If they don't perform, it doesn't matter. Because we are now entering the Cashman Casino, and nobody must ever be allowed to say or write that he didn't pull all his levers and play all his cards. The Yankees won the first half on youth and hustle. Now comes the second half, where we will seek to win with shiny, new, used parts.

Up top, I invoked the phrase "stand pat." Funny. That used to be the nickname of Pat Gillick, an actual Hall of Fame general manager. In the late 1980s, Gillick built the Toronto Blue Jays into a superpower. Then he left for Baltimore and twice took them to the playoffs. Then it was Seattle, which he took twice to the playoffs (they haven't been since.) Then he won the World Series in Philadelphia. And every July-August, when the Brian Cashmans of the world started reshuffling the decks, Gillick became "Stand Pat." He'd refuse to blow up his farm system - and/or clubhouse - for a quick fix. He always sought to build multiple championships, not just one-offs.

The Yankees have a great team right now, and - yes - Cashman deserves credit for building it. Now, do we really have to turn everything into a craps table? If stars don't hit, will we have the guts to bench them? When opposing teams seek to ransack our future, will we have the guts to say no?