Coach Steve's Corner

Going into last night’s game I felt very good about the Yankees chances of beating Minnesota. On paper they had the better lineup and for as good as Ervin Santana was all year for the Twins, the Yanks had the better starter going in the form of Luis Severino. Severino had been masterful all season and is likely to finish in the top 3 in American League Cy Young voting. The only thing that worried me going in was the potential unpredictability of a one game playoff. Baseball is often an unpredictable game and in one game the best team doesn’t always win. Last night the better team did win but they did it in a very unprecedented way. The Yankees used a formula that perhaps only their team is built for. The good feeling that Yankees fans had going into the game was quickly erased when Brian Dozier took Severino yard on a high fastball to lead off the game. However, my feeling was it’s just a solo homerun. Nothing to worry about. Then things got bad real quickly when after giving up a tw...

When Brian Cashman said that the Yankees would be “cautious buyers” leading up to this year’s trade deadline I didn’t expect the team to be part of any major deals. However, Cashman pulled off a major coup this week when he was able to land 3B Todd Frazier and relief pitchers David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle from the White Sox. When rumors started flying around on Tuesday night that a deal was in the works with Chicago, I started to get a bit worried. I was afraid that the Yankees would deal away some near major league ready prospects, especially considering Boston was also in on Frazier. My mind instantly went to the likes of Clint Frazier, Chance Adams, Jorge Mateo, and Miguel Andujar. What would it take to land three quality players from Chicago ahead of the Red Sox? In the end the Yankees didn’t give away a haul nearly as large as I had feared it may have been. They gave up former first round picks OF Blake Rutherford and LHP Ian Clarkin, minor league outfielder Tito Polo, and...