New York Yankees Editorial: Why Standing Pat At The Deadline Was A Smart Move

By Jason Evans | Aug 1, 2015

The non-waiver trade deadline came and went and the New York Yankees move was….Dustin Ackley. Meh right? Well, there were starting pitchers who were traded like Johnny Cueto, Mike Leake, Cole Hamels and David Price. All of those pitchers could have bolstered the Yankees rotation. Well in order to get those, their old teams weren’t exactly giving it away. You had to pay a cost. Was it too much? Let’s delve in.

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Let’s start with Cueto. The Reds got Brandon Finnegan who was the Royals fourth prospect per MLB.com, Chris Reed is now the Reds seventh best prospect. John Lamb is now the Reds’ 21st prospect. That’s like trading Luis Severino, Ian Clarkin and Jordan Montgomery for two months of Cueto. Would I do that? No I wouldn’t.

Mike Leake was traded for Adam Duvall who was up and down but not exactly a prospect. They also included pitcher Keury Mella who was their number one prospect. That would be like trading Severino and another player. Mike Leake is a nice pitcher, but I’m not doing that deal either.

In the Hamels trade, the Rangers traded four of their top 10 prospects and a pitcher. Let’s see what that would be for the Yankees per their MLB.com list. Five and 13 aren’t eligible to be traded yet because that’s James Kaprelian and Kyle Holder. But two and three are Aaron Judge and Jorge Mateo plus Ivan Nova AND two other top prospects. I don’t think I do that one if I am the Yankees either.

In the David Price deal, Detroit got Daniel Norris plus two other prospects. That’s Severino again plus two others, for a guy who has said in the past he doesn’t want to be a Yankee. Toronto is all in and haven’t made the playoffs this millennium. I get why they did the trade. For the Yankees, it would’ve been harder to justify.

I get why Brian Cashman stood pat. The prices were very high. The Yankees finally have a farm system they can go to and they are doing that. Fans complain that they didn’t make a trade. Well, they tried to get Craig Kimbrel and Jedd Gyorko from the Padres and would have given up Mateo to do so.

yankees were willing to put in jorge mateo and take back gyorko and eat a good part of it to get kimbrel. pads said no.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 31, 2015

It takes two sides to make a deal.

You also can’t have it both ways. You can’t complain the Yankees don’t have young players and then complain when they don’t trade for stars.

The prices were too high. Now let’s see if the farm can help the big league club and if the organization will actually give them a chance.

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