New York Yankees News: Hal Steinbrenner Defends Yankees Trade Deadline Strategy

In case you’re still living under a rock, the Toronto Blue Jays officially took a 1/2 game lead on the New York Yankees for first place in the A.L. East after Wednesday’s day of action when Cleveland beat the Yankees 2-1 and the Blue Jays cruised to their 10th victory in a row with a 10-3 win over the A’s.

Toronto’s hot streak is largely credited to GM Alex Anthopoulus’ bold moves at the trade deadline to give up significant prospects in exchange for David Price and Troy Tulowitzki. The Yankees on the other hand, elected to stand pat, choosing to keep their top prospects instead of dishing them off for rentals.

The New York media, numerous MLB insiders and the ‘championship or bust’ Yankees fan-base have been very vocal in criticizing the Yankees front office for not upgrading at the trade deadline, especially after the A.L. East rival Blue Jays were significantly getting better right in front of our own eyes.

However, New York Yankees part-owner Hal Steinbrenner defended the Yankees trade deadline decisions in a one-on-one with Ken Davidoff of The New York Post on Wednesday:

"“I don’t think we kind of had the glaring need that you would address by giving up one of your Triple-A prospects. I just wasn’t going to do it. Especially not for a loaner, for a guy you’re going to have three months or so. It’s just not something we were going to consider.” Steinbrenner said. “I didn’t want to give those kids up. We’ve been looking at them for two, three years now. They’ve progressed perfectly. And they’re all sitting there in [Triple-A] Scranton. Any one of them could contribute now if need be, and we’ve already seen that with Luis Severino the last two starts.”"

In addition to Severino, who has given the Yankees two promising outings in a row that were spoiled by little-to-no run support, Steinbrenner was obviously referring to Greg Bird, Aaron Judge and Jorge Mateo, each of whom were deemed ‘untouchable’ during the 2015 MLB Trade Deadline.

When asked whether or not he was concerned about the Yankees slipping into second place, Steinbrenner calmly responded;

"“No, because I think our pitching is solid. Even if you look at the Blue Jays series [August 7th-9th at Yankee Stadium], except for that one grand slam [off Ivan Nova on August 8th], I think we contained a pretty explosive offense. I’m proud of our pitchers. You can’t win if you can’t score, obviously.”"

Steinbrenner wen’t on to say that the division is still only the Yankees to lose.

This weekends series up in Toronto is certainly going to be a big one. Let’s see how the Yankees respond.

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