Mark Teixeira: Why Yankees could consider trading Gary Sanchez

Retired Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira talked about what general manager Brian Cashman could do to improve the team, including possibly trading Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird or Miguel Andujar.

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For years, Mark Teixeira would think about what Yankees general manager Brian Cashman would do to improve the team around him.

Now Teixeira, retired for two seasons, gets to talk about what he thinks Cashman should do. And he gets paid for it.

That’s what the 38-year-old former first baseman did on The Michael Kay Show on ESPN radio on Thursday evening. Kay asked Teixeira how Cashman could make the Yankees better following their 3-1 American League Division Series loss to the Red Sox.

Teixeira made there main points.

Here they are, along with his quotes:

1.) Acquire two frontline starting pitchers

“So this is where we get to play GM, right? It’s kind of fun. If you had Brian Cashman’s ear, what would you tell him? This is what I would tell Cash: You need some more frontline starters. That’s easy. That’s out there. Two frontline starters to back up with (Masahiro) Tanaka and (Luis) Severino and if you want to resign CC (Sabathia) as a (fifth starter) or keep that fifth slot open as maybe Justus Sheffield gets a chance or if you want to develop a young pitcher, one issue with this season, as great of a season it was for the Yankees, they didn’t develop any young starting pitchers, and that’s a little bit of a concern because you don’t really know what you have going into next season.

2.) Fix the defense

“I would go and get two frontline starters and then I need to shore up my defense. I have holes at defense at first, third and catcher. The problem is, all of those positions have really good hitters and they’re young and they’re controllable and they’re not expensive.

3.) Explore trading Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andujar and Greg Bird.

“So do they have trade value? Do you, dare I say, go out there and shop (Greg) Bird? Or shop (Miguel) Andujar? Or even shop (Gary) Sanchez? See what you could get for those guys. I’m not advocating for any one of those guys to move, but if I’m Brian Cashman and I know my defense needs to get better and I need to balance out a heavy right-handed lineup that hits a lot of home runs … Cash always has a trick up his sleeve. He’s one of the best GMs in baseball. He might look moving some of those guys and moving two birds with one stone.”

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