The Yanks make a deal, and the Gammonites stand and cheer

First off, who am I to evaluate last night's trade for Zach Britton? I'm not an authority. I'm no scout. Hell, my car even has bad brake pads. But when you trade three top prospects, one in your top ten, for a 30-year-old rental, two years passed his prime and coming off major surgery, is it not a fair and true statement to say there are question marks? I mean, is that not too crazy? to suggest that we table our resounding conclusions until time passes?

But this morning, here is how Ken Davidoff of the New York Post describes it.

Think of it as the richest family in the neighborhood adding a Lamborghini to the garage...

Or this from NJ Advanced Media (formerly the Newhouse Corp.):

Here's the first reaction an MLB scout had on Tuesday night to the breaking news that the Yankees traded for two-time All-Star reliever Zach Britton: "Holy mackerel! If you stick Britton in the Yankees' bullpen ... wow!"

(Note that the writer doesn't identify which team the MLB scout works for.)

Yeesh. 

Used to be, YES was the unbridled Yankeeland version of Fox & Friends. Whatever they said, you understood that they were de facto employees of the Yankees, so you applied grains of salt accordingly. To some, it's called cynicism. To the rest of us, it's discernment. 

But one day after the Gammonites of NYC got to watch their brothers and sisters at the Daily News fed to the TRONC wood-chipper, they have apparently placed their future survival hopes on cheering the Yankee brain trust in whatever it does. A complicated trade is being evaluated - quite generously - based on what the Yankees received, as if they surrendered nothing. Holy fucking mackerel.

(Meanwhile, Gary Sanchez is given a face-saving 10 days off to heal a groin that wasn't supposed to be a factor anymore. Who authorized his return too early? Wasn't he not "raring to go" last week, when rehabbing in Scranton? So now, we should forgive Gary for loafing and - in fact - praise him for playing in pain? How much bullshit are we expected to devour? 

Maybe Gary was - as Robby Cano used to say - "saving" himself for the long haul. Maybe he was putting off the hustle so he run harder in more important games, such as the ones he might - hopefully, in my opinion - play someday in San Diego or Cincinnati. One friend yesterday put it this way: Gary Sanchez is Exhibit A for why you don't give a 16-year-old a million dollars. I think that sums it up.) 

But back to the deal: What did we give up for the great Britton? Because - remember - the O's were never going to help the Yankees, unless they got an offer they couldn't refuse.

1. Dillon Tate. Since being picked fourth overall in a June draft, he's now been traded twice. The first team, the Rangers, sought to change his trajectory; they screwed him up. The Yankees let him revert to old ways; he improved, but not to the degree we hoped. At 24, nobody sees him as the fourth best prospect in the game. Still, after Justus Sheffield, he was probably our second best hope for a starter...

2. Cody Carroll. He was looking more and more like our September surprise, a lights-out rookie who could pitch the seventh or eighth. At 25, he moved rapidly through the system, and in his last 10 outings with Scranton, his ERA is 0.82. He looked to be the next Chad Green-Jonathan Holder. I cannot help but think he is Baltimore's quiet steal of the trade. When you recognize that Britton would be gone this winter as a free agent, Baltimore fans should be very happy. 

3. Josh Rogers. The Yankees have never given him the respect to match his numbers. He just turned 24, a 6'3" lefty, and he could be a fourth or fifth starter. I saw him pitch in Syracuse a month ago. The Chiefs couldn't touch him. But he was erratic in Triple A. Who knows?

When I look at this trade, I think of the deal in December of 2015, when the Yankees dealt Justin Wilson to Detroit for Chad Green and Luis Cessa. At the time, it looked like a big acquisition for the Tigers. Today, it looks like highway robbery... especially if Cessa manages to hold down our fifth spot.

Well, what's done is done. Who knows what Britton will bring? But if this is the price tag for a 30-year-old, rusting, question mark rental, imagine what teams must be demanding for an actual quality starter. Let's understand that any deal would begin with the name Justus Sheffield. "Holy mackerel," the scout should have said. "Are we screwed!"