Yankees trade of Jabari Blash exposes truth about fans

I honestly never envisioned myself talking about the Yankees trading Jabari Blash to the Angels for a PTBNL or cash, but the reaction from certain fans has driven me to it.

Brian Cashman and his former assistant general manager, Bill Eppler, agreed to their first ever trade together, and it was a big one (sarcasm); as the Yankees sent Jabari Blash to the Angels for the infamous player to be named later or cash.

Did you know that in the history of MLB, there have been four PTBNL eventually traded for themselves? They are Harry Chiti, Dickie Noles, Brad Gulden and John McDonald.

As for Blash, the imposing outfielder that wore No. 66 during his brief stint in Tampa — I suppose in hopes of siphoning some sort of supernatural power off of No. 77 Clint Frazier and No. 99 Aaron Judge — his 40-man roster spot became needed with the recent acquisition of Brandon Drury.

After hitting .213 with five homers and 16 RBI in a career-high 195 plate appearances last season (66 strikeouts), Blash was sent to the Yankees as part of the Chase Headley $13 million salary dump. The Padres also acquired right-handed pitcher Bryan Mitchell as part of the deal.

With more outfielders in camp than you could shake a stick at, there was no way Blash was ever going to make this Bombers’ squad. Not unless someone pulled a Willie Mays Hayes, and dropped Jacoby Ellsbury’s cot outside the gates of George M. Steinbrenner Field.

If you’ve never seen the movie ‘Major League,’ you won’t understand that reference.

Upon learning of Blash’s departure back to the West Coast, I hopped on Twitter, as I so often do, to get a sense of the perception revolving around the news.

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To my surprise, some fans were actually up in arms that the former 2013 Seattle Mariners’ No. 13 prospect was traded.

A number of long-winded Tweets from Yankee devotees (one recently deactivated his account) amounted to being mad that a “billion dollar team” traded away Chase Headley for payroll relief.

These folks even believe the Yanks should have kept Headley because he was “useful,” and now that the club has also rid themselves of Blash, it was all for nothing.

I’m sorry, but had the Yankees kept Headley on the bench; they’d already find themselves over the $197 million luxury tax threshold.

For one, acquiring a super-utility player like Brandon Drury would have been difficult, even at his 600K salary; and two, Cashman wouldn’t have set the club up for success come this summer’s trade deadline, should a piece or two be required.

The beauty of fandom is that it’s entirely within your rights as a supporter to voice your opinion however you see fit. But let’s be clear, that doesn’t mean you’re right.

Same goes for writers like myself. Just because I have a platform doesn’t mean I have all the answers (90% of the time I do, LOL).

What I dig most about listening to everyone air their opinions and then peacefully interacting with, is that I now understand there are three distinct sectors of Yankees’ fans, each different in their philosophy.

Next: Trade for Brandon Drury is awesome!

There’s the old school mentality:

Trade all the prospects and sign the most significant, most expensive free agents available. George would have!

The prospect huggers:

Don’t you dare trade a single prospect, we need all 200 big league ready! No one over the age of 30 on this team!

And the Cashman-ites:

They fall somewhere in the middle; love prospects and understand their importance for the future, but realize you can’t win a World Series title without trading a few for impactful veterans that solidify the club at its core; much like the ’17 Astros and ’16 Cubs proved.

Which are you?

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