When the Yankees signed Brian McCann for five years and $85 million on Dec. 2, 2013, it was expected. Like the CC Sabathia signing in 2008 and the Jason Giambi signing in 2001, everyone knew it was going to happen. The Yankees had played with a revolving door at catcher since Jorge Posada’s retirement and after grinding through a year with Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart and Austin Romine, the they weren’t going to do that again. Add in that the Yankees had missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and the Red Sox had won the World Series and it made it even more of a sure-thing.

The Yankees didn’t need the career .277/.350/.473 hitting 30-year-old McCann at the time. But there have been a lot of times when the Yankees didn’t need a a free-agent star and got him anyway. They had a 28-year-old Cervelli, 25-year-old Romine, 22-year-old John Ryan Murphy and 21-year-old Gary Sanchez. McCann would just block their paths to the majors and be another high-paid player nearing the wrong side of 30 in the long list of high-paid players on the wrong side of 30 that have defined the Yankees over the last decade-plus. The Yankees didn’t need Brian McCann and the $85 million would be better spent elsewhere (ROBINSON CANO, cough, cough), but they signed him anyway.

When rumors surfaced leading up to the trade deadline that the Yankees could move McCann back to his former team in the Braves and all it would take is eating a combined $10 million of his remaining $34 million over the next two years, I may or may not have danced around the room, and I don’t dance. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen though I’m holding out hope it still might this season or in the offseason. Fortunately, McCann’s presence and contract didn’t stop Brian Cashman from calling up Gary Sanchez for good.

Sanchez was hitting .282/.339/.468 with 10 home runs and 50 RBIs in Triple-A at the time of his call-up and he had been a .275/.339.460 hitter in seven minor league seasons. He had gone hitless in two at-bats for the Yankees in 2015 and went 0-for-4 in the only game he had played in this season back on May 13. He went 1-for-4 with two strikeout and a run in his return on Aug. 3. He got hit first career extra-base hit and multi-hit game the next night against the Mets going 2-for-4. The following night he picked up his first career RBI with a pair against the Indians. But after the next two games, he was hitting a typical rookie-struggling-in-the-majors .217/.250/.348 after his first game in Boston. The next game, well, that’s when everything changed.

Sanchez went 4-for-5 with a home run, which was longest home run I have ever seen hit to straightaway center at Fenway as it hit the backwall of the park and might have hit Jillian’s if the wall hadn’t been there. Since that Aug. 10 game when Sanchez hit the mammoth home run, he’s hitting .469/.536/1.082 with nine home runs and 17 RBIs. He’s become a combination of 1998 Shane Spencer and 2007 Shelley Duncan except he’s 23, a catcher and the face of the franchise and not a career minor leaguer catching lightning in a bottle for a month.

This 13-game run has become laughable from an “I can’t believe he hit another one” standpoint. Every at-bat of his has been must-watch since his Aug. 3 call-up, but now they have become must-watch in a much different sense. That different sense is Spencer in September 1998 or Tino Martinez in May 2005 (10 home runs in 11 games as a 37-year-old) or Jason Giambi from July 4, 2005 to Aug. 4, 2005 (16 home runs in 26 games a few months after being asked to go to the minors by the Yankees) or A-Rod for all of 2007 (54 home runs) or Duncan from late July on in 2007 (seven home runs as a 27-year-old rookie). Sanchez made straightaway center at Fenway seem as close as the Pesky Pole. He made the seemingly-impossible-to-hit second deck in left field at Yankee Stadium look like the short porch in right, and over the last three days, he turned Safeco Field into Camden Yards with three home runs in 11 at-bats in Seattle.

I keep thinking about how this season could have gone if Sanchez had been here all along (or possibly in earlier seasons) along with other pieces of the future (Luis Severino, Chad Green, Luis Cessa, Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin). Maybe if the Yankees hadn’t wasted four of the six months of the season giving at-bats to dead-weight contracts and sub-.200 hitters they would be closer than five games back for the second wild card. I guess there’s no sense in looking back and wondering “what could have been” with yet another Yankees team, but instead it’s time to look ahead at the future and the future looks as beautiful as Sanchez’s first-inning home run barrage.

Earlier this week, Sanchez tweeted the following:

"Experts" say we @Yankees have no chance to make the playoffs…well we may just be young and naive enough to disagree. #NotGivingUp

— Gary Sanchez (@ElGarySanchez) August 20, 2016

Now it’s wishful thinking like Go West to think the Yankees are going to make the playoffs. Maybe if Joe Girardi hadn’t used Anthony Swarzak in two big spots over the last week and the team were now three games back instead of five heading into a three-game weekend series with the Orioles then we could get excited about a playoff berth. I don’t expect Sanchez to continue to put the Yankees on his back and save the season in terms of reaching the postseason.  He has already saved the season in terms of giving Yankees fans a reason to watch a current fourth-place team.

Over the last 22 days, Sanchez has become the starting catcher with Brian McCann still on the roster. He has become the Yankees’ No. 3 hitter with Carlos Beltran traded, A-Rod released and Mark Teixeira barely hanging on to his career. He has become a reason to watch the Yankees in a season in which they are going to miss the playoffs for the third time in four years. He has become the face of the franchise for a franchise that has always had one. He has become everything every Yankees fan hoped he would be and more. He has saved the season and the future.

Three days ago, I watched Alex Rodriguez announce his forced retirement from the Yankees. And three days ago, right after he did that and right after Brian Cashman told some lies about the process as if he had no part in it, I watched Joe Girardi tell some more lies. Girardi said A-Rod would play in the final four games if he wanted to and he would even play the field if he wanted to. Girardi was going to allow the player responsible for Girardi still being the Yankees manager and Cashman still being the Yankees general manager decide how to end his Yankees tenure. Joe Girardi was going to do the right thing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to A-Rod having four games left in his Yankees career: Joe Girardi lied as he has so many times as Yankees manager. Girardi posted the lineup on Tuesday night in Boston and left A-Rod out of it. The reason? “We’re trying to win games.” So since Girardi is trying to win games, he left the .204/.252/.356 hitter out of the lineup, but included the following hitters:

1. .261/.350/.376
2. .274/.335/.374
3. .196/.283/.337
4. .231/.330/.413
5. .259/.298/.398
6. .288/.317/.456
7. .251/.325/.379
8. .263/.300/.421
9. .195/.256/.303

The only two hitters in that lineup that deserve at-bats are Didi Gregorius (sixth) and Gary Sanchez (eighth). The rest of the lineup would be better filled in by the Triple-A lineup, and if it were, more fans would go to the Stadium the final seven weeks of the season, and watch the games and pay attention because they might mean something. But to Girardi’s point, A-Rod might be 41 and have no position, but he wasn’t going to lose the game for the Yankees. He certainly couldn’t have done worse than those players that played instead of him.

There was Mark Teixeira striking out looking on a fastball down the middle with the bases loaded to finish 0-for-5 and to end Tuesday night’s 5-3 loss to the Red Sox. There was Aaron Hicks standing on third base as Teixeira struck out in an 0-for-3-with-a-walk night for the first-round bust, who has now wasted 255 plate appearances this season. And there was Alex Rodriguez watching from the dugout as he watched one of the four games remaining in his Yankees and possibly MLB career end without him playing in it.

Teixeira and Hicks aren’t the only Yankees who suck. Most of the time Brett Gardner, Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Starlin Castro do too. But right now at this moment with now just three games in A-Rod’s career left, Teixeira and Hicks are the focal point. Teixeira, because like A-Rod, his career is finished, but since he did the “You can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you” or the “You can’t fire me because I quit” in announcing his retirement he has immunity. And Hicks, because, well he sucks and is eating at-bats that could be given to A-Rod or Rob Refsnyder or anyone on the Triple-A roster or any prospect in the Yankees system that might actually have a future because Hicks certainly doesn’t.

A-Rod sarcastically laughed before that game at Joe Girardi because he was under the impression he would play these four games if he wanted to. Instead, Girardi said A-Rod would play on Thursday against a knuckleballer and on Friday against the Rays’ ace. His next at-bat will come nine days after his most recent at-bat and his next start will come 12 days after his most recent start.

Fenway Park started to chant “We want A-Rod” in the ninth inning on Tuesday night for one of just a few chances left to boo the player who was willing to give back $40 million to play for them 12 years ago, but they didn’t get him. Don’t they know the Yankees are trying to win games?

Mark Teixeira’s three-run home run on Wednesday night beat the Mets. Well, that and Joe Girardi finally taking Chad Green out of the game and replacing him with Luis Severino, who should have been given Ivan Nova’s rotation spot to begin with. But it was Teixeira’s home run, a “Yankee Stadium home run” like the one Curtis Granderson hit to lead off the game, that gave the Yankees a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Teixeira has had a bad season. Actually, he’s had an awful season. For $22.5 million, which is what he’s made every season since 2011, it’s been an historically bad season if you’re looking at return on investment. Even with his three-run home run, his numbers are still an embarrassment.

After hitting a home run in the seventh game of the season on April 13, Teixeira went homerless until June 26. His average hasn’t seen .200 since May 19, he hit two doubles in July after hitting none in June, and of course, he had a patented DL stint in June as well. For a player who’s an impending free agent, who hit 31 home runs in 2015 and who said he would like to play five more years, the only way Teixeira plays in the majors in 2017 is if he takes an 80 percent pay cut or more and gets a contract filled with incentives.

But while Teixeira has slumped, or rather sucked, for the entire season, nothing has changed for him. From Opening Day through May 17, Teixeira hit third or fourth in the lineup. Then he hit fifth for two games before being moved back to fourth. After he came off the DL in June, Girardi hit him sixth for one game before putting him back in the middle of the order despite his incredible home run drought and the fact that not only was he not hitting home runs, he wasn’t hitting at all. He has his sixth twice this season. He has been moved down to seventh due to a lack of production twice as well. So four times this entire season, Mark Teixeira hasn’t hit in the middle of the order.

In 77 games and 303 plate appearances this season, Teixeira is hitting .198/.287/.340 with eight doubles, 10 home runs, 27 RBIs, 32 walks and 76 strikeouts. Those numbers are not just good enough to keep Teixeira in the lineup, they are good enough to allow him to hit third, fourth or fifth every game. If Greg Bird hadn’t needed season-ending shoulder surgery, Mark Teixeira would have been gone long ago with those numbers. But things seems to works out for Teixeira just like they did in 2009 when he was carried to a championship in 2009, so that he could get an eternal free pass in New York.

The player who carried Teixeira to that championship in 2009 and prevented Teixeira from facing the never-ending scrutiny that “he can’t win in New York” is having a similar season to Teixeira production-wise. But while nothing has changed for Teixeira with his release-worthy numbers, everything has changed for Alex Rodriguez.

In 62 games and 234 plate appearances this season, A-Rod is hitting .204/.252/.356 with six doubles, nine home runs and 29 RBIs, 14 walks and 65 strikeouts. His numbers are nearly identical to Teixeira’s yet A-Rod has become the last man off the bench on a team rather than a staple in the heart of the order.

A-Rod pinch hit on Aug. 2. He pinch hit on July 31. He started on July 30. He pinch hit on July 29. He started on July 22. He started on July 21. A-Rod has started three games in 13 days and has lost nearly all of his at-bats to Aaron Hicks (.188/.250/.289) because Brian Cashman won’t admit he made a mistake in judging Hicks, a player who just this week he said could become Jackie Bradley Jr. (I will now give you a minute to collect yourself.)

A-Rod played every day in April (except for the days when Joe Girardi gave him unnecessary rest), hit the DL in May, played every day in June and hit .267, which would make him one of the best hitters on this awful Yankees team, and then watched his playing time diminish in July. He has become a $21 million bench player and the most expensive pinch hitter of all time, for someone who has never been a bench player and has never been good at pinch hitting. He has no chance of becoming an everyday player again on these Yankees unless they experience an extended losing streak and turn to his quest for 700 home runs to save face on attendance.

The worst thing that has happened to Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner is that they switched places at the top of the order. The worst thing that has happened to Starlin Castro is nothing. Chase Headley was never benched during his historically bad season-opening six weeks and despite being the posterboy of first-round bust, Hicks is continually forced into the lineup only to never improve. And on the good side of things, it took nearly half the season for Joe Girardi to move Didi Gregorius up in the order because “he didn’t want to mess with a good thing.” That’s right, the Yankees manager based lineup decisions off superstitions rather than performance.

Now the Yankees claim they are ready for a youth movement. They traded away possibly the best two relievers in baseball and their best hitter for a plethora of prospects. Since Monday, they have called up Ben Gamel and then Gary Sanchez and put Chad Green into the rotation (though I’m sure that will change in the next five days). But who was it that got hurt by the call-ups? A-Rod. (Gary Sanchez, the Yankees’ third-best prospect, who we have been hearing about for years as their next catcher started at DH on Wednesday night against the Mets.)

The youth movement won’t impact Jacoby Ellsbury, who will still be a Yankee four years from this moment. It won’t take away at-bats from Brett Gardner, who should have been traded in the offseason and then again at the deadline. It won’t put Chase Headley, who still has two years and $26 million (!) coming to him after this season. It won’t put Starlin Castro on the bench no matter how many sliders he waves at in the other box. It won’t stop Brian McCann from starting even though the Yankees, reportedly, could have paid him to go away on Monday and chose not to. I’m not so sure it will take away from Cashman’s desire to give Hicks unlimited chances even if Aaron Judge gets called up and goes on a Shelley Duncan-esque tear. And forget about the rotation and the jobs of Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi. The only thing safer than their jobs is Mark Teixiera’s.

A few weeks ago A-Rod almost made his return to first base, but it didn’t happen, and there have never been talks about him playing third base again. Why not? Last season, it seemed like it was a health concern. What’s the reason now? If he gets hurt and can’t play, well, he’s already not playing. And as a 41-year-old pinch hitter, the Yankees can’t be too concerned about his future since he has one year left on his current contract and it’s becoming more and more likely he won’t be collecting that money as an active player. The 2016 Yankees aren’t going anywhere other than near the top of the 2017 draft order. And if the other underperforming Yankees are going to play, A-Rod should too. Give A-Rod playing time and give him at-bats and give him the chance to get 700 home runs. (He technically has 697 already since he hit a home run in 2008 that was called a double before replay was instituted.) Give Yankees fans something to watch every night other than one prospect’s at-bats.

It’s not that A-Rod has had a good season and is being treated unfairly. He’s had a bad, inconsistent season and is being unfairly treated because everyone else on this team aside from the players who were traded and Didi Gregorius has had a bad, inconsistent season, but nothing has changed for them, and I don’t expect it to. Whether it’s Teixeira hitting a three-run home run on Wednesday or Hicks maybe one day doing something productive, there will be those who say they deserve to play because of their one big moment after a month of no moments. Given enough chances, any player, even the bad ones, will eventually do something (OK, maybe not Hicks). Unfortunately, for A-Rod, on a team of bad players he’s being treated like the worst even though he’s far from it.

I have tried to quit the 2016 Yankees, but I can’t. Believe me, I have tried. I have said I’m done through the lows of the 9-17 start and the three-game sweep at home by the A’s and the rain delay disaster against the Rangers and the 2-4 road trip against the Padres and White Sox. The problem is those lows were all immediately followed by incredible highs.

After the 9-17 start, the Yankees went 13-5 to get back to .500. After the three-game sweep at home by the A’s, the Yankees swept a four-game series in Oakland. After the rain delay disaster against the Rangers, the Yankees scored six runs in the ninth inning to walk-off on the Rangers. After the 2-4 road trip against the Padres and White Sox, the Yankees won three out of four against the Indians, the hottest team in baseball, in Cleveland. Every time the Yankees look like they are about to free fall, they fight back. And every time they look like they are about to go a run, they start what looks like that free fall. They have been a textbook .500 team and fittingly they are at .500 at the end of the “first half”. The hope is they can finally be something more.

Eighty-eight games is enough of a sample size for the front office to decide this team isn’t going anywhere and that it’s time to trade off every asset not named Dellin Betances or Andrew Miller. And if the front office did come to that decision right now, it would be hard to complain. The reason they haven’t and the reason I’m still not ready to concede my baseball summer is because the almighty question still lingers: What if there is a run in this team? It’s a question that has fooled franchises forever and with the implementation of the second wild card four years ago, the fooling has grown tenfold. What if there is a run in the Yankees?

There could be. But like a poker player chasing a straight or a flush on the river with the odds stacked against them, the last thing any Yankees fan wants is for this team to go all-in on a pipe dream past Aug. 1 and be left with Aroldis Chapman and Carlos Beltran and any other tradeable asset still in pinstripes. Fortunately (or maybe I should say hopefully since Hal Steinbrenner and Randy Levine might want to play this thing out no matter what), for the Yankees, they will know if it’s officially time to sell in 10 days.

The first seven games after the All-Star break are against Boston (three) and Baltimore (four) at Yankee Stadium. It’s the ideal schedule for the Yankees to know where they stand before the trade deadline and whether they will have an actual shot at being a division contender or if they will have to settle for last-team-standing wild-card or second wild-card gongshow again. If the Yankees can’t win two series at home against the Red Sox and Orioles with their season on the line then that’s it. There won’t be any reason to believe some sort of 2015 Blue Jays or 2013 Dodgers miracle run is going to happen. I have a bad feeling the Yankees will go 3-4 or worse against the Red Sox and Orioles, only to then beat up on the Giants, Astros and Rays to suck ownership back into thinking the team can contend. That’s my nightmare and that can’t happen. A line needs to be drawn and July 21 is the line.

If these seven games are my last seven games believing in the 2016 Yankees, I’m OK with that. If it means getting future pieces for Carlos Beltran and Aroldis Chapman (who I think the Yankees could trade and still contend anyway), then good. If it means there’s a chance some team is willing to take on Brett Gardner or Brian McCann’s contract, then great. If it means there’s a chance some team is willing to give the Yankees anything for Mark Teixeira or Nathan Eovaldi or Ivan Nova, even better. If it means maybe a miracle of all miracles and some team is willing to trade for Chase Headley or Jacoby Ellsbury, then I will be building a float for myself for a one-man parade through the Canyon of Heroes. (I will be accepting applications for anyone interested in driving the float.)

The Yankees are at the crossroads they have been since their embarrassing 2012 ALCS loss, the same crossroads they haven’t wanted to admit they are at for three-plus seasons now. The second wild card tricked the front office into thinking they could contend in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and they can’t let it trick them again if they can’t win in these next seven games.

I know I have used other parts of the schedule as the make-or-break point for the Yankees and it was a lot like calling any game other than an elimination game of a series a “must-win”. Well, this is finally it. This is the Yankees’ elimination week. Three games against Boston and four against Baltimore, all in the Bronx. If the Yankees are back under .500 at the end of play on July 21 then I will be done.

I will be done thinking a .500 team through 88 games is anything more than a .500 team. I will be done doing things like waking up for a 1:05 p.m. game at 7 a.m. because I’m on vacation and six hours behind the Eastern Time Zone. I will be done being tricked into thinking “today is the day the Yankees go on a run.” I will be done with the 2016 Yankees and ownership and the front office should be done with them too.

Jorge Mateo is a Yankee, but he might as well be a Yankees fan. The 21-year-old shortstop and Yankees’ best prospect was suspended for two weeks on Wednesday, which will include missing the Futures Game at the All-Star Game, for supposedly “mouthing off” to Yankees executives.

The reason for Mateo’s outburst has been reported to be the fact that he hasn’t been promoted to Double-A yet, while players with less ability and less talent have been. Mateo has hit .266/.323/.396 with five home runs, 34 RBIs and 26 stolen bases in 76 games in High-A Tampa this season after hitting .321/.374/.452 in 21 games there last year. He had 82 steals between Charleston and Tampa last season.

Brian Cashman told teams last year at the trade deadline that Jorge Mateo was untouchable (along with Luis Severino, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez), which led to the Yankees only coming away with Dustin Ackley as they watched their eight-game division lead over the Blue Jays crumble after the Blue Jays acquired David Price.

If the New York Post’s report that Mateo called out the Yankees for not promoting him to Double-A then he was right to do so. If he truly is the Yankees’ best prospect playing a premium, then what is he still doing in Single-A? If it’s because he’s being blocked by another player in Trenton, let’s look at who that player might.

Cito Culver, the Yankees’ 2010 first-round pick, has played 33 games at shortstop and 28 games at second base for Trenton. Oddly enough, those are the two positions Mateo plays after seeing time as a second baseman this season. If you’re not familiar with Culver, when Vince Vaughn’s character (Jamie O’Hare) takes the field in the final scene in Rudy, the commentator says, “One of the players going into the game is Jamie O’Hare. O’Hare was heavily recruited throughout the country several years ago. He came to Notre Dame … and it’s safe to say that his career has been a disappointment.” That’s Cito Culver.

Culver is 23 now and reached Triple-A last season for eight games though he didn’t deserve it after hitting .199/.249/.279 in 106 games in Double-A. He’s a career .231/.306/.315 hitter in the minors and hasn’t had one good season. It’s not like his numbers are a product of inconsistency, they’re actually a product of consistent bad play.

Back when Culver was drafted, the Yankees were destroyed for the pick, but here’s what vice president and director of amateur scouting Damon Oppenheimer said:

“The main ranking that means something to me is what ranking our guys have. I had basically over 100 years of scouting experience go in to see this kid. When guys like my cross-checkers who have been doing this for a long time, former major-league hitting coaches like Gary Denbo and former scouting directors like Bill Livesey come back with a thumbs up, that means a lot more to me than the public opinion of Baseball America or some of the other publications who just aren’t able to get to these guys and don’t have scouting staffs.”

After the selection, Oppenheimer had a conference call with the Yankees beat writers and added, “We’ve been able to see him play for a long time. We’ve probably got a couple of hundred at-bats from him …We were ahead of the game because we knew so much about him.”

And when asked about waiting to pick him in the second round, Oppenheimer said, “The thought crossed my mind and I’m glad I didn’t, because after we did pick him I got a call from one of our competitors who’s very successful, saying he would not have gotten to us.”

(There’s a very good chance that call from one of the Yankees’ competitors, if there actually was a call, was made in jest.)

If it comes out that the Post’s report wasn’t accurate, well, it brought up the important question of why Mateo is still playing in Tampa as a 21-year-old top prospect, the same way Severino is still wasting bullets in Triple-A, while Ivan Nova makes start after start, the same way Judge keeps hitting meaningless home runs in Scranton while Aaron Hicks continues to play every day, the same way the Yankees gave a season of at-bats away at second base last year and then turned to Rob Refsnyder in the biggest games of the season at the end of September and the one-game playoff.

The Yankees are a mess. The front office thinks a 40-42 team can contend. The general manager built the 40-42 team. The manager continues to not put together the best possible lineup game after game. And the player development and scouting department hasn’t done anything in years. The Yankees have no idea what they are doing at any level right now and Mateo was right to call them out for it.