Appraisals for the yard sale.

Please note right away: I am not necessarily for trading any of the following players.

I still think we have a solid core of a team for the years ahead in Judge, Sanchez, and Gregorius, and that the future is, if not really bright, at least no worse than partly cloudy. And who knows? Even Giancarlo may start to hit one day. The stupidest thing would be to make panicky, silly moves.

BUT—what one-tenth of the season has told us, irrevocably, is that we have no pitching.

These, not Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, are the saddest of possible words.

Not only do we not have any pitching, we have even less pitching than we did in those disappointing-but-transitional seasons of 1975 and 1995.

There's no veteran ace still strong and ready to lead the staff, as Catfish did in 1976, or Cone in 1996. No phenom waiting in the wings, as there was with Ron Guidry in 1977, or The Great One.

We not only don't have pitching, we don't even have pitching on the broad horizon. Which means that acquiring enough to be a bona fide contender is going to be hard. As a great man once sang, it will be like trying to get gold from a silver mine, like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine (which, believe me, I have attempted on certain late nights during losing streaks).

Building a staff from this tower of rot is going to take some major-league finagling. So we might as well start by looking at the value of what we have. And with the notable exception of Sir Didi, I don't think anyone should be off the table.

Again, I have no possible idea of what combinations these guys can or should go in—if they should go at all. You might have to trade some pitchers to get better pitchers. You might have to trade stars.

That's all for a general manager—I mean a real general manager—to figure out. But here is what he will be dealing with:

Thank you for your service...
...and please pick up your ginormous parting checks at the door.

CC
Gardy

Sellable scrap

Tyler
Tyler Too
Walker
Romine
Montgomery
Rommel
The Toe
Hicks
Houdini
Chance Adams
Higashioka
Warren
Shreve
Heller/Holder (really the same person)

Broken stuff we are probably stuck with

Tanaka
Bird
Drury
Red Thunder
McKinney
Ellsbury
Cessa
Kahnle
Toonces
El Chapo

Deal 'em while they're still hot (IF you deal 'em at all)

Judge
Sanchez
Andujar (all right, tepid)
The Gleyber
Mean Chad Green
Severino
Sonny Gray (cooling rapidly every second)

The great stone head that will sit in the basement forever

Scranton