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It’s time for the uninspiring Yankees to sell

When Brian McCann struck out to end a demoralizing, yet familiar, Yankees loss on the fourth of July, the mood on and around the field was an overwhelming sense of sleepiness. Maybe it was the overcast skies and humid mid-70’s weather in Chicago, or maybe it was the general acceptance of fate for New York. Either way, it was another loss to drudge through, complete with the failings of two fan favorites in CC Sabathia, who ceded five runs for the third straight start, and Didi Gregorius, who committed three more errors than he had in the previous 35 games.

The 8-2 defeat against an opposing pitcher who had allowed 25 runs in his previous 20.1 innings for a struggling club should have stung much more than it did. Instead, the loss felt like just another dull knock on the Yankees’ season.

This lethargic mood has a clear source: the roster. It’s a serious problem—an uninspiring and unspectacular team just isn’t going to produce a successful on-field product—and it goes far to explain the Yankees’ 40-42 start to this season. They look the part of a boring .500 team, play the part of a team well below that (including a -32 run differential), and feel like a team not worth watching.

As the Yankees enter the dog days of summer, things are unlikely to improve. If anything, a selling strategy will be adopted in the coming weeks, ripping away some of the more exciting and productive players on the roster to cash them in for young talents. What will stand out in the humid and sticky games played at Yankees Stadium for the rest of the summer will be…well, nothing.

Contributing to the gloomy look of the roster is the knowledge that most of the players are past their prime. Offensive monsters just a year before, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira’s current wRC+ combined would rank just 48th in baseball. Once one of the best catchers in the league, Brian McCann currently has a .232 batting average for the third straight year. Speedsters Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner have lost a step, and Carlos Beltran, while having an excellent year, is a worse defender than Pedro Strop in the outfield and almost certainly won’t be in the Bronx at this time next season.

Even at just 26-years-old, Starlin Castro’s best days are very likely behind him, and the speed he used to grab 57 bases in his first three seasons has eroded into just 11 over his past three. The pitching staff is younger, but three starters (four, if you want to count Luis Severino) currently hold an ERA over five, and patience is running out for the confounding Nathan Eovaldi and Michael Pineda. The bullpen is about the only electrifying piece left, but no-Runs DMC is pointless when the Yankees are losing.

The bleak reality is Didi Gregorius is probably the only everyday hitter whose prime isn’t in the rearview mirror. It’s painful to watch an atrophying team that is only continuing to decline, and the Yankees need to instill change. One of the worst places to be in baseball is the rut of mediocrity, but that is where the Yankees are currently trapped.

Luckily, there is an escape route. The hypothetical ladder to lift the Yankees out of the rut is labeled “SELL” and takes a couple seasons to climb, but it is a way to salvage a franchise without any clear direction. The Yankees can’t simply rely on their present farm system to rescue them within the year, especially thanks to injuries and proximity from the big leagues for many prospects, but they have a good starting point. Trading away present assets like Carlos Beltran, Aroldis Chapman, and even Andrew Miller will hurt, but sometimes teams need to get worse before they can get better.

At this point, it seems selling is the only way to breathe life back into the organization. The Yankees presently lack a clear course, and hovering around the buy/sell line before deciding which side to leap into won’t work for the Yankees. There’s not enough time nor a strong (and convincing) enough way to prove New York is a playoff ready team, and it’s also unlikely they plummet in the standings over the coming weeks leading up to the trade deadline. Recognizing that the .500-playing ways aren’t going to change, and won’t be good enough to accomplish much, is a necessary step toward a better team.

There probably isn’t going to be a certain game or event that turns the sell-switch on for Yankees fans and the front office. Instead, it’s the complete lack of energy on the field and present hopelessness that surrounds the team. The packed nature of the Wild Card race will entice fans (the Yankees are currently just four games back), but there’s more to the state of the Yankees than their record. It’s important to understand that while New York is currently playing .500 baseball, there’s almost no chance of them playing markedly better than that. This is a .500 baseball team, and it’s hard to see that changing without significant turnover. This turnover can only come if the Yankees sell, embracing a better and not-too-far-away future.

Photo: Jake Roth/USA Today Sports

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