THE YANKEES SUFFER FROM THEIR OWN SPENDING BLUNDERS

I'm sure many of us are unimpressed with Brian Cashman's second press conference. Let's face it, his first one in April was bad and this one was even worse in my opinion. The Yankees have resources galore at their fingertips and they don't know what to do with them. They are doing this all wrong.

It's nice to be a big market team with owners who have deeper pockets. It was nice to go out and finally lure Gerrit Cole and outbid anyone and everyone else interested. Deep pockets are nice....but money doesn't solve every problem for a baseball team. Now, it's turned into a problem.

Before I lose you, hear me out. Brian Cashman said on Tuesday that the Yankees were fully engaged and were buyers for the trade deadline. He even used the word "urgently" a few times. All of baseball knows how much we are in a pickle. They see our desperation to try and right the ship here....but what about the luxury tax situation? That's not going away. Cashman said he would present all options to ownership and see if it fits in the budget. As far as we all know, the remaining budget is approximately $4 million. That's not a lot of room for an awful lot of improvements needed.

Cashman says the Yankees are buyers, but should they be? Instead, shouldn't we take this as a sign that we need to do a better job managing our money and developing our talent? I think so. Our minor league systems are very depleted and while we have a lot of needs to address, we don't have as strong of a minor league to feed from as we did when we reloaded our farm back in 2016 when the Yankees traded Andrew Miller. Looking back at 2016, it was strange to consider ourselves sellers, but those moves did benefit us.

I don't like to ever call the Yankees sellers, it's not in our DNA. In 2016 we had more pieces to move. Now, even though I think we need to make some moves we really don't have a lot that we CAN move. Even if we wanted to move Cole (and I don't) he has a full no-trade clause. Then there is Giancarlo Stanton which has his own no-trade situation so good luck there. Even if he agreed, that's an expensive price tag to move.

Honestly, the way I see it....the Yankees two most valuable pieces to move would be Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman. PLENTY of teams would love to get their hands on good left handed relievers, but even they won't get us a franchise altering piece like Gleyber Torres was when we traded Chapman last time. Even if we could move these guys for a good value we are still going to be in the same position in the future if the Yankees are still hellbent on remaining under the luxury tax.

The Yankees are crippled by money. It's nice to have, but our team can't be built primarily with a focus of spending money on free agents. We need an overhaul of our player development team. We need increased emphasis on scouting. It's nice to have money....until you are crippled by it and can only build a team by spending it and then not getting your moneys worth....here's looking at you Aaron Hicks.

The Yankees don't know HOW to spend their money wisely. So here we are....talking about being buyers with no budget and all because Yankees didn't spend wisely. The Yankees wallet is their kryptonite and until they fix it this problem isn't going away.

  --Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa

     BYB Managing Editor

    Twitter: @nyprincessj