To Sell or Not to Sell, for Yankees That Is the Question

These days Yankee fans find themselves wrestling with the idea of a potential summer fire sale. Selling is something the Yankees just don’t do, but with the way the team has played, it has become the overarching theme of the season. Will they or won’t they?

If you listen to even just an hour of sports talk radio, it seems many fans recognize that becoming sellers is in the team’s best interest, but the question is whether or not the Steinbrenner family will give Brian Cashman the okay to unload his assets. As Mark Feinsand of the Daily News indicates, the answer will bear itself out over the next month-and-a-half.

Six weeks. That’s how long the Yankees have to turn this season around.If they can, the schedule gives them a chance to take care of their own business as the Red Sox and Orioles come to the Bronx six weeks from now to open the second half.

For a few weeks in May, the Yankees looked like they were righting the ship after their abhorrent April. Since winning six straight and getting back to .500 a week-and-a-half ago, the team appears to be headed backwards. The positive signs they showed and the optimism they restored are all but gone once again. The fact is, the way things are going, trading away the Aroldis Chapmans and Carlos Beltrans is what’s best for the team’s future. But by the same token, it’s still too early to put that plan into action, despite the fans’ thirst for some fresh faces. Teams around the league are still trying to figure out what their needs will be in July.

That’s the position the Yankees find themselves in. Feinsand calls it “the dangerous middle zone,” in which you’re not quite sure what the team’s identity really is. Is their core of former All-Stars really as bad as they appear to be? Can they get better and play to the back of their baseball cards?

Through the first 54 games of the season, some of the players this team relies on most– Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira (now sidelined with torn cartilage in his right knee), Brett Gardner— have given little reason to believe anything will change. But Feinsand suggests the Yankees dance with the ones they brought, so-to-speak, and allow these guys to play over the next six weeks to prove themselves as contenders– or pretenders– once and for all.

If they can’t get it done, then let some kids play, hang the “For sale” sign outside the Yankees clubhouse and start looking to the future.

In the interest of full disclosure, Feinsand’s idea is what’s right. There’s a lot of baseball left, and, even if they wanted to, the Yankees couldn’t sell right now. Nonetheless, a rebuild is right around the corner for this franchise. It is inevitable. A successful 2016 won’t change this, and the front office can’t push it off anymore. This is why some fans fear the team turning it around and getting back into contention.

Odds are, neither Beltran nor Chapman will be in pinstripes next year. The Yankees have to take advantage of that and turn– at the very least– these expiring contracts into promising youngsters, even if the Yankees suddenly improve over the next six weeks.