Back on July 1, I wrote the Yankees clinched the AL East. At the time, the Yankees were coming off a two-game sweep of the Red Sox in London and had increased their lead in the loss column to eight games over the Rays and 12 games over the Red Sox. Since then, nearly a month of games have come off the schedule, and the Yankees have further increased their loss-column lead over the Rays to 12 games and have maintained the same 12-game loss-column lead over the Red Sox.

Worried I somehow might have jinxed the Yankees’ division championship chances with three months to play and plenty of games remaining against both the Rays and Red Sox, many Yankees fans were upset with me calling the division over with 80 games left to play. Well, there are now 61 games left and the Yankees have only increased their lead. The division is even more over than it once was.

The Yankees are 66-35 and they can play under-.500 baseball the rest of the way and still finish with 96 wins. If we set the bar that low and give the Yankees a 30-31 record over the next two months, the Rays would have to go 38-19 and the Red Sox would have to go 40-19 to tie them. But there’s no way, absolutely no way, the best team in baseball is going to play .492 baseball for two months, not with 23 games left against the Orioles, Blue Jays, Mariners and Tigers. Bring out the champagne and put on the goggles because the division is clinched.

Nearly a year ago to the day, the Yankees went to Boston for a four-game series needing to win three of four to stay alive in the division race and needing to win to maintain their first wild-card lead. The Yankees were swept and swept in embarrassing fashion, allowing the Red Sox to coast for the final two months of the season and putting a huge dent into the Yankees’ wild-card lead as well.

A year later, things couldn’t be more different. The Yankees are already in coast mode given the current math and remaining schedule, and the Red Sox are in the middle of a four-team wild-card race, scoreboard-watching every night. Not only are the Red Sox trying to close the gap on the Indians, A’s and Rays, they’re also trying to prevent their roster from being picked apart and sold off by next Wednesday. Another bad weekend against the Yankees and Dave Dombrowski might not allow the defending champions to continue to defend by moving impending free agents, potential opt-out contracts and salary to get a headstart on next season.

The best-case scenario overall for the Yankees would be for the Red Sox to do just enough between now and Wednesday to be buyers at the deadline and then they still don’t make the playoffs, wasting this season and destroying a chance to obtain future prospects and assets to help them in the future with the possibility of losing part of their lineup and rotation to free agency. There’s no way of knowing how the Red Sox will operate within the next six days or in the offseason, so the best-case scenario right now for the Yankees is to ruin this Red Sox season this weekend since that’s the one thing the Yankees can control.

The Red Sox are five games back in the loss column for the first wild card and two games back in the loss column for the second wild card. A bad weekend against the Yankees and the Red Sox will have one path to the postseason: the second wild card. Dombrowski would then have to decide if he’s willing to go for it with one postseason berth available, willing to go for it to play a one-game playoff on the road to advance to the ALDS and willing to go for it when his team needs to pass and hold off both the A’s and Rays for that one postseason berth. Ultimately, it’s Dombrowski’s decision to determine if the Red Sox are going to go for it this season or reset for next season, but it’s the Yankees who control his decision.

If the Yankees go to Boston and beat the crap out of the Red Sox for the fourth straight series this season then it would be hard for Dombrowski to not plan for the future with last season’s success and championship cushion to fall back on. If the Yankees go to Boston and either win two of four or finally lose a series to the Red Sox, it becomes nearly impossible for Dombrowski to not add or at least stay status quo at the deadline with the Red Sox still alive in both the division and wild-card race. With any result this weekend, the Red Sox have will have potential franchise-changing decisions to make in less than a week, and the Yankees can help decide what those decisions will be.

The Yankees have a chance to embarrass the Red Sox in Boston the same way the Red Sox embarrassed them nearly a year ago to the weekend and force the Red Sox to decide their immediate and long-term future by Wednesday at 4 p.m. There’s no pressure on the Yankees for a late-July series in Boston. It feels weird, but it feels great.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!

It shouldn’t be hard to figure out who’s going to start each game in the postseason for a first-place team, on pace to win 105 games and the No. 1 overall seed in the postseason, but that’s the rotation the Yankees have built.

There’s a good chance the Yankees have built one of their failed 2000s teams, which piled up wins in the regular season by outhitting their opponents while facing mediocre starting pitching in most games. When it came to the postseason, and facing elite pitching in most games, the bats would go silent, the offense would disappear and the Steinbrenners would release their annual apology statement to Yankees fans for failing to win a championship.

These Yankees might be different. The lineup and roster might be nearly identical to the team which had trouble scoring a single run in Houston in four games in the 2017 ALCS and couldn’t solve power right-handers in the 2018 ALDS, but maybe it will be different. Maybe the offense will be as good in the postseason as it has been in the regular season and it won’t matter the Yankees might give postseason starts to J.A. Happ and his 4.86 ERA or CC Sabathia and his 4.50 ERA after both were rocked in the last postseason and continued to get rocked this regular season. Maybe the Yankees’ regular-season formula of outslugging their opponents will work for the first time ever this October, and maybe the super bullpen will pitch with a lead to protect rather than a deficit to hold.

It would be a lot easier if Luis Severino would return this season and return as his 2019 first-half self. It would also help if the Yankees went out and traded for Madison Bumgarner by next Wednesday’s July 31 deadline. Unfortunately, neither of those things can be counted on or planned for, and for now, the Yankees’ rotation options look like those more fitting of a second wild-card team than the best team in baseball.

The Yankees are going to the postseason and they’re going as the winner of the AL East. That means everything they do between now and the final out of the regular season is to prepare for October. The one thing they can control in October is their starting rotation for the ALDS.

These power rankings will be updated frequently between now and the end of the regular season. They are based on a combination of personal preference, recent performance and historical performance. This rotation is based on the current 25-man roster and is created under the assumption the players on the injured list won’t be available for the postseason.

Game 1: Number 19, Masahiro Tanaka, Number 19
Masahiro Tanaka could pitch to a 15.10 ERA for the rest of the season and I would still give him the ball in Game 1 of the ALDS. Tanaka has proven his worth in the postseason in three different postseasons now with the worst of his five starts being two earned runs over five innings in a game the Yankees were never going to score in let alone win (2015 AL Wild-Card Game against Dallas Keuchel).

Last October, Tanaka was the only Yankees starter to pitch well in the four games against the Red Sox (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 K, 1 HR), and had he pitched Game 1, I might be writing about the Yankees looking to become the first team since 2000 to win back-to-back championships. In 2017, he allowed two earned runs in 13 innings in the ALCS to the eventual champion Astros and shut out the Indians over seven innings in Game 3 of the ALDS to save the season and kickstart the Yankees’ improbable comeback over the Indians.

This is Tanaka’s career postseason line over five starts: 30 IP, 17 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 7 BB, 25 K, 3 HR, 1.50 ERA, 0.800 WHIP.

Tanaka in Game 1, no matter what.

Game 2: Number 55, Domingo German, Number 55
It makes me sick, actually sick, to think about the Yankees shutting down Domingo German this season or limiting his innings so he’s unavailable to start in the postseason. German has been the team’s best starting pitcher all season, and if the playoffs started today, it would be hard not to give him the ball for Game 2. Unfortunately, the playoffs don’t start today, and by the time they do start, German might not be pitching at all.

At some point, the Yankees are going to figure out a way to limit German’s innings. That might be by skipping his starts, pulling him after four or five innings, sending him to the bullpen or shutting him down completely. The Yankees believe they have to keep German’s innings total to some unspecified number, even though they have proven they have no idea how to handle young pitchers and prevent injuries. Aside from Andy Pettitte, the Yankees have been unsuccessful in developing a young pitcher who can avoid injury, so I wish they would stop thinking they are going to find the answer.

If the Yankees allow German to pitch uninterrupted for the remainder of the season and they win the World Series and he never pitches again, he did his job. His job is to pitch for the New York Yankees. The Yankees’ job is to win the World Series. The goal isn’t to grow careers. The goal is to win. Sadly, the Yankees’ effort to achieve this goal for the last decade hasn’t been what it once was.

Do I trust German? Not particularly. But I trust the options after him even less. It shouldn’t be this hard to figure out the Game 1 and 2 starters of a team expected to win the No. 1 overall seed for the postseason, but this is the rotation the Yankees have built.

Game 3: Number 65, James Paxton, Number 65
I don’t care that James Paxton has been worse on the road than he has been at home this season. He hasn’t done anything to earn the right to start at home in Game 2 of the ALDS through 17 starts as a Yankee, and with each time through the rotation I trust him less and less.

I was fooled when Paxton had the back-to-back 12-strikeout games against the Red Sox and Royals and April, thinking Brian Cashman might have finally made a good trade for a pitcher. But since then, Paxton has pitched to a 4.76 ERA in 12 starts and the Yankees are 6-6 in those games. A team that’s 29 games over .500 with a 64-35 record and .646 winning percentage is 9-8 when a pitcher who many expected to be the team’s best starts. Paxton hasn’t been as bad in 2019 as Gray was in 2018, but he’s not that far from it. Only six of Paxton’s 17 starts have been “quality”, seven times he’s failed to go five innings and five times he’s given up four earned runs or more.

If I could be guaranteed the April 16 or April 21 version of Paxton, I would easily give him the ball in Game 1 knowing the Yankees would have a 1-0 series lead in the ALDS. But those two starts were now more than three months ago and I’m already worried about watching Paxton give up an early lead in whatever game he starts in the ALDS and then grinding his way through hopefully five innings. He has two months to change my mind, and he has a lot to do in those two months to change it.

Earlier this season, YES showed an interview of Paxton talking about how he wants to be a Yankee and wants to pitch where he’s expected to win. He hasn’t done much of that this season, and if he thinks the Stadium has turned at him from time to time so far, he hasn’t seen anything yet if he were to get lit up at home in October. Game 3 on the road is the best I can give him for now.

Game 4: Number 57, Chad Green, Number 57
Six weeks ago, I would have punched myself in the face like Ken Giles for even thinking about giving Chad Green the ball to start or open a postseason game. To my defense, six weeks ago, I thought Luis Severino might be back or almost back by now and I didn’t think J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia would be as bad as they have been, and overall, they have been very bad.

Back in 2017, I trusted Green more than any Yankees reliever. More than Dellin Betances, more than Aroldis Chapman and more than David Robertson. After what Green’s done over the last two months, my level of trust for him is almost back to that level.

If you’re a reliever and you have allowed 14 earned runs in 7 2/3 innings and have a 16.43 ERA on April 23, you’re either never pitching for your current team again, or you’re going to finish the season with awful numbers no matter how well you pitch. It would take a miracle for you to return to the majors and a bigger miracle to pitch your stats back to respectability. That fact Green’s ERA is down to 4.62 ERA is ridiculous.

Here’s Green’s line over the last two months and 20 games: 27.2 IP, 26 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 40 K, 1 HR, 0.98 ERA, 1.048 WHIP.

Here’s his line in eight games as an opener: 11.2 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 19 K, 2 HR, 2.31 ERA, 1.114 WHIP.

My preference would be to have Green go one inning and maybe two innings depending on how he looked in the first inning. Then I would go right to the bullpen. I don’t care that you’re asking the bullpen to possibly get 24 outs. Worry about the next game when you get there.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!

I left Yankee Stadium just before midnight on Oct. 3, 2006 as River Ave. filled with chants of “SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!” The Yankees had cruised to an 8-4 win in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Tigers, backed by a 5-for-5, two-double, two-home run night from Derek Jeter and a two-run home run from Jason Giambi, and the 56,291 at the Stadium were pouring onto the street making it known how they thought the best-of-5 series would go.

The Yankees had won 97 games, easily winning the AL East by 10 games. Their starting pitching had been shaky all season, but their offense was so ridiculous and overflowing with talent that defending AL MVP Alex Rodriguez was batting sixth, Robinson Cano hit .342 in the regular season and was batting ninth and Gary Sheffield had to learn how to play first base to keep his bat in the lineup. Their lineup for that Game 1 win:

Johnny Damon, CF
Derek Jeter, SS
Bobby Abreu, RF
Gary Sheffield, 1B
Jason Giambi, DH,
Alex Rodriguez, 3B
Hideki Matsui, LF
Jorge Posada, C
Robinson Cano, 2B

The 2006 Yankees were the best team in baseball. They should have won the pennant and then would have faced an 83-win Cardinals team in the World Series, a team which started Jeff Weaver twice and Jeff Suppan once in the World Series. The Yankees should have won the World Series. They didn’t because they had been built only to win in the regular season, the same way they have been many times between 2004 and 2018. The Yankees had the league’s best lineup and one of the best of all time, but the organization failed to address their need for starting pitching, and when the bats went quiet, the season ended against Kenny Rogers and Jeremy Bonderman.

The Yankees could have won that World Series with a rotation that featured 43-year-old Randy Johnson and his 5.00 ERA and Jaret Wright and his 1.525 WHIP, just like they could have won any of the seasons between 2004 and 2018, when they were giving postseason starts to less-than-ideal options. Rarely during those 15 years did the Yankees go into the playoffs with a pitching edge, relying on their always-stacked offense and mediocre starting pitching to be enough, and only once was it enough. Since 2004, the Yankees have had many chances to win championships, but nearly every season, they have entered the postseason as just another team in the crapshoot that is baseball’s postseason, infrequently putting together the best possible team to give them an advantage over the rest of the field.

The Yankees have tried in recent years to build a team which can win in both the regular season and postseason by creating a super bullpen, capable of shortening games to four or five innings. The strategy nearly got them to the World Series in 2017 before the bats went quiet in Games 6 and 7 in Houston, and it might have worked in 2018 if the manager had used his best relievers with the season on the line. So far, the Yankees’ decision to focus and spend on building the best possible bullpen while piecing together a rotation filled with inconsistency and injury concerns hasn’t worked out, and there’s a chance they could be headed for the same fate this season.

The Yankees are once again the best team in baseball. The Dodgers’ win percentage might suggest differently, but the Yankees are tied in the loss column with the back-to-back World Series loser despite being without their best starting pitcher and best reliever all season, having their best player miss two months, losing their starting third baseman for the entire season, getting nine games out of last season’s leading home run hitter, playing without their starting centerfielder for the first six weeks and their starting shortstop for the first third of the season. They have also watched their catcher, first baseman, three other starting pitchers and their should-be fourth outfielder all also land on the injured list. Yeah, the Yankees are the best team in baseball.

The Yankees might be the best team in baseball, but as currently constructed, they aren’t the best team for October baseball. There aren’t many playoff scenarios in which they will have the edge with their rotation and there are lineups as good and possibly more balanced than theirs. Right now, the Yankees would be just one of the teams in the postseason, and not the team, with the same chance as any of the other teams to win.

There are three things that worry me about the Yankees for the 2019 postseason. They aren’t minor worries, they are keep-me-up-at-night worries.

1. The rotation. Last week, I wrote I want the Yankees to trade for Madison Bumgarner, and they should want to too. If Luis Severino is unable to return and be his old self, the Yankees would go with Masahiro Tanaka (who I trust as a much as anyone I ever trusted in October) in Game 1 and then the right-handed A.J. Burnett in James Paxton in Game 2. After that, maybe it’s Domingo German if his nonsensical innings limit allows, or it’s a combination of CC Sabathia, J.A. Happ and Chad Green the Opener. Excuse me, while I quickly search Amazon for a respirator.

2. The lineup. The Yankees’ lineup the last couple years reminds me of that Yankees lineup which lost to the Tigers. It’s a lot of power and a lot of big names that easily beats up on average starting pitching for six months, but when it sees good to great starting pitching every night in the playoffs, it disappears. I envision the lineup chasing sliders low and away in October because I watched it the last two Octobers. To make matters worse, the Yankees only left-handed bats are Aaron Hicks and Didi Gregorius, and neither belongs higher than sixth in the order, though I’m sure the Yankees will force them higher to break up the righties even though they are undeserving.

3. The manager. Brian Cashman built Aaron Boone a super bullpen for last October, featuring Dellin Betances, Aroldis Chapman, David Robertson, Zack Britton and Chad Green. But in the most important bullpen spots in the postseason, Boone either went to his bullpen too late or went to Lance Lynn instead. Buying someone a Ferrari doesn’t make sense if they either don’t know how to drive or are going to opt to drive their old, beat-up Acura anyway. Boone demonstrated all of last season he didn’t know how to manage a bullpen and it reared its ugly head at the worst possible time. This season, he has made the same egregious mistakes as last season, and I’m petrified he could be the Yankees’ most-feared opponent in October.

The Yankees could win the World Series with their current roster though their chances would certainly increase if Severino, Betances and Giancarlo Stanton all returned and all returned at their normal performance level. It’s quite possible the Yankees feel they are essentially acquiring an ace, the best reliever in baseball and the 2017 NL MVP at the deadline, and therefore, they will stand pat with their current roster. But Severino is one setback away from not being able to start a game this season and Betances is getting dangerously close to having his free-agent season be lost. As for Stanton, who knows if and when he will come back as the most recent update had him still not ready to resume baseball activities. Stanton’s situation is the least dire and least important, but with two weeks to go until the trade deadline, the Yankees have to plan as if they won’t have Severino or Betances this season.

The Yankees are going to the postseason and they are going as AL East champions. There are 70 games left for them to prepare for October, try to get and remain healthy and line up their rotation for the ALDS. Everything they do between now and Game 162 is for the playoffs. The first thing they have to do is address their rotation.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!

The last time Madison Bumgarner made a full season worth of starts was three years ago in 2016. That season, he threw 226 2/3 innings and led the league with 912 batters faced before pitching a complete-game shutout of the Mets in the National League Wild-Card Game. After adding to his historic postseason resume, the eventual champion Cubs beat him up for three runs and eight baserunners over five innings in the NLDS.

“Three years ago” is a long time in baseball. When you think about the Yankees, three years ago today, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira were still on the team, the Yankees had given opportunities for playing time to Dustin Ackley and Ike Davis, Michael Pineda, Nathan Eovaldi and Ivan Nova were in the rotation and Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge had yet to be called up for good. A lot changes over the course of three calendar years in baseball.

Bumgarner is no longer the pitcher he once was, and the pitcher who made four straight All-Star Games from 2013-16, making 31-plus starts per season, pitching to a 2.86 ERA, striking out 9.4 batters and allowing 7.3 hits per nine innings. He’s still good, even very good, and at times dominant, though it’s not a given every time he takes the mound the way it was. But 1,750 career regular-season innings and 102 1/3 career postseason innings will do that to an arm, especially one that reaches the majors at the age of 19.

I believe Bumgarner is better than he’s pitched on the awful, crappy, losing Giants teams he’s been a part of since 2017. Since 2017, the Giants have lost 98 games, 89 games and are on pace to lose 87 games this season. Progress! They are buried in the NL East where they are 17 1/2 games back, and while they are only 5 1/2 games back of the second wild card in the NL, there are seven teams ahead of them and the only teams behind them are the Mets and Marlins. The Giants aren’t going anywhere this season, and in a division with the Dodgers, competitive Diamondbacks and Rockies, and on-the-rise Padres, they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Bumgarner is an impending free agent and has been the face of the Giants and a member of three championship teams. If I were a Giants fan, I wouldn’t want the team to trade him, and because of what he’s meant to the organization, he belongs in a Giants uniform for his entire career. But I’m not a Giants fan. I’m a Yankees fan. And I don’t care what Bumgarner has done for the Giants and it won’t bother me if he loses the only uniform he has ever known for the pinstripes.

I don’t care about money owed or years of control remaining. The Yankees haven’t won the World Series in going on 10 years and haven’t even been to it in that amount of time either. They have had several opportunities since their last championship to return to the World Series, and each time they failed to make the move to put them over the top.

The Yankees held on to Eduardo Nunez when they could have had Cliff Lee in 2010, only to release Nunez at the end of spring training four seasons later, and Lee proved to be the difference in the ALCS, shutting the Yankees down in Game 3. In 2017, they chose not to take on Justin Verlander’s contract in a straight salary dump from the Tigers and he went to Houston and beat the Yankees in Games 2 and 6 of the ALCS, single-handedly winning the series for the Astros. In 2018, a year after coming within one win of the World Series, the organization cut payroll by $50 million, only to then not go on the expected free-agent spending spree everyone had been anticipating they would for at least three years.

Nothing is guaranteed in this game. No one thought the Yankees would be without Luis Severino and Dellin Betances all season, lose Miguel Andujar for the year, get only nine games from Giancarlo Stanton in the first half, have Aaron Hicks miss the first two months, lose Aaron Judge for two months, be without Didi Gregorius for the first third of the season, and watch Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, James Paxton, CC Sabathia, Domingo German and Clint Frazier all spend time on the injured list at some point. No one thought the Yankees could compete with a replacement lineup for the first six weeks and with players like Mike Tauchman, Mike Ford, Cameron Maybin and Kendrys Morales getting regular at-bats. Somehow, the Yankees have overcome every bit of adversity they have been faced with, including poor lineup and in-game decisions from their own manager (come on, I had to throw that in there), and have built a comfortable lead in the division, one in which it would take a catastrophic collapse to blow. But that doesn’t mean the Yankees would have the same season next season if this many injuries cropped up and it doesn’t mean they will have the same season next season if not a single player landed on the injured list all year. This level of success can’t be counted on from season to season.

The Yankees could win the World Series with their current roster the same way they could have won the World Series with their rosters in 2017 and 2018. But they didn’t in those seasons, and right now, there’s nothing separating them from the rest of the contenders. Unless Severino returns this season and is his usual self, there’s no potential postseason series in which the Yankees will have the better starting pitching. And if Severino doesn’t return, who’s going to start in the postseason? Sure, I trust Masahiro Tanaka more than anyone in October, but James Paxton in his first postseason after what’s been a disappointing first half? J.A. Happ after what he’s done since Game 1 of the 2018 ALDS? Domingo German, who will probably be shut down way before the playoffs because of his innings limit? CC Sabathia on the last legs of his 19-year career? An opener? No, no, no, no and no.

The Yankees need a starting pitcher and they’re going to add one, but it needs to be Bumgarner. Marcus Stroman is hurt, Zack Wheeler has impressive metrics but his actual performance has been anything but, and the idea of having to trust Matt Boyd in a short series doesn’t sit well with me. That leaves us with Bumgarner, the only one of the group who has actually has a resume worth trading for.

I realize the Yankees aren’t getting the unhittable World Series hero, who helped the Giants to three championships in five seasons. That’s not to say he won’t see a bump in production and some sort of career rejuvenation with the Yankees, pitching for a first-place team down the stretch and in October. There’s no way to measure how playing for a losing and last-place team for three straight years after having World Series aspirations for the previous seven impacts performance, but it must. It certainly did for Verlander. There’s no sure-thing in the trade market this season, unless Brian Cashman is able to pull off a deal for a pitcher whose name has yet to be mentioned by anyone.

I worry about this Yankees core and this current championship window frequently, fearful that 2017 might have been their best chance to win it all with this group, and they didn’t because they let the Astros take on Verlander’s salary. I pray my worrying is nothing more than me worrying about the Yankees like I always do and that one day I will look back and laugh at how ridiculous I was for thinking a championship might evade this group.

The Yankees need to stop playing the long game which cost them the last two seasons and focus on the season at hand, one in which they are the best team in baseball. Given the available names out there, Bumgarner is the best and most experienced option, and his price tag shouldn’t detract the Yankees.

Over the last decade, the Yankees have cost themselves trips to the World Series and potential championships by overvaluing their prospects and being unwilling to take on salary in July. They can’t do either this July or it could be a third straight missed opportunity at a championship and another year wasted with these Yankees.

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My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is available!