Yankees: Clint Frazier arrives just in time for showcasing

If the Yankees are going to get involved in the trade deadline sweepstakes, it’s a certainty they’ll need to give up something to get something. Arriving just in time to be showcased is the right fielder and batting ninth in the team’s lineup for the game against the Astros.

Will the Yankees stick or take a card at seventeen? We’ll know the answer in a couple of weeks as Brian Cashman continues to work the phones testing the market for what the team needs. And that in itself is a critical question that bears answering, what does the team need?

By now, Cashman, with all the injuries that have piled up, has been forced to move from Plan A to at least three letters down in the alphabet in search of answers to fill the holes from within the organization.

And thanks to the depth of the Yankees organization which, in company with the Dodgers, is unparalleled in baseball, the team is weathering the storm with what they have.

The Boss is looking down

But the time is coming and all Yankees fans know and anticipate it. The organization is not one that is going to sit idly by as other teams make moves to strengthen themselves. Built on a tradition of winning, the Steinbrenner family will give Cashman some leeway in spending some of the Boss’s money that they still retain.

And whether Brian Cashman decides to pursue a front-line starter, middle relievers, or a full-fledged major league first baseman misses the point. That’s his job, and he’s proven he can do it.

What is of consequence, though, is who the Yankees will surrender in trades to nail down a team with a viable chance to make some news in the 2017 playoffs.

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Teams that Cashman will be talking to don’t want to hear about Chase Headley, Jacoby Ellsbury, and even Brett Gardner, who has been a Yankees stalwart this season.

They want to talk about the young, talented, and athletic prospects who speak of the future, not the past. Which brings us to someone like Clint Frazier who came along the same deal that brought Justus Sheffield to the Yankees when they traded Andrew Miller to the Cleveland Indians.

And I could be wrong, but I don’t see Frazier as someone who the Yankees view in the same breath as Gleyber Torres, James Kaprielian, and even Sheffield, whose upside is ever expanding. Frazier is surplus for this organization, even with the injury to Dustin Fowler.

To be sure, Frazier did himself little good when he decided to accede to the media, making an issue about his locks, something the Yankees put to bed decades ago when Don Mattingly challenged, their ancient and time old unwritten policy about hair length, begrudgingly losing the battle.

Noticeably, Frazier’s call-up has followed that of Fowler, Mason Williams, and Tyler Wade who can play some outfield.

That should be enough to suggest that the Yankees are hoping, of course, that he can help the team, but at the same time, they wouldn’t mind if Frazier catches the eye of a few teams who can become trading partners with the team.

And here, in door number one……….

Showcasing a player usually occurs during Spring Training or at the end of a season when the rosters expand, and a team begins to make plans for the following season.

But if 2017 has proven anything else, it has shown itself to be extraordinary regarding injuries that afflict so many teams and not just the Yankees.

How are Yankees’ top 10 prospects performing so far?

The New York Yankees' farm system is teeming with talent and, like the big-league club, trudging through its share of injuries.

The option to stand pat at seventeen remains, but Yankees tradition is pulling the other way. Clint Frazier is the bait the franchise can throw out there to begin the process of solidifying a team that can take the organization to the playoffs, and perhaps beyond.

His audition begins tonight.