In the summer months of 2016 with the Yankees only tangentially in the playoff race, they decided to become sellers for the first time in a long time. They moved the likes of Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Carlos Beltrán, adding some high-end prospects to their organization. For a team that has never really done a true teardown, that was about as close as they’re going to get.
Flash forward to a year later and the Yankees were looking at a fairly different situation. Gary Sánchez had come onto the scene with an outrageous stretch run in 2016 and had carried that into an All-Star-worthy start in 2017.