On Monday night against the Texas Rangers, Tanaka surrendered two home runs to bring his season total, thus far, to 11. He has given up five in his last three starts. He gave up one in the rain-shortened game last week against the Nationals, and two against the Red Sox on May 9. Tanaka only has two starts without giving up a home run; April 23 in a 14-1 win against Minnesota and in the 6-5 victory over Houston on May 3.

Tanaka has made 10 starts and while the Yankees only have two losses in those starts, before Monday’s win against the Rangers, he pitched three straight no-decisions and allowed 10 earned runs. His HR/9 is hovering around last year’s mark and last year, he surrendered 35 long balls, a career-high since coming to the U.S.

Per Baseball Savant, Tanaka relies on six pitches. A slider, splitter, four-seam fastball, sinker, curveball, and a cutter. As you can see, he threw his slider a lot more during the first month of the season. Now he throws both his slider and splitter around 31% of the time.

Both home runs on Monday night were off his splitter. On May 9, Mitch Moreland’s home run was off a slider and Andrew Benintendi’s was off a sinker.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

Tanaka’s given up home runs the most with his slider (4), his sinker is next (3) and he’s given up two apiece on his four-seamer and splitter.

Here is where all 11 of Tanaka’s home run pitches landed in the zone. As you can see, six of them were right in the middle of the zone while the other five were just a bit lower but still in the zone.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

This heat map also shows exactly where Tanaka’s home run pitches landed in the zone. When his four-seamer is flat, his splitter doesn’t drop and when his slider and sinker also don’t move enough, batters are going to hit them well and out of the park.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

I took a look at where in the count Tanaka’s has given up his 11 home runs and here are the results:

Tanaka has given up three home runs with the batter behind in the count.

• Adam Jones hit one off Tanaka’s slider on an 0-1 pitch on April 5
• Zack Cozart hit one off Tanaka’s slider on an 0-1 pitch April 28
• Andrew Benintendi hit one off Tanaka’s slider on an 0-1 pitch on May 9

See a pattern?

He’s given up three with the batter behind in the count.

• J.T. Realmuto hit one off Tanaka’s four-seamer on a 3-1 count on April 17
• Mitch Moreland hit one off Tanaka’s sinker on a 2-0 pitch on May 9
• Joey Gallo hit one off Tanaka’s spiltter on a 2-0 count on May 21.

He’s given up two home runs on a 1-1 count.

• Anthony Rendon hit one off Tanaka’s sinker on May 15
• Rougned Odor hit one off Tanaka’s splitter on May 21

And finally, first-pitch home runs.

• Randall Grichuk hit one off Tanaka’s four-seamer on March 30
• Hanley Ramirez hit one off Tanaka’s slider on April 11
• J.D. Martinez hit one off Tanaka’s sinker on April 11

At least Tanaka’s spreading the wealth, so to speak. I was a little surprised that Tanaka has not (to this point) yielded a home run with two strikes. I guess that’s one positive because nothing is more frustrating to watch than a pitcher getting the batter to two strikes and then giving up a home run.

Last season at this time, Tanaka had given up 14 home runs; even giving up four in a start to the Astros on May 14, 2017. He made 30 starts last season and he had 10 games in which he surrendered multiple home runs and 10 starts in which he escaped unscathed by the long ball. So he’s not on pace to eclipse last year’s total but all he needs is a couple more multi-home run games and he’ll be back on track.

I’m not sure what the solution is or if there even is one. Sometimes you can’t help when your pitches don’t do what you want them to do. If every pitcher could control their pitches all the time, baseball would be kind of boring because strikeouts would go up even more and games would be low-scoring affairs. The bottom line is, Masahiro Tanaka has always been somewhat homer-prone while playing in the Majors and as he ages, it’s getting worse.

Photo Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Before Sonny Gray became the broken link in an otherwise sturdy chain.

With the renowned fall-off of nearly all pitchers when facing a lineup for the third time in one night, even the casual fan can criticise a Manager’s decision to leave a starter in past the fifth inning with objective evidence. With the strikeout prowess of the Yankees’ bullpen, peripherals suggesting a bit of bad luck early, and the slow starts of Chad Green and Tommy Kahnle (DL), even stronger evidence supporting bullpen reliance will emerge as the Yankees trek towards October.

Severino and Tanaka would headline a Yankees’ playoff rotation. After that, things get interesting. CC Sabathia has more than earned consideration for a spot, but expectations have to be tempered. That brings consideration to Sonny Gray and whether his early struggles are a genuine reason for concern to any Yankees fan already thinking of how many layers are necessary to combat New York’s October chill.

2018 Sonny Gray isn’t a fresh topic. Relevant entries into the saga already exist.

At the beginning of the season, BP Bronx’s very own Derek Albin noticed a change in Gray’s pitch usage, one that aligns itself with the philosophy of so many other pitchers across the league: less fastball, more breaking ball.

Not only more breaking balls but different breaking balls. Gray’s curveball-slider usage this year resembles his early days with Oakland in 2013 when he used his curveball a quarter of the time. The former Vanderbilt product’s tendency to shy away from two-seam fastball usage is most notable versus left-handed hitters, cut in half to 15 percent, coupled with a doubling of his curveball usage to 26 percent. His affinity for hard stuff versus right-handed hitters has remained stable from last year, but this slider-to-curveball flip is also apparent.

The issue? Gray himself might have trouble confirming any of these specific usage alterations. An essential read to understand Gray’s uniqueness was written last year by the venerable Eno Sarris. It cited how unique Gray’s offerings were, highlighting the blur that exists when distinguishing between his curveball and slider. Comparing the visuals of Gray’s breaking pitches to a two-breaking ball arm like Corey Kluber, who has a slider with a more horizontal break to eliminate the majority of classification errors. Below is a quick gif of Gray’s slider and curveball to help visualize what I’m attempting to break down in words.

If we believe what Baseball Prospectus is classifying as Gray’s curveball and slider, we can see why this discrepancy occurs. The vertical break on Gray’s curveball is fantastic, sitting inside the 90th percentile of the league, a feat likely driven by the excellent spin rate earned year to year.

I imagine the philosophy behind Gray’s tinkering comes from the realization of how superb his curveball’s vertical break is and the want to emulate a plus characteristic of his curve by tinkering just enough horizontally to generate slider classification. This is supported by the vertical break on Gray’s “slider” sitting in the 98th percentile of the league for each of the last two years – to the naked eye, it’s easy to mistake it for a hard curveball.

This is part of the thrill with Sonny Gray: accepting his ability to render pitch recognition software periodically useless. But I also suspect his reliance on feel – not having a true distinction between pitches on occasion – creates stretches of struggle, like the rut we’re in right now.

So how does one remain optimistic in the face of poor results? This comes from one of the underlying results within Gray’s overall change: his curveball has been fantastic. Even with the classification errors we’ve already discussed, we can still parse out the effectiveness of this pitch with some reservation given his tendency to tinker.

Gray’s curveball location has been properly at the knees, the pitch’s whiff rate remains above league average, and the two-plane bend he generates is another plus aspect of his unique mix. The Yankees’ intentions of wanting to develop Gray towards more comfort with his breaking ball could have been to capitalize on this pitch’s effectiveness. Unfortunately, in a utopian world, everything else would have remained intact. Including the effectiveness of both his four-seamer and sinker, to his ability to manipulate his fastball grip and generate cut (which is the “cutter” that occurs when you see a fifth pitch disclosed on various outlets).

Rothschild & Co. shouldn’t alter their course six starts into the season, especially with his curveball this strong. Tinkering with Gray’s complementary components, maintaining a focus on this curveball is what I’d love to see the prolonged results of.

His curveball’s effectiveness to left-handed hitters should be enough to prolong success versus that handedness, but versus right-handed hitters, moving away from his slider has caused a key pitch from his 2017 repertoire to fade. This is where tinkering is needed most. Without the ability to regain bite on either his four-seamer or sinker, even if Gray aligns himself with the Yankees’ push for offspeed, nothing effective preempts his heavy dose of breaking balls.

Perhaps Gray’s tinkering has taken the “feel” away from his fastballs. Perhaps Gray needs to tinker more with his fastball, leaning on his cutting alteration more. Perhaps the answer is something previously undiscovered; something a “feel” pitcher needs time to adjust towards or away from.

Whether Gray figures this out, with enough time to make the general public walk back their criticism of a potentially necessary arm for October, remains to be seen. If the Yankees trade for another starter, as the New York Daily News, suggested back in January, grave concern for Gray as a starter might be unnecessary.

The future is bright, even with how cloudy it currently seems.

Now what happens?

Starting Rotation Implications

The 2018 Yankee starting rotation is currently:

• Luis Severino
• Masahiro Tanaka
• Sonny Gray
• Jordan Montgomery
• Open

CC Sabathia is the obvious candidate for the open rotation spot. The other free agent names are pretty lackluster. Chance Adams and Domingo German lead the short-term internal options.

If Tanaka and Gray perform to their career averages and Severino and Montgomery play at their 2017 levels or better, the Yankees will have one of the best starting rotations in the American League. Had Tanaka left, they might have had to fill that roster with a Jaime Garcia or gamble on an internal option.

German and Adams are pretty good options at #6 and #7, and guys like Bryan Mitchell will still be around. The Yankees might lack a bit of depth had they had to bring in one of their internal options to the starting rotation, but depth is probably a strength with Tanaka.

Payroll Implications

If Tanaka had freed the Yankees of his $22 million luxury tax hit, they would have had somewhere around $48 million to spend below the luxury tax threshold. Now, they have something like $26 million to spend.

MLB Trade Rumors expects CC Sabathia to land a 2-year, $24 million contract with the Yankees. That seems like a low average value to me, and I’d be surprised if the term is more than one year. Sabathia nearly retired in August due to a knee injury. I think a one year deal is better for both parties. Let’s say 1 year at a respectable $15 million.

Had Tanaka left, the Yankees would have ample money after Sabathia’s contract to acquire a designated hitter. With Tanaka and Sabathia, they have around $11 million to spend on a designated hitter and some mid-season trade wiggle room. That seems unlikely to me and screams “salary dump” this offseason. Buckle up for some exciting Adam Warren, Dellin Betances, and Jacoby Ellsbury trade rumors.

Photo Credit: Robert Deutsch / USA TODAY Sports

Tanaka’s top line statistics on the season:

• 30 starts
• 178 1/3 innings
• 9.8 K/9, 2.1 BB/9
• 4.74 ERA, 4.31 FIP, 3.66 DRA
• 3.8 WARP

Already, a blurry picture emerges. A pitcher with a 3.66 DRA is pretty good, and definitely worth three years, $66 million. A pitcher with a 4.74 ERA, even in Yankee Stadium, is below average.

Of course, Tanaka got better as the season went on. His ERA was 3.77 after the All Star break, and Tanaka was dominant in the playoffs. Was Tanaka just unlucky in the first half, or is there a bigger problem?

Statcast provides us the perfect tool to answer this question. On every ball in play, Statcast records an exit velocity and launch angle. These two variables can be combined to produce very reliable predictions of the run value outcome of the batted ball. Combined with strikeout and walk data, Statcast produces a statistics called xwOBA, or expected wOBA. A full explainer is here.

How did Tanaka perform according to xwOBA this season? Below is a 3-game rolling average for the regular season:

The data tell a very clear story. At the beginning of the season, Tanaka pitched like an above-average (although only slightly-so) AL pitcher. Something went horribly wrong in May, and he turned the average batter he faced into peak Aaron Judge. He corrected something in June, then performed consistently like his 3.77 second-half ERA for the rest of the season. For what it’s worth, PECOTA projects almost exactly the same ERA for Tanaka.

I don’t look at these data and see an ace. I see a pitcher who, at his best, is pretty good. He also has enormous downside. We’ve known about Tanaka’s downside for awhile now. When he’s off, he allows home runs. A lot of home runs. It makes sense that he’ll have rough patches.

If I were Masahiro Tanaka’s agent, I’d think twice about opting out. There might be a few teams willing to overpay for his amazing playoff performance, but it’s not clear that he’s worth a $100+ million contract. If he does opt out, I hope Brian Cashman passes.

Photo Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

One thing that’s been the subject of much discussion is velocity. Major League Baseball has switched from PITCHf/x to Trackman for in-stadium velocity readings, returning slightly higher numbers (around 1 mph).

The reason this switch has created so much buzz early on is best attributed to two factors:

First, we love overreacting to small sample sizes. The New York Post published a column after the Yankees’ first loss of the season on the possibility that the team’s ‘terrible’ start could out of hand in a hurry. That was after 0.617% of the season elapsed. One game. When our sample of action isn’t big enough to find interesting plots and sub-plots around the league, we analyze and over analyze the juicier bits we have.

Second, it has to do with the wave of statistics encompassing the game of baseball in this era. We drool for data early in the season so we can compare it to past years and project the other 161 games with a feverish hope for accuracy. I’m not afraid to admit I function as a member of those baseball fanatics.

Velocity is the quickest metric to stabilize, meaning it’s the piece of information we can hastily use to gain valuable insight. However, if we’re using incorrect, or merely different data, we’ll be about as successful as Aaron Judge trying to fit into a child’s highchair. 

So let’s see how velocity has found itself sitting with our top three starters this week against the Rays. Keep in mind, we’re not working with information that we have 100% consensus on at the moment, but BrooksBaseball, according multiple articles including this one from Fangraphs, seems to be less if at all impacted by the Trackman switch (notice “From 55ft” on the y-axis of the graphs, this relates to the switch in velocity readings now out of the hand as opposed to closer to the plate). 

Masahiro Tanaka

The first game of the season gets substantial television ratings, regardless of who is playing. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of the country got to see the worst of Tanaka. 67 pitches over 2 2/3 innings, yet even with what we’d normally consider half an outing’s worth of data, we can see how relatively similar Tanaka’s velocity is to the 2016 season. This is a good visualization of velocity stabilizing very quickly. 

Can we infer anything from these numbers? Seeing as the Opening Day start consisted of Tanaka trying, and failing to establish his sinker early in counts, I’m fine with believing in a jump of one mph on his primary pitch. He threw his sinker 38 percent of the time on Opening Day and saw a swinging strike percentage just below 10 percent, which would eclipse the highest swinging strike percentage he had, on average, for any one month last season. 

I have to admit, I’m proud of myself for actually saying something positive about Tanaka’s first start. It was after all, a glorified Spring Training outing, where he tried and failed to command his main pitch. In the process, omitting the opportunity to gain a feel for the depth of his repertoire. 

Tanaka’s start Saturday against the Orioles compared to opening day didn’t really vary much in the result. Lack of command and an inability to establish his sinker, setting up his split and secondary offerings. As the season progresses we’ll have a more data to work with regarding his peripherals and are bound to revisit this open case in due time.

CC Sabathia

Our ageless wonder seems more and more like Bartolo Colon as every outing goes by. Eating innings and spotting pitches, but the main difference is the lack of consistent entertainment with his bat. 

Sabathia has some noticeable upticks in his sinker and cutter velocity, both pitches he threw a combined ~60% of the time  in his start Tuesday. He also substantially limited his changeup used compared to last season, making his slider the even more predominant off speed offering. 

While the results were good through Sabathia’s five innings of clean baseball, it’s always tough to look at a pitcher like Pineda who only generated four swinging strikes on the 85 pitches he threw, and expect this to be the norm. A velocity uptick of any kind seems to only be a positive for a pitcher of Sabathia’s caliber, and if he can generate another batch of 165+ innings with a sub 4 ERA (like he did last year), we should be more than thrilled considering what the pessimistic projections were ballparking.  

Michael Pineda

The toughest thing not to overreact to are the consistencies that we hope can change. Your mind goes through confirmation bias during the spring, seeing and hearing about a Pineda changeup, only to observe very little difference in his pitch selection.

It’s simple. Pineda doesn’t pitch to his peripherals, and after a rough start Wednesday in Tropicana, it’s ever so easy to rolls your eyes and feel a bit of deja vu.

But again, let’s caution our brevity in decision making. Pineda has nearly identical velocity from last year to this year among any of the three starters I highlight here. Even with the changeup work over the Spring, as we’ll always refer back to come the regular season, it really means nothing if he doesn’t have the confidence to throw it in game. 

There is some very humorous logic with Pineda and his expectations. We all want him to be consistent. Girardi even wants him to be consistent. But what kind of consistency can we reasonably expect? If he’s consistently good, with a strikeout percentage north of 25 percent, he’s an ace caliber pitcher. At this point, that’s an outcome we can’t factor in meaningful odds for. 

What we’re really asking for is toned down consistency. Fewer strikeouts, better command, fewer homers, and fewer blow up starts. That’s not nearly as attractive as the imaginable ceiling on a pitcher with this level of bat missing ability, but it’s the reality. 

Pienda’s results are oddly consistent with last year, yet still bring increasing levels of disappointment. The velocity looks fine, and hopes can once again change colors quickly with a few eight-plus strikeout outings. What’s the definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. 

Off into the Sunset…

So what’s the moral of the story with all this velocity talk?

If everybody looks like they’re throwing a few miles per hour harder than they were at the end of 2016, there may be an issue with the data as a whole. As the old adage goes, if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck. It’s probably a duck. 

We look at velocity early over other metrics because of this stabilization. It gives us concrete evidence of any alarming or encouraging change. This is why so many have been perplexed early in the season by the full switch to Trackman and the adjustment of velocity measurement. We simply want one of the most widely referenced stats for a pitcher to be consistent, without having to dive in and understand the decision to start tracking pitches at a different point on their path to home plate.

With Tanaka, Sabathia and Pineda, I strongly believe in focusing on stats like velocity early and gradually stitching in the underlying peripherals (swinging strike %, hard contact %, zone %, etc.). If velocity looks relatively stable, then we can bring in the fun stuff to intricately pick away at what may have improved or faded.

It may be very ineffective to tell anybody prone to overreacting not to overreact, but that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Maybe we can also tell the Post to ‘chill’ with the talk of a disastrous start lingering, even with the injury concerns that seems to pour in every game.

Or at least we can wait a few more starts for the ‘disastrous’ metric to stabilize. 

“But what happens tomorrow?”

Yes, the Yankees may have won, but what happens on the next day? Do they continue their winning ways, or do they wake up in a cold sweat of doubt and ineptitude? Do they build on the progress that was made, or do the Yankees stumble two steps back after taking a step forward?

On one night, the Yankees tallied 20 hits. The next, they were shut out by a middling starter and a middling bullpen. There is no rhyme or reason, no method to the dull aching madness of chronic mediocrity. There is only the next win, and the guessing over when the next loss will occur. Given the volatile nature of nearly the entire team, especially the starting rotation, there is one day each turn through the group that things can remain relatively calm. Rather quietly, Masahiro Tanaka has been one of the best starters in the American League.

He doesn’t have the gaudy strikeout numbers of Chris Sale, or the velocity of Danny Salazar. He doesn’t have the novelty factor of Steven Wright, and lacks the robotic malice of Corey Kluber. What he does have is a 3.23 ERA, and the honor of being the best junkballer in the world this side of Bartolo Colon.

The phrase “junkballer” often has a negative connotation. It conjures up images of an old man beyond his prime, throwing trick breaking balls and praying that he doesn’t get taken into the third deck. They don’t have wipeout stuff or inspire fear when they take the mound. They’re lucky to make it through five innings. In a world that fetishizes velocity and the Noah Syndergaard slider, Tanaka is an aberration. He rarely tops 90 MPH, and has almost entirely scrapped his four-seam fastball. Everything that he throws moves and dips and ducks. The word “overpower” is not in his pitcher’s lexicon. Yet there he is, marching on. There may be clunkers and missteps (five earned runs given up to Detroit in June, six to Kansas City in May), but almost every starter is guilty of this. There are no perfect ledgers.

Tanaka was always a junkballer of sorts, even when he was throwing a four-seamer. He didn’t lean on the pitch as his bread and butter as many do. It was always his weakest pitch, the one that would frequently be hit with authority over the fence. Because it wasn’t fooling anyone, his fastball is now a high-80’s/low-90’s sinker. The splitter is still his hallmark out pitch.

It seems that there will still be endless questions about Tanaka’s capacity to pitch on regular rest. He’s undoubtedly performed better with an extra day between starts this year. We don’t know if this trend will continue, and the lack of velocity will further the narrative regardless. There will always be those who try to cast doubt onto Tanaka because of how different he is. There’s no heat, no singular wipeout pitch. There’s no comforting sense of familiarity to help judge him by.

They will talk and talk until their throats turn hoarse and the papers run out of ink.

His last start in Cleveland was an ugly one. That doesn’t change the fact that Tanaka is one of the great arms in this league, and certainly had a case to make the All-Star team. He was passed over for deserving candidates, and there’s no fault in that. There’s no fault in falling just a hair short of such an honor.

The Yankees are done. They may be .500, but there’s nothing left for them to attain this year but hauls for veteran players. Because of the outgoing talent and age of the roster, the second half will almost surely be worse than the first. There will be less to be excited about, less for the team to do than play spoiler to those who have set their eyes on October.

Masahiro Tanaka will simply keep plugging away through it all. Just as quietly as he did in the first half, Tanaka will be effective and beguiling. Without the big fastball, without the highlight shows drooling over him, he will continue to give the Yankees a chance to win every time he takes the mound.

There are few commodities in baseball more valuable than a pitcher who can truly claim to do that. Mashairo Tanaka is one of the very few truly great players left on the roster. His starts demand your attention, as do his statistics. Yankees fans would do to remember that when times get truly thin in the coming months.

Photo: Jake Roth/USA Today Sports

Masahiro Tanaka continued to be lights out for the Yankees, allowing just two hits while cruising through seven scoreless innings on just 82 pitches. New York is now 7-3 in games started by Tanaka this season.

Offensively, the Yankees used a three-run sixth inning, keyed by a two-run home run from Alex Rodriguez, to take a 3-0 lead. Carlos Beltran added insurance for the Yankees with an eighth inning solo shot, his second home run of the week, to make it 4-0.

Kirby Yates allowed a solo homer to Steve Pearce with two outs in the ninth, but Aroldis Chapman came in to cement the 4-1 win for the Yankees.

THE PLAY: A-Rod’s two-run blast in the 6th (+.216 WPA)

In just his second game back from injury, Alex Rodriguez blasted a two-run home run to center field, scoring Brian McCann to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead in the sixth inning. The home run was Rodriguez’s sixth of the season.

TOP PERFORMERS

Yankees: Masahiro Tanaka (7 IP, 0 ER, 2 H, 4 K, 0 BB)

Rays: Chris Archer (8 IP, 4 R (1 ER), 7 K, 3 BB, 2 HR)

NOTES

– Masahiro Tanaka didn’t allow his first hit until the bottom of the fifth when Steve Pearce led off with a single to center field.

– A-Rod’s sixth inning home run was the 693rd homer of his career, moving him closer to the vaunted 700 home run club.

– Jacoby Ellsbury is now 18-for-28 (.643) in his career against Chris Archer with a 2-for-4 performance tonight.

THE HIGHLIGHT: Starlin Castro’s spectacular play up the middle

UP NEXT

The Yankees (23-24) look to get to .500 with a win over Tampa Bay in game two of this series on Saturday afternoon at 4:10 pm. Michael Pineda (2-5, 6.34) takes the mound for New York while Matt Moore (1-3, 5.47) goes for the Rays in a battle of struggling righties. The game will be televised on WPIX 11.

Photo: Kim Klement / USATSI; Video: MLBAM

A year ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with Ben’s assessment. In fact, last September as a second straight non-playoff season wound to its end, I wrote that the Yankees were “destined for a down period, the type every other team goes through every few years, and this time there’s not much they can do about it.”

But the Yankees defied my expectations and reached the playoffs in 2015 thanks to surprising contributions from some players — notably Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran — that I had assumed to be dead money.

Still, three months ago I still assumed a short rebuild period was on the way. The Yankees’ 87 wins in 2015 didn’t seem repeatable with the team’s core aging and its depth chart stuck with some hard-to-fill holes. Brian Cashman’s commitment to youth meant the Yankees’ wouldn’t sacrifice prospects to restock the current team, which meant they would stumble through the next three years making due with what they had.

Then, Cashman went out and traded for Aaron Hicks, Starlin Castro and Aroldis Chapman and parted with only a backup catcher, middle reliever and four largely insignificant prospects. Suddenly the 2016 Yankees appear better on paper than last year’s team, and 85 wins looks like the floor for the upcoming season.

After all that’s happened in the last calendar year, from a surprise playoff berth to an impressive off-season, I’ve come to believe the Yankees can in fact have it all. Cashman is walking a tightrope, trying to contend while counting down the years until Teixeira, Rodrguez, Beltran and CC Sabathia come off the books and a crop of superstars becomes available. He’s not only kept from falling during this high-wire act, he seems to have kept himself impeccably balanced.

Despite his pessimistic view of the short-term future, Ben concedes the Yankees will probably compete for a playoff spot in 2016. This will be a team without stars, but thanks to Cashman, one without serious holes, especially if a mid-rotation starting pitcher arrives before Opening Day.

Let’s fast-forward to 2017. Teixeira and Beltran will be off the books, and Greg Bird and Aaron Judge will likely inherit playing time with their departures. The Yankees will likely still have to pay Chase Headley, Brian McCann, A-Rod and Jacoby Ellsbury more money than they’re worth, but a young position-player core will be in place, and by that time the Tanaka-Severino-Pineda-Eovaldi starting rotation will have hit its prime.

There’s little sense in predicting as far into the future as 2018, but it seems reasonable to assume much of the emerging group of 20-somethings will remain assembled, with other additions to prop them up. Cashman has shown in recent years an impressive ability to acquire real big-league value without sacrificing much of consequence. Eovaldi cost David Phelps. Didi Gregorius cost Shane Greene. Starlin Castro cost Adam Warren. No general manager wins every trade, but Cashman seems to be coming close. If there’s any executive in baseball I trust to make the kinds of incremental improvements that boost a team from 80 wins to 85, or from 85 to 90, it’s the guy running the Yankees.

Ben’s forecast for a Yankee decline rests on the idea that though the 2015 core was overpaid, it provided value that will likely dwindle over the next few years. And while this is true, it doesn’t take into account the group whose value will presumably increase between now and 2018. The progression of Gregorius, Eovaldi, Severino, Pineda, Castro, Bird and Judge, plus any additions Cashman makes over the next few off-seasons, should counteract some of the graying and keep the Yankees above water. Like the 2013-15 Yankees, the 2016-18 squads will feature several high-mileage players trending downward. But unlike recent teams, these next few will also include a promising group of youngsters.

The Yankees are rebuilding, but so far they’ve managed to prepare for the future without totally sacrificing the past. It’s a tough act to pull off, but right now it appears to be working.

They likely won’t be great team at any point during the next three years, but the Yankees might very well be better from 2016-18 than they were from 2013-15. At the very least it remains quite possible they remain above .500 and in playoff contention each season until the 2018 cavalry comes to join the prospects and restore the Yankees to glory.

Lead photo: Noah K. Murray/USA Today Sports

If the season started tomorrow, the Yankees’ starting rotation would look something like this:

Masahiro Tanaka
Luis Severino
Michael Pineda
Nathan Eovaldi
CC Sabathia

Ivan Nova
Bryan Mitchell

Now that’s not so bad. All seven of those guys have had some degree of success one time or another and could contribute in 2016. As a bonus, six of the seven are younger than 30 years old. But, like last year, the rotation carries a number of question marks. Will Pineda be healthy? Will we see the version of Sabathia that dominated September or the one that struggled through April, May, June and July (and that’s not even touching on the fact that he’ll be pitching for the first time since checking into rehab last October)? Can Nova bounce back from a bad season? Is Mitchell truly an MLB-caliber starter?

Given the uncertainty, it’s likely the Yankees will add to their rotation before Opening Day. And given their apparent commitment to youth and austerity, we can assume they’ll look for a young, cost-controlled option. But young starters certainly don’t grow on trees, and any team that has a 25-year-old, mid-rotation pitcher won’t likely part with him easily.

With Shelby Miller off the board and Jose Fernandez’s price prohibitively high, let’s look at some young pitchers Brian Cashman might think about placing calls on.

Category I: The Deep Rebuilding Team

Though most rebuilding teams want to hold on to their mid-20s players, occasionally a team embarks on a teardown so thorough it will part with even its young major leaguers. Here, we’re looking for pitchers young enough to help the Yankees in the near future but old enough that their current teams are willing to cash in for prospects.

• Julio Teheran, Atlanta Braves

The Braves have already traded the 25-year-old Miller and 26-year-old Andrelton Simmons, so they would probably be willing to part with the 24-year-old Teheran for the right price. This would be somewhat of a buy-low move, as the righty is coming off an unimpressive season on the heels of two good ones. Teheran would cost the Yankees at least one of their top prospects (Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, Jorge Mateo), but unlike Fernandez wouldn’t require a package built around Severino.

• Taylor Jungmann, Milwaukee Brewers

Jungmann had a nice rookie year in 2015 (3.77 ERA, 3.92 FIP in 119.1 innings), but he’s already 25 years old, and the Brewers aren’t anywhere close to contention. There’s no specific indication that the 2011 first-round pick is available, but he’s the type of low-ceiling guy a rebuilding team might consider moving under the right circumstances.

• Anthony Desclafani/Rasiel Iglesias, Cincinnati Reds

This could be a stretch, but the Reds have a ton of young arms, and maybe they’d be willing to part with one of the older, more developed ones. Desclafani and Iglesias are both almost 26 with solid rookie seasons under their belts. Would Cincinnati give up guys who don’t hit arbitration for a few more years? Who knows, but it’s probably worth a call.

Category II: The Low-floor/high-ceiling guys

The Yankees could pursue a young starting pitcher whose previous teams are ready to move on following early-career injury or ineffectiveness.

• Henderson Alvarez, free agent

The Marlins non-tendered Alvarez only a year after he posted a 2.65 ERA and 3.58 FIP over 187 innings, which indicates an enormous lack of confidence in his ability to come back strong from shoulder surgery. Still, the 25-year-old has shown he can pitch at an elite level and will offer high-risk upside to whoever signs him.

• Matt Moore, Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays are supposedly discussing trades involving the 26-year-old Moore, who has thrown only 73 innings in the past two years. Once upon a time, Moore was one of the top three prospects in baseball along with Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, and the Yankees (along with everyone else) will be tempted to try to recapture that potential.

• Tyler Skaggs, Los Angeles Angels

Skaggs hasn’t lived up to his top-prospect hype, with a career 4.72 ERA in 181 innings, but his 3.55 FIP in 2015 suggests a breakout could lie ahead. The Angels have more starting pitchers (Garrett Richards, Andrew Heaney, Hector Santiago, Matt Shoemaker, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson) than they know what to do with, so perhaps they’d consider dealing the 24-year-old Skaggs.

Category III: May I interest you in Brett Gardner?

The Yankees’ willingness to trade Gardner opens up the possibility of working with a contending team that simply needs an outfielder (plus some prospects) more than a starting pitcher.

• Taijuan Walker/James Paxton, Seattle Mariners

The Mariners have already reportedly turned down a deal centered around Gardner and the 23-year-old Walker but are open to giving up 27-year-old James Paxton. Given Seattle’s need for outfielders, this one makes enough sense for the teams to eventually find some middle ground.

• Danny Salazar/Trevor Bauer/Cody Anderson, Cleveland Indians

The Indians are reportedly listening to offers on all their starting pitchers, and though Carlos Carrasco’s price tag is likely greater than the Yankees are willing to pay, Cashman could make a move for Salazar, 25, Bauer, 24 or Anderson, 25. One of these deals could require forking over some good prospects in addition to Gardner, but the 32-year-old left fielder could be an appealing target for an offense-starved Cleveland team.

• Zack Wheeler, New York Mets

The Mets have an excess of young starting pitching, and the 25-year-old Wheeler, coming off Tommy John surgery, could be the odd man out. The question is, does Sandy Alderson need an outfielder to replace Yoenis Cespedes, or are they content to start the season with a Michael Conforto/Juan Lagares/Curtis Granderson alignment.

Lead photo courtesy of Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Pitching is also pretty awesome. We live in a universe in which Bartolo Colon exists. Watch in awe as someone that looks like your accountant uncle makes hitters look feeble. Laugh with amusement as Colon keeps on keeping on. Then stare in amazement as Clayton Kershaw spins a curveball that makes your eyes doubt themselves. Pitching is easily the closest thing to an art that exists in all of the major American sports.

The Yankees quietly had one of the better pitching staffs last year, until they didn’t. The bullpen was brilliant until exhaustion and inexperience reduced it to a quivering state of praying for a lead to hand to Andrew Miller. Even the great Dellin Betances was out of gas before the season was over. The starting rotation, too, oscillated wildly between greatness and Ivan Nova’s post-Tommy John woes. It’s the rotation that we’ll focus on here.

New York actually has six starting pitchers under team control at the moment for the 2016 season. Seven, if you count Adam Warren. They are:

• Masahiro Tanaka
• Michael Pineda
• Nathan Eovaldi
• Luis Severino
• CC Sabathia
• Ivan Nova
• Adam Warren (?)

Brian Cashman isn’t without options to be sure. Yet even with Eovaldi’s big-boy breakout in the second half, this is an underwhelming group. This is a group of pitchers that failed to regularly work deep into games and left too many innings to the bullpen. This is a group that was plagued by inconsistent health and inconsistent performance. This is a group that could also be stupendous next year.

No, seriously. Masahiro Tanaka will be another year removed from his elbow injury (although that partial tear isn’t exactly going anywhere). Michael Pineda will be another year removed from his shoulder surgeries. Eovaldi got really good and should be all healed up from that forearm strain. Luis Severino is really good and will be allowed to work deeper into games. CC Sabathia’s bionic knee brace might be the most unlikely hero of the end of the season and might be a factor in 2016.

Yet the uncertainty surrounding all five pitchers is unsettling to say the least. Nova as option number six and Bryan Mitchell as option number seven is also a little too close to Chris Capuano for comfort. There isn’t exactly room for a big acquisition to be made in the rotation. That’s never stopped a determined GM from putting a good player on a team, though, and Brian Cashman is one of the best.

The pitching market is rife with options. Aces David Price, Zack Grienke and Johnny Cueto will be available. Quasi-ace Jordan Zimmermann can be had, along with Scott Kazmir, Hisashi Iwakuma, Yovani Gallardo and Marco Estrada. Reclamation projects Jeff Samardzija and Doug Fister will be free agents. And mid-rotation arms like Wei-Yin Chen and Mike Leake will be in abundance. What the Yankees need more than anything else is a reliable source of innings. They can get that this winter.

In a way, David Price seems like the most obvious target. The lefty ace is not only an excellent pitcher, but can eat lots of innings while neutralizing left-handed power threats that seek to exploit the short porch in right field. Price also wouldn’t cost the Yankees a draft pick because of his midseason trade to the Great White North. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, however, noted that the Yankees don’t seem to be too high on the idea of signing a pitcher like Price that will likely command a contract in the $200 million range. That hesitance likely stems not only from payroll flexibility concerns, but also from the fact that pitchers can break at any given moment. At age 30, Price has already logged 1441 2/3 innings. It’s not hard to imagine him breaking down midway through his monster contract and becoming a burden.

Heyman names Jeff Samardzija as a possibility in that same article. The Shark should certainly get a smaller contract than Price not only because of his talent level but also because of his nightmare of a season. He pitched to a 4.96 ERA with the White Sox in 214 innings. The problem was that he left his slider over the middle of the plate quite often, and it’s hard to be successful when batters are walloping hanging sliders all over the place. The White Sox also had an atrocious defense. All in all, DRA thinks Samardzija was a 4.31 ERA pitcher this year. That’s not good, but it’s far better. Whether or not Samardzija’s hanging slider problem is fixable remains to be seen. Larry Rothschild is a good pitching coach and one of the guys a team would want in their corner in a situation like this.

Much like the Yankees’ second base situation, there’s no easy solution here. The Yankees are largely locked in to most of their players at most of their positions, and it will either take an injury or trade to free up space in the rotation for a new arm. Tanaka isn’t going anywhere trade-wise, and the Yankees seem awfully fond of their new toy in Eovaldi. Severino is a building block and should only be moved if the Bombers get a very good player in return. Pineda is a true mystery. His health will always be suspect, and his wild swings between brilliance and batting practice may be tied to the many shoulder operations he’s had. If a team trades for him, they’ll need to have confidence that he can find some sort of consistency.

It stands to reason that the Yankees will add a starting pitcher this offseason. How they do it is anyone’s guess.

Photo: Gregory J. Fisher-USA TODAY Sports