Four Yankees takeaways: Which areas should Brian Cashman focus on at the trade deadline?

Nothing about to be said, nothing that happened while losing two of three against the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend, should detract from the broader view of the New York Yankees’ season.

Without Gerrit Cole throwing a single pitch, the Yankees are 25 games above .500, owners of the best record in the American League. If Cole and Juan Soto return healthy, their first World Series title since 2009 finally would appear to be within reach.

But just as the Dodgers have found that spending $1.4 billion in the offseason couldn’t buy a complete roster, the Yankees are discovering that their $300 million payroll goes only so far.

First baseman Anthony Rizzo’s struggles are an issue. Second baseman Gleyber Torres is less than reliable defensively. Third baseman DJ LeMahieu needs to round into form after missing two months with a non-displaced fracture in his right foot. And the bullpen, while performing well, could use more swing-and-miss.

The current Yankees team is more balanced than the one that won 103 games in 2019, leading the American League in runs during the regular season but finishing 14th in ERA. That team had its offense exposed by the Astros in the ALCS, scoring only 14 runs in the final five games of a six-game defeat.

These Yankees make better contact, presenting a greater challenge for opposing pitchers, thanks to the additions of Soto and Alex Verdugo. They entered Sunday seventh in the majors in runs per game, but first — again, even without Cole — in ERA.

A rare opportunity is at hand. The trade deadline is seven weeks away. Difficult decisions await general manager Brian Cashman, the kinds of decisions that can take the Yankees from a mere World Series contender to a legitimate favorite. For a team in this position, even marginal improvements can make a massive difference.

Here are the areas requiring the heaviest scrutiny:

First base: Reeling Rizzo

Is this simply a difficult 66-game stretch, or is Rizzo in sharp decline as he approaches his 35th birthday in August?

Teams in this age of advanced data often justify a hitter’s poor performance by citing underlying hard-hit metrics that indicate better days might lie ahead. The Yankees can’t make that case with Rizzo. From bat speed to exit velocity to chase percentage, his Baseball Savant page is a blizzard of negativity, showing one metric after another in the bottom 20 percent of the league.

Rizzo, 1-for-29 in June, was out of the lineup Sunday and might be Monday as well. His .284 slugging percentage against starting pitching is the lowest in the majors. Since 2022 (and including his concussion-marred 2023 season), his .235 batting average against fastballs is the second lowest, ahead of only the Blue Jays’ Daulton Varsho. And it’s not as if his defense is still a plus.

The most damning Rizzo number of all?

His OPS-plus entering Sunday was 23 percent below average. Josh Donaldson’s OPS-plus when the Yankees released him last Aug. 29 was 26 percent below.

Rizzo is more important to the clubhouse than Donaldson was, and he is particularly close with Aaron Judge. He also is owed about $10 million in salary plus a $6 million buyout, while Donaldson was owed slightly less than $4 million. So, the Yankees are not ready to give up on him just yet.

Anthony Rizzo after being hit with a foul ball last week versus the Twins. (Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)

“There’s no question over the last two, three weeks especially, it’s been a little bit of a struggle,” Boone said Sunday. “When you’re going through it and making little adjustments, they don’t always take right away. You go out there and — ‘Oh, that adjustment didn’t take right away.’ Maybe you revert back to something different.

“… It’s sometimes a process. Sometimes you have to get these small little gains along the way to get you where you need to go and sometimes being patient with that — which is hard when you’re going through it as a player — you got to have that a little bit.”

Such an approach is reasonable with a player of Rizzo’s stature, at least in early June. The Yankees always could move LeMahieu to first and play Oswaldo Cabrera at third, as they did Sunday night. That plan, however, only would make sense in the long term if LeMahieu revives. It also might be a stretch considering that Cabrera seems more of a utility player.

Which makes a trade for a first or third baseman increasingly likely — in theory, anyway.

The Yankees probably would not displace Rizzo for the Marlins’ Josh Bell, the first baseman most likely to be traded. A crosstown deal for the Mets’ Pete Alonso would invite a fan rebellion at Citi Field. The Rays and Blue Jays likewise would be reluctant to trade Yandy Diaz and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. within the division when each is under club control beyond this season.

At third, the Rockies only seem to move players when they are miserable or overpaid, and Ryan McMahon qualifies as neither. It’s fun to think about how Yankees fans would rationalize seeing Alex Bregman in pinstripes. It’s also sheer fantasy, considering the reluctance of Astros owner Jim Crane to concede.

Second base: The curious case of Torres

It’s a different scenario than the one involving Rizzo. The fear isn’t that Torres, 27, is finished, though as a potential free agent, he soon might be finished with the Yankees.

Torres’ offense is OK, even if his 24.4 percent strikeout rate entering Sunday was his highest since his rookie season in 2018. He had a .550 OPS at the end of April but is at .725 since May 1 — still significantly below his career .789 mark entering the season, but well above the .698 league average.

The Yankees probably would be fine with that if Torres also did not have 10 errors, tied for second in the majors behind Elly De La Cruz, who has 11. Torres’ advanced metrics — he entered Sunday ranked 13th among second basemen in Outs Above Average and ninth in Defensive Runs Saved — show he is still capable of making plays. But his lapses in concentration, as best evidenced by his dropped popup Friday night, are alarming.

The problem is, where else can the Yankees turn?

LeMahieu can’t play every infield position. Jon Berti, 34, is not close to returning from a left calf strain. Oswald Peraza, the former rival of Anthony Volpe for the shortstop job, has a .594 OPS at Triple A. Caleb Durbin, the leading internal option to replace Torres next season, cannot be expected to be a savior when he has played only 48 games above Double A.

Torres, then, likely will remain at second the rest of the season. But the Yankees might be holding their breath on every ball hit to him in October.

The bullpen: Seeking whiffs

Some might ask: What’s the problem? The Yankees entered Sunday ranked second only to the Guardians in bullpen ERA. The issue is that their relievers don’t miss enough bats, at least by today’s standards. The bullpen’s strikeout percentage was 21st in the majors.

Outside of Clay Holmes and the newly dominant Luke Weaver, who does Boone truly trust? Ian Hamilton, coming off his 2023 breakout, has been inconsistent. The same is true of lefties Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonzalez, both of whom were acquired from the Dodgers during the offseason, and Tommy Kahnle, who is frequently injured.

A wipeout lefty such as the Marlins’ Tanner Scott or Andrew Nardi would be ideal, but the Yankees likely will pursue any reliever with high strikeout potential, regardless of which hand he throws with. A righty such as the White Sox’s Michael Kopech would be among the many possibilities.

The acquisition cost for a pre-arbitration reliever such as Nardi or the Athletics’ Mason Miller and Lucas Erceg would be considerably higher, but the Yankees are not necessarily opposed to that route. They acquired Scott Effross as a pre-arbitration reliever in 2022, giving up Hayden Wesneski.

One internal option: Clarke Schmidt, assuming he recovers well from his lat strain, and assuming the Yankees do not need him back in their rotation. Before getting hurt, Schmidt boosted his strikeout rate from 21.5 percent in 2023 to a career-high 27.1 percent in 2024. His stuff as a reliever could play up even further.

Soto: A necessary piece, for 2024 and beyond

The Yankees caught a glimpse of their potential future without Soto over the weekend, and it looked like … well, the pre-Soto Yankees, the version that was much easier for pitchers to navigate.

Verdugo, who entered Sunday with the league’s seventh-lowest strikeout rate, has played a significant if less celebrated role in transforming the Yankees’ offense. Like Soto, he is in his walk year. The Yankees, in trying to balance their payroll, likely will replace him with Jasson Domínguez, making re-signing Soto all the more critical.

Take away Soto and Judge, the team’s most frequent Nos. 2 and 3 hitters, and the rest of the lineup, in aggregate, is pretty much league average. The Orioles, in particular, are better in those other spots. So are a number of other clubs, including the Guardians, who entered Sunday third in the majors in runs per game after finishing 27th last season.

Another bat or two would make the Yankees that much more formidable. They’re already quite good, mind you. But as the deadline approaches, Cashman will be operating under renewed pressure.

Trying to figure out which deficiencies require the most attention. Exploring all the avenues he can to make his team better. Seeking every possible edge, in the one year the Yankees are certain to have Soto, to win a World Series.

— The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty contributed to this story

(Top photo of Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)