5 benchmarks Yankees must reach to be legit contenders

TAMPA – Brian Cashman insists the Yankees are pursuing a championship banner, not “waving a white flag.”

The Yankees GM acknowledges the team is in “transition,” but still sees a path to transcendence.

“It’s a fine line we are walking,” Cashman said.

Indeed. It is hard enough to win when a team goes all in. These Yankees are trying to rebuild and win simultaneously, and, for at least a year now, have sided more with the big picture than small, which has not exactly been their sweet spot the past four decades.

Nevertheless, in a wide-ranging 10-minute conversation with reporters, Cashman asserted, “We have the potential to be a championship-caliber team.” Now, it should be noted the first three letters of “contender” are c-o-n, and this is the time of year when you can fool yourself or purposefully attempt to deceive a fan base with the rosiest projections.

After all, this is the optimistic period on your calendar when every player is claiming to be in the best shape of his life and/or ahead of schedule returning from injuries and/or having added fill-in-the-blank (15 pounds of muscle, a refined changeup, a better timing mechanism for his swing). If you are not going to be hopeful now, then when?

So let’s play along with Cashman. He talked health and players reaching ceilings as the road to October. Within reason, here is what I believe are five keys to the Yankees being viable for the playoffs:

1. Eighty starts from Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia and Masahiro Tanaka: One of the underappreciated success stories from last season was that this trio of physical red flags made 93 combined starts. The Yankees are planning to go young in the Nos. 4-5 rotation spots, so they need their three veterans to be healthy and productive.

Each can be a free agent after this season, so there is further motivation for excellence. But each also remains a physical risk. When on the mound, Tanaka’s results have been similar to Jacob deGrom’s. Sabathia has seemed to make a crossover from power to Pettitte. Pineda has top-of-the-rotation stuff. Does he have the concentration to be consistently excellent?

2. Fifty homers from Greg Bird and Didi Gregorius: The Yankees have bled a lot of lefty power (Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira). They wanted to become more diverse to better thwart defensive shifts. But they still play 81 games at Yankee Stadium, so lefty power is vital. Bird and Gregorius are currently best qualified to provide it. Gregorius hit 20 homers last year and seems to be growing into his power. Bird is coming back from shoulder surgery, so his ability to regain his stroke is part of the 2017 intrigue.

3. Success from someone named Aaron: Hal Steinbrenner has said he envisions Aaron Judge in right field. Cashman says the position is a competition between Judge and Aaron Hicks. Can one grab the job? Can both play well enough to form a consistent platoon? Or will Judge just strike out too much and Hicks never translate athleticism into baseball performance?

4. Young veterans improve: So much attention has been focused on Bird, Judge, Gary Sanchez and a wave of prospects coming. But they should all still be dealing with growing pains. Gregorius, Hicks, Pineda and Starlin Castro should be in their primes now with a nice base of experience.

Castro, though just 26, has more than 4,000 plate appearances, so he just might be what he is without much room for growth. But for the 2017 Yankees to be contenders, two of three – maybe all three – from Gregorius, Hicks and Pineda have to go up a notch or two.

5. Willingness to act at the trade deadline: If the Yankees are in the race come July, they could decide to play it out and just protect their system one more year before really going for it next year. Or Hal Steinbrenner could refuse to endorse an expansion of payroll.

But if the Yankees are really going for it this year, they are going to have to use pieces of the system and/or cash to make upgrades.