Yankees: 3 untouchable players at MLB trade deadline

Wow, everybody. What a weird year to be determining trade deadline untouchables for the New York Yankees! Blessed to be alongside you all, mapping out the suddenly uncertain future of our favorite team.

Because — and this is important — this list just about 80% shorter than it would’ve been in January.

We’re excluding the obvious. Gerrit Cole won’t be touched. Giancarlo Stanton can’t be touched. But once you run through the names and consider the team’s situation as a whole … who can you say declaratively will not be moving along in a few weeks?

Gleyber Torres, Luke Voit and Gio Urshela were once the foundation. Can you really say there’s no chance they’ll be gone soon? Gary Sánchez has rebounded, barely missed the All-Star team, and suddenly has a big payday ahead of him both following 2021 in his final year of arbitration and entering free agency the next winter. Can you honestly say there’s zero chance the team sells high?

Aaron Judge……………………I mean, almost definitely not, but another 2022-23 free agent! People are talking! How high does that contract number go?

We’re not happy about any of this. You can’t count the number of times this offseason I said some variation of, “Well, at a certain point, these are your guys and you have to go win with them,” surrounding Trevor Story trade talks. You know what? These might not be your guys! Eternally frustrating.

Safer than determining who goes, though, is crafting a list of who stays. Not who you want to stay or can’t emotionally handle leaving, but who is absolutely going to be a member of the next great Yankees team — which could be 2022, if they work hard enough.

With long-term improvement and maintenance of the status quo in mind, we don’t foresee these three players going anywhere, in either a sell-high deal or a deadline package.

These 3 Yankees are untouchable at the 2021 MLB Trade Deadline.

3. Jasson Dominguez

Don’t worry, Yankee fans. They can’t and they won’t. Tuesday’s promotion to Low-A Tampa wasn’t just a final deadline showcase at a full-season level of minor-league baseball.

Unless…………no. Nope. No chance. No one’s available who would even require Dominguez’s services, unless the Red Sox wanted to talk about a Rafael Devers swap or the Pirates were curious about Ke’Bryan Hayes.

Ignoring the fact that it would be a crash course in how to piledrive a PR department that’s already been mangled by the Yankees’ 2021 backslide, there’s no one on the market for whom Dominguez should even enter the conversation. He’s fresh into Low-A ball at the age of 18. There’s a great chance he’s one of the game’s top 10 prospects by next winter. There are plenty of other Yankee prospects who could interest the masses, both this summer and this offseason. No way do the Yankees surrender their lottery ticket with such little data available about him.

That said … who do you even consider including Dominguez in a swap for? This sounds insane, but is there a starting pitcher alive you’d surrender him for? Pitchers are so volatile. Could you live with yourself if you’re Brian Cashman and you give up Dominguez for, say, Shane Bieber, only for the workload to eventually catch up to him? As far as we can tell — and maybe this is unreasonable, but so be it — the list starts and ends with the league’s generational offensive talents. Juan Soto, Vlad Jr., Shohei Ohtani … Devers maybe … there are truly less than zero options.

It’s at this point in the article when we ask you to ignore any Dominguez-for-Luis Castillo speculation that might’ve been printed prior to 2021. Thanks in advance.