Best of Yankees on WFAN: Was the deadline a 'disaster?'

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
The Yankee fan saying that the lack of moves at the deadline this year correlates to Aaron Judge not coming back, which I don't quite understand that logic, because they're saying, well, wait a second, if you're making no moves and you don't think you have a chance to go and win a championship, so that means that Aaron Judge isn't coming back, where I'm thinking that Brian Cashman, who clutches his pearls of prospects, doesn't wanna give up any of these guys when he knows Judge and Stanton are going to come back, and if they perform offensively the way he expects, then you don't need to get any more offense.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:36)
Yeah, I know I don't get that either. To me, what they did yesterday was to kind of, kind of get the lineup going right now in the absence of those two. I think it's pretty clear from what we're watching, even yesterday before the Yankee game on Yes, they had the Stanton and Rodin taking live BP, which I thought was good to see Stanton moving around. So it does seem like he's on the way back. The judge thinks it's interesting. I still believe he'll be here on October, but until we see it, I suppose a skeptical Yankee fan could sit there and think that he's not coming back this year. But for a team that's not hitting and hasn't hit, now they hit a bunch of homeruns last night.
Garcia, it's funny, because I heard Sean say to Evan yesterday, you're going to take Garcia to hit a homerun today in his Yankee Stadium debut. And I thought, yeah, that's a good thought. That happened, and of course, he hits the homerun last night.
But it's an offense that's been pretty much invisible. And I thought what they did, which for a lot of Yankee fans wasn't great, comparatively speaking, to what other teams did, I thought they did something to give the lineup a little bit of a shot in the arm. You see Lombard is now coming up. So no, to me, it's more a matter of, they're still trying to win the division as they wait for Judge and Stanton to come back. But I guess I see the other side of it, but I'm kind of with you in that, I'm going the other way with that thinking.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:53)
Yeah, I mean, isn't it possible and probably likely that the Yankees don't know the answer to Aaron Judge coming back? They're waiting to see what's going to happen and maybe there isn't a definitive answer on it. So for us to speculate that they know and can see into the future exactly how it's going to go, I think is a little bit foolish as well. But the Yankee trade deadline has had two roadblocks the last number of years and it's a philosophy standpoint. And one is that Hal Steinbrenner has given a hard and fast number that he doesn't want Brian Cashman to pass when it comes to the CBT and the luxury tax and taking on future salary. Now I know this year is different because the CBA expires, but in previous years, he just doesn't want to deal with that. He said, we're not going over, we're not taking on any other salary. And also Brian Cashman does not like trading away his top prospects. And I think- Brian Cashman sucks. I think that if there is one thing that has held the Yankees back more than any other from winning a championship since 2009, is all these guys that Brian Cashman thought were going to turn into great homegrown players have not. And yesterday is a good example of two more that get set down in Anthony Volpe and Jason Dominguez. Now Dominguez still has more upside than I think Volpe has. We may never see Anthony Volpe again after what we saw this year, but you can just go down the list of guys who were supposed to be spectacular for them.
Aaron Judge has been, many others have not. I mean, from Greg Bird to Gary Sanchez, I know that Gleyber Torres was a trade, but still he was a guy, was a young guy expected to do a lot. He completely fell off. Volpe now, Dominguez, Clint Frazier. I mean, you could just go on and on with these guys where Brian Cash was like, we're holding on to this guy. Volpe, we're holding on to this guy. How many times are like, no way, no how is Anthony Volpe going to be involved in a trade? We are not trading that guy. So then you expected him to come up and be close to Derek Jeter if we were gripping on to him with your cold dead hands. He couldn't go anywhere. And now he did go somewhere. Back down into the minor leagues because he couldn't cut it.