Let’s take J.A. Happ as the kind of starter the Yankees will fixate on as the trade deadline approaches.
As opposed to, say, Jacob deGrom, Happ is going to be traded in the next five weeks. Toronto is run by executives who look at the game from 20,000 feet, and what Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins see is an AL East landscape in which the Red Sox and, especially, the Yankees will be ascendant for at least a few years.
Thus, the best counterattack is to build a substantial young talent base and then augment with money.