Yankees blockbuster trade

Brian Cashman’s done some impressive work in shepherding the Yankees through a rebuild without the mountains of losing that come with a scorched-earth approach, with the Yankees’ best moments likely still to come, once Gleyber Torres and other promising prospects crack the majors, and the Yankees make a run at big post-2018 free agents.

So far this year, Rutherford’s hit just two home runs in 71 games for Class A Charleston.

This year, he’s on pace to blow by his career high in games played for a season, and also to destroy his best single-season home run mark of 37.

Verlander’s stumbled to a 4.54 ERA, with multiple disaster starts on his ledger — six runs allowed against the Astros on May 25, plus seven- and nine-run meltdowns against the Indians.

In 2017, Verlander has a 4.54 ERA in 20 starts, yet holds a 3.05 ERA across nine of his last 10 starts, with a sparkling seven innings allowing two earned runs against the Royals on Wednesday night.

The clear number that’s been an imposter among Verlander’s stats is his atrocious walk rate, which has inflated to a massive 10.6 percent clip a far cry from 2016’s 6.1 percent rate.

In fact, since 2009 Verlander’s highest walk rate was an 8.1 percent mark in 2013; this season’s iteration is the fifth-highest in the majors among all qualified starters.

Across Verlander’s career, he has thrown a strike to lead off an at-bat at a 61.4 percent rate, which grew to 64.2 percent across 2016.

Additionally, batters are chasing just 31.3 percent of Verlander’s pitches off the plate this season, down from a 34.7 percent mark in 2016.

Verlander is allowing a monstrous 36.7 percent hard-contact rate this season, after allowing a rate above 30 percent just once in his career.