Yankees may be haunted by lack of trade for starting pitcher

The Yankees’ organization collectively did everything but pop the champagne behind the scenes after last Thursday’s trade deadline, self-congratulations for a job well done.

And not without cause.

General manager Brian Cashman was able to avoid surrendering any of his top prospects as he efficiently addressed major shortcomings on his struggling club with the addition of seven players. That included needed righthanded hitters to deepen the lineup and three relievers to fortify an already-on-fumes, injury-plagued bullpen. Two of them, David Bednar and Camilo Doval, successfully had closed elsewhere — Bednar with Pittsburgh and Doval with San Francisco.

“Cashman did a really good job not trading anyone [they’ll] miss,” said one longtime rival American League talent evaluator who generally is not inclined to shower praise on the Yankees. “They threaded the needle [with prospects dealt] pretty perfectly.”

Cashman, who even in the best of times typically espouses a there’s-always-another-train-coming viewpoint and therefore wasn’t among the self-congratulatory crew, didn’t call his deadline “perfect” by any means.

He did express the right amount of optimism.

“I know we have improved ourselves,” Cashman said during a Zoom call 15 minutes after the deadline. “I know we’re better today than we were yesterday, so mission accomplished there.”

And exactly there came the full stop for those, both inside and outside the organization, heaping praise on the Yankees.

“They absolutely played with fire by not getting another starter,” the above-mentioned talent evaluator said.

Agreed, those on the inside said.

None of whom found fault with any of the moves.

But what’s missing? “Another starter,” two members of the Yankees’ traveling party said separately during this past week’s trip to Miami and Arlington, Texas, with both individuals going to great lengths to say they meant no disrespect to anyone in uniform.

Added one: “Loved everything we did. Loved it.”

But?

“One more starter.”

It’s a problem.

Because well before the trade deadline, Yankees starters weren’t getting deep enough into games, one of the main reasons Cashman had to get bullpen reinforcements.

And it’s the reason post-deadline the bullpen already seems gassed.

Or, at the very least, getting there.

In Wednesday’s 3-2 victory over the Rangers, Carlos Rodon lasted five innings. It was five for rookie Will Warren in Tuesday’s 2-0 loss. Yes, Warren did throw five scoreless innings, but going only five meant yet another game requiring at least 12 outs from the bullpen.

In Monday’s 8-5 loss in 10 innings, Max Fried went five.

Sunday’s 7-3 loss in Miami featured 3 1⁄3 innings from Luis Gil (who gets a pass as he made his season debut after starting the year on the injured list with a right lat strain).

Rookie Cam Schlittler got through five Saturday in a 2-0 loss. Rodon went 4 2⁄3 innings in last Friday’s 13-12 loss, one in which Bednar, Doval and Jake Bird — the other bullpen addition, who got demoted over the weekend — combining to allow nine runs in 2 1⁄3 innings.

In last Thursday’s 7-4 win over the Rays, Marcus Stroman went five innings in what turned out to be the former Patchogue-Medford High School star’s final game with the Yankees. He soon was released, an endorsement of both Warren and Schlittler.

Warren is the last Yankees starter to throw a full six innings, doing so in a 5-4, 11-inning victory over Tampa Bay on July 30. Fried was the last starter to pitch into the seventh, when he went 6 2⁄3 innings in a 7-5 win over the Rays on July 29.

“When it’s the fourth and fifth and sixth [inning] night in and night out, that does become challenging,” Aaron Boone said earlier this week. “That’s part of the equation. When the starting pitchers are getting a little bit deeper, I think it does set up the pen to be more successful.”

Boone, necessarily playing the role of good company frontman, did not criticize the deadline work of Cashman and the front office — they tried to secure a starter but found the asking prices too high — but did allow of the organizational starters’ pool: “I think depth’s a little bit of an issue for us.”

It is.

Because as suboptimal as the current group of starters has been when it comes to length, if one of those pitchers goes down, the Yankees will have to dip into a rotation pool that Boone also characterized as not having “a ton” when it comes to depth.

Or, as another rival AL scout assigned to the Yankees’ system put it: “What depth?”

The scout said that, incidentally, on March 1.

He said it before Gerrit Cole was lost for the season for Tommy John surgery, before Gil suffered his lat injury and long before Clarke Schmidt was lost to Tommy John surgery.

It’s a problem.

It’s been a problem.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.