Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo take Yankees fans to the brink after loss to Rays

No matter how badly Aaron Boone tries to convince New York Yankees fans, nothing is changing with this team if they keep the status quo. The trade deadline must bring momentous and cutthroat alterations or else they can kiss their World Series hopes goodbye.

After their loss to the Rays on Sunday (the best they can do is tie), the Yankees' hellacious stretch has worsened to 9-20 over their last 29 games. They make it look harder and harder with every passing day. The same players continue to flounder and nothing is being done to address it.

DJ LeMahieu has drawn the ire of fans simply because ... he's not doing anything. He's a black hole in the lineup, and perhaps to no fault of his own. He's been injured for four straight years and has slowly lost his ability to perform at a reasonably productive level.

Gleyber Torres has been withering away since 2020, which has been a controversial topic among fans. But now there's no way the pro-Gleyber crowd can defend him at this point. He might be putting forth one of the worst contract years we'll ever see.

The Yankees cannot get worse if they got rid of him and inserted a random person at second base. At this point, that might be the right move because he's costing the Yankees on both sides of the ball.

Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo take Yankees fans to the brink after series loss to Rays

Torres leads all second basemen with 12 errors this season. His defense has gotten worse every year, even with his sparking plays here and there. As for his offense? Again, worsening! And it's not even an argument.

Torres went 0-for-4 yet again on Sunday and botched multiple opportunities to put runs on the board. He's now hitting .229 with a .647 OPS. Unacceptable. Detrimental. No longer fit for New York. But the Yankees have arbitrarily insisted that he would turn it around at some point.

The experiment is over. He will go down as one of the most disappointing Yankees because of the manner in which his career began, only for everyone to witness it fall apart for five straight years.

In the case of Alex Verdugo, it's been a much more brief experiment, but most would argue this has run its course, too. The Boston Red Sox indeed offloaded a problem on the Yankees. They knew what they were doing when they traded him within the division. Our instincts were right, even if our opinion slightly flip-flopped when he started getting clutch hits to kick off the season.

Since the start of May, Verdugo is statistically one of the worst hitters in baseball. He is currently mired in a 15-for-103 slump — a stretch that feels almost impossible. On top of that, his defense has slipped. The "dawgs" are no more.

This isn't to rile up Yankees fans for no other reason than to embolden the worst opinions out there. The Yankees have reached a point with LeMahieu, Torres and Verdugo that is no longer tenable and must be addressed before July 30. Nobody has "earned" anything. These players have been among the worst in the sport. It cannot continue, especially with Torres and Verdugo hitting free agency after 2024.

Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton have carried this team. Verdugo played a role in the first month of the year, but has since been below a replacement-level player. Whoever is not tied to the roster long term and is performing poorly needs to go.

It legitimately doesn't matter who fills the gaps in the meantime. It cannot get worse. This message is for Brian Cashman: it's all persisted for far too long, and the 2024 trade deadline is your last chance to fix it if you want Soto to remain in the Bronx for the rest of his career.