Whatever happens, Cashman yesterday held the line on prospects, and there is hope for the future

Okay, siddown. Deep breath. Drink this. Brace yourself. I'm gonna write nice things about Brian Cashman, and they will bleed into hopeful thoughts regarding Food Stamps Hal. 

No, they aren't holding a Glock to my head. I am posting from the supremely fortified IIHIIFIIc command center, beneath beautiful Onondaga Lake.

That said, I suggest you step back from your electronic breast feeder, as it might burst into flames. 

The reason for my knock-kneed declaration of fealty: The Yankees yesterday did not empty their farm system to chase a 2024 wild card berth. 

They did not trade Spencer Jones. They did not trade George Lombardi Jr. They did not trade Roderick Arias, or any of their top prospects, as recently ranked by the rankers who rank rankings. The Yankees held the line on draining their system, even though some of the kids, frankly, have endured shitty seasons. 

Keep in mind that Aaron Judge, at 23, hit .224 in 61 games at Scranton, his first taste of Triple A. They could have traded him for a Sidney Ponson and told the world he was overly hyped. And our current great Yank hope, Jasson Dominguez, the Martian, once hit .159 in the Arizona Instructional League. If you trade prospects when they struggle, not only do you deal them at their lowest value, but you end up with a dead future. This was our fate in the 1980s, as Old George went through GMs like Kleenex in a Covid ward. It still could be our destiny. But yesterday, Cashman held the line, and I am risking flames of retribution as I type these words: 

Cashman did the right thing.

In simple terms, the Yankees did not discard their long-term future for a long-shot postseason berth, which - frankly - they should get anyway. (If this team cannot qualify for the extended playoffs, it was never going to win a damn thing, right?)

Today, we are slobbering drunk with a two straight series wins, plus the hope that Jazz Chisholm Jr. could be the steal of 2024. Clearly, he is an exciting young talent (age 26) who desperately needed out of Miami, the land of drug lords and senior scooters. Some players were made for New York's ultimate stage, and Chisholm might be one of them. We won't know until he hits a speed bump - as he will - and faces the shrieks of talk radio and bleacher yahoos, the underside of Gotham. 

In recent days, Gammonites and bloggers worked up raging Yankee boners over the possibility of big deals, never questioning the talent lost in the exchange. There was intense pressure on Cashman to obtain a quality starter, and it surely grew with the news that Gerrit Cole would miss last night's game. The conditions were ripe for a terrible deal, the kind that, frankly, Cashman has made in recent years. This time, he didn't bite.

I still worry about Chisholm, as his 3B experience is soooo limited. We literally will have two players learning new positions - Ben Rice at 1B and Chisholm at 3B - and a 2B showing signs of early onslaught Chuck Knoblauch. 

Whatever happens, we held the line yesterday. 

So let me type the words and run...

Thank you, Cash. And onward, Mr. Hal.