Second Half Begins: Is There Hope?

Today marks the second half of the baseball season and the New York Yankees find themselves 5 games out of first place in the AL East and 3.5 games out of the wild card. The question for Yankee fans should be: Can the Yankees make the playoffs??

In my opinion, I just don't see it. The Yankees simply don't have the assets available to acquire a starting pitcher who isn't 35 or older. Getting Cliff Lee would be a huge mistake. As would rushing Masahiro Tanaka back to the starting rotation. 

If the Yankees were smart, they would go with what they have and hope that their aging hitters bounce back. If they catch lightning in a bottle, they will be in the race into September. If they don't, play the kids and see what you have before the 2015 season. 

The Yankees also need to be truthful with the fan base and move off the win at all cost mentality. That mentality was created when the Yankees could out spend anybody to get quality free agents. Now teams lock up their stars when they are in their prime leaving only aging stars to gamble on. Joel Sherman wrote a good piece on this: http://nypost.com/2014/07/16/core-fores-greatness-is-a-recipe-yankees-cant-keep-chasing/

Unfortunately the dog days of August are going to be brutal and even if they made the playoffs, the Yankees would be no match for the Oaklands and Detroits of the world. It's time to retool and for Yankee management to be honest and realize that you can't buy a championship with aging players. It didn't work in the late 80's and it won't work now.