The people running baseball operations and business operations for the New York Yankees reportedly aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on trade deadline plans.
ESPN’s Wallace Matthews cited a source telling him that the team’s baseball operations, headed by general manager Brian Cashman, want to do a full-on sale of assets at the deadline. The team’s business side, headed by owner Hal Steinbrenner and president Randy Levine, are firmly opposed to such a plan and believe the club can still contend in 2016.
The source says that the baseball operations people would be willing to trade impending free agents and bad contracts, including Aroldis Chapman, Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Brian McCann.
With a little over two weeks to the August 1 deadline, the Yankees are 7.5 games out in the AL East and 5.5 back in the wild card race. They won 3 of 4 from the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians heading into the break, putting them in position for an important two weeks after the break.
Levine’s position has been made pretty clear in this rant last month. As long as the Yankees stay on the fringes, expect this battle to continue to be fought in the team’s front office.
