Take heart, New York Yankees fans, your owner does pay attention to what you say on Twitter.
Hal Steinbrenner said on Wednesday that social media reaction, coupled with sponsors wanting to meet young first baseman Greg Bird during spring training, helped him decide to sell at the trade deadline, according to Ronald Blum of the Associated Press.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the Yankees will be going for a full youth movement.
“I’m not naive. This is New York City. Our fans want marquee players, too, and I wanted marquee players because they’re good veterans and they’re good mentors, in many cases, so that’s always going to be there,” Steinbrenner said.
In fact, Steinbrenner went as far as to say that the Yankees still think they’re pressing for a playoff spot this season.
“There’s no white flag here for me. There was no surrender,” Steinbrenner said. “If you had seen me get rid of (Michael) Pineda and (Nathan) Eovaldi and (Brett) Gardner, then you could probably make a case.”
Steinbrenner reportedly was resistant to selling about two weeks before the trade deadline. Apparently he hit up Twitter and they helped him see that it was the right thing to do.
