Yankees president Randy Levine dismissed as “nonsense” Monday the recent focus in the news media on whether the team might turn into sellers on the trade market as the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline nears.
“I don’t pay attention [to that debate],” Levine said at a news conference at Yankee Stadium to announce the team’s new partnership with StubHub. “You [journalists] obviously have nothing more important to write about than to write nonsense about that.
“When we decide to become sellers, if we decide to become sellers, or if we decide to become buyers, you’ll know about it. I guess the difference is most of you guys have never run anything. We have a lot of history here of knowing what we’re doing and a lot of confidence in our baseball operations people, so we’ll see what happens.
“All the rest of it right now is just noise.”
The Yankees are 37-37 and in fourth place in the American League East heading into Monday’s games.
Asked to describe his frustration level, Levine said, “I don’t have any frustration level. Last I looked we were 6 ½ [actually 7 ½]) games out of first place. I think we were 2 ½ games out of the wild card. I think there’s 90 [actually 88] games left to go.
“I think the team has underperformed and there’s a lot of talent here. So would l rather be in first place? Yeah, I’d rather. But there’s a long way to go, and last I looked there are about eight teams in the American League in playoff contention that are a game or two away from us.”
When asked why he believes the talk of selling trade-worthy assets is “nonsense” at this stage, Levine said, “I think if you go back over the last couple of years you will see where we were, or in comparable positions.”
..... - Newsday