The New York Yankees are engaged in a "Cold War" of sorts.  Well armed with pitching to be sure, it's all a matter of whether the Yankees fire off any of their missles in a trade or if they can get them to fire for themselves down the stretch.  Back in the 1980's the Yankees dealt away the likes of Jose Rijo, Doug Drabek and Bob Tewksbury and ended up with little or nothing to show for it.  However in the 1990's they held onto the right guys in Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Ramiro Mendoza and turned prospects such as Sterling Hitchcock, Eric Milton and Matt Drews into Tino Martinez, Jeff Nelson, Jim Mecir, Chuck Knoblauch and Cecil Fielder.  Now the Yankees must decide on what they'd like to do with a plethora of prospects which include: Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Alan Horne, Tyler Clippard, Jeff Karstens, Darrell Rasner and Jeff Marquez.

If I'm the Yankees, I'm not letting any of these guys go at the deadline period.  Not that I'm writing off the division just yet, but if this team as currently constructed with enough talent, can't catch the Cleveland Indians who are just four games ahead of them presently in the Wild Card standings, then they don't deserve to make the playoffs. 

What the Yankees should do is unload Kyle Farnsworth on somebody, call up Phil Hughes to replace the recently demoted Kei Igawa (which will happen assuming all is right, this Saturday), call up Jeff Karstens to be their long-man/spot starter out of the pen and call up Joba Chamberlain to pitch out of the pen.  The worst case scenario is for the Yankees to remain stagnant, the best case is that their moves aid them much like the 2002 Anaheim Angels where Phil Hughes becomes John Lackey and Joba Chamberlain mirrors Francisco Rodriguez. 

Would a guy like Eric Gagne, Chad Qualls or Octavio Dotel be an upgrade over Farnsworth?  Yes.  But worth the prospects?  No. 

What is all comes down to is that the Yankees can't be afraid to trust their own guys, especially their heralded prospects.  Over the last three years (2005-07) the Yankees have called up players that weren't initially on many people's radars nor were they trusted until injuries or poor play necessitated their call-ups.  It was Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang who were called up two years ago to replace failures like Tony Womack, Kevin Brown and Jaret Wright.  Last year it was Melky Cabrera getting called up due to the injuries of Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui.  This season it's Andy Phillips getting the every day nod in place of the off-season disaster situation at 1st.  In summary, Cano, Cabrera and Phillips while pumping life into this club as every day regulars are all hitting around or over .300 on the season and Wang has 12 wins as the ace of the staff after missing almost a month of the season. 

While it would be nice for the Yankees to also further upgrade their bench at the deadline, they'll likely have to hope that Jason Giambi can come back at full strength either as a power bat off the bench or as a DH.  If Giambi can come back at 100% it would do wonders for the type of protection A-Rod needs.  Because A-Rod knows that he has to be the guy to knock in runs consistently given the fact that others usually don't and thus with opposing pitchers knowing that, they aren't giving A-Rod anything to hit, which in turn is frustrating A-Rod and making him impatient at the plate.  A healthy Giambi would curb that.  However what a healthy Giambi should not curb is the playing-time of the surging Melky Cabrera.

Hall of Fame Perspective: Anyone happen to notice about 70,000 fans descended upon Cooperstown this weekend?  This was for two guys in Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. who transcended the game, were class acts and were guys who you could just respect and admire watching as a fan no matter what team you rooted for.  Imagine then given the proximity of New York Yankees and New York Mets fans state and city wide with Cooperstown in their own backyard so to speak, just how jam packed that place will get when players like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza all get inducted one day?  Perhaps we'll get a barometer and a small taste for that next year when Goose Gossage is finally enshrined at Cooperstown.