Yankees: Extreme roster moves NYY can make right now to send a message

Enough is enough. The slides won’t stop, and something needs to be done. After getting swept by the Boston Red Sox (again) at Fenway Park, the New York Yankees followed that up with another lifeless outing on Monday, which featured awful play in all facets of the game to bring them another loss. Four straight. They’re 41-38 after capturing a non-negotiable victory on Tuesday night.

Even worse? Manager Aaron Boone, prior to Monday’s game, declared the Yankees’ season was on the line and they the team is considering roster changes. The response? More lifeless at-bats, terrible defense and passive pitching.

If the Yankees want to survive 2021, they probably need to go 8-3 in their next 11 games before the All-Star break so general manager Brian Cashman can assess if the team will buy at the trade deadline.

But there are moves that can be made before then. Not trades. Message-sending roster transactions that will let the team know these performances are unacceptable and won’t be tolerated on a World Series-aspiring team.

Who are we kidding, though? The Yankees won’t do any of these. They need to preserve their precious button-up reputation to avoid rocking the boat even further with the media.

But if this front office and organization had any concern whatsoever in regard to holding players accountable, they’d consider these three moves. Right now.

3. Remove Jameson Taillon and Michael King from the Rotation

Two incredibly easy decisions that any resolute front office would’ve made by now, but here we are. The Yankees love “waiting to see how things play out” and pressing their luck with players who simply … aren’t performing.

That’s been the case with both Taillon and King, who have actively contributed to losing games for the Bombers. We can talk at length about how the Taillon trade was the wrong deal to make (and how some of those prospects already dominating for the Pirates are making things worse), but there’s no sense in rubbing salt in the wound right now.

Taillon has a 5.18 ERA and 1.32 WHIP across 14 starts. He’s pitched beyond six innings just twice. He averages less than 4.2 innings per outing. He’s killing the bullpen and putting the Yankees offense in a hole almost every time he takes the mound. Sadly, his season-best outing against the Royals last week isn’t going to fool us. And if he has another bad start, he should be taken out of the rotation. 15 tries is enough to at least show some progress. He’s hardly shown any.

As for King, he’s in the rotation because of injuries. Corey Kluber is gone until … September? Luis Severino suffered a setback in his rehab. King’s had his chances, though, despite being bounced between the bullpen and rotation. He’s now made six straight starts and not ONE has been good.

He averages four innings per start. He provides no length, walks a ton of batters, and can almost never get an out when it’s needed. He’s allowed 10 first-inning runs in those outings and then revealed after his losing effort on Monday that he “gets cute” the first time around through the order because he wants to set himself up to better face hitters the second and third time around. Um, how many times has he faced a lineup the third time through? Maybe one? Maybe.

Where’s pitching coach Matt Blake? He’s allowing King to execute this plan which has failed … every time he’s taken the mound as a starter? Ridiculous. Back to the bullpen for him, and Taillon can contribute there as well until he finds his bearings. It’s not like either are being stretched out because they can’t provide length anyway.

As for replacements? It literally doesn’t matter. Again, it cannot get much worse than this. Bring up Luis Gil and Deivi Garcia. At least it’ll be an injection of youth.

1. Option Gleyber Torres to Triple-A

Gleyber Torres’ defense is still a work in progress. But whew, his bat would make up for it, right? Think again! The unthinkable amount of regressions refuses to cease.

Torres was in the midst of a truly unthinkable 4-for-51 slump with 20 strikeouts heading into Tuesday (thankfully, he went 2-for-4 with two RBI and a walk, though he still didn’t exactly look “comfortable” at the plate). He couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. We’d love if some stathead could go through the worst slumps of the 2021 MLB season so far to tell us that there’s maybe been one or two of this heinous magnitude.

On the year, Torres is slashing .242/.324/.313. Just like Frazier, he has a lower slugging percentage than on-base percentage. His power is gone. Hell, his contact is gone! He has a grand total of SIX home runs in his last 111 games. He’s turned into Billy Hamilton except … he doesn’t have speed, either.

The Yankees believe Torres is struggling with confidence. Oh really? Then maybe Cashman shouldn’t have publicly blasted him to the media multiple times this offseason. Even when the Yankees try to hold players accountable, they do it wrong. The 24-year-old’s regression has hurt the most, by far.

His peripherals are even terrible. He’s in the sixth percentile for exit velocity and 24th percentile in barrel percentage. He’s fully lost at the plate, and when he’s not, it’s still not pretty. It looks like he’s just dropping his bat in the zone to make random contact in hopes the ball leaves the infield. You can count on one hand how many good at-bats he’s had in 2021.

He’s got two minor-league options left. His play over his last 135 games (dating back to 2019) has been … bad. In the final 25 games of 2019, which was an All-Star campaign for Torres, he watched his average drop 11 points, his OBP 16 points, and his OPS 33 points. Perhaps that was the beginning of the slide.

Either way, this cannot go on any longer. Demote Torres, force him to figure it out in Scranton (because Tuesday night isn’t close to an indication that things are turning around), and call up Hoy Jun Park. Anything will help at this point. Running the same futile players out there is not going to turn the 2021 Yankees around.

Yankees: 3 hybrid sell-off trades NYY should pursue at deadline

The New York Yankees don't need to blow things up if this play continues for the next month, but some impact players should be traded.