Yankees’ trade plans becoming less clear

Those hoping for the spectacle of a fire sale by the New York Yankees will have to take a deep breath and, at the very least, wait a while.

Wednesday night, the Yankees turned in their third straight victory over the Orioles by the score of 5-0. What had been an 8 1/2-game deficit in the American League East became merely a six-game deficit.

The Yankees are five games out in the AL Wild Card race. Boston took over first place in the AL East, as the loss dropped Baltimore out of first place for the first time since June 4.

Life would have been simpler if the games had gone the other way and Baltimore’s lead over the Yankees had grown to 11 1/2 games. Then the Yankees are clearly sellers.

Now, though, with the Aug. 1 non-waiver Trading Deadline approaching, the Yankees may be considered in contention, or at worst in a gray area, where their status is still too close to call.

This puts off the possibility of the Yankees being sellers at the Deadline. That’s a concept many of us find foreign or at least off the beaten path. Part of the drama of the buildup to the Deadline was going to be whether the Yankees themselves could successfully grasp this sellers thing as a viable option.

The Yankees haven’t had much occasion to be sellers. For many seasons they defined the concept of being buyers. Not …

continue reading in source mlb.mlb.com