Yankees’ Revival May Have Started with Detroit Trade

The Yankees and Brian Cashman turned a left-handed middle relief pitcher into two starting pitchers, that are keeping them on the fringe of the AL Wild Card race.

While we all rant and rave about the brilliant moves Brian Cashman made before the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline, the one trade that may have started this Yankees revival, actually took place on December 9, 2015.

On that day, the Yankees sent ultra-valuable lefthanded specialist, Justin Wilson to the Detroit Tigers for two right-handed minor league pitchers, 24-year-old Luis Cessa (whom the Tigers originally acquired from the New York Mets in the Yoenis Cespedes deal), and 25-year-old Chad Green.

While the Yankees seemed to have a plethora of expendable bullpen arms at the time, not everyone was happy about the deal. Brett Gardner, who made one of the highlight catches of the season, saving the Yankees’ shutout in the seventh inning with a leaping grab above the short left-field wall, robbing C.J. Cron of a two-run homer, spoke to his disapproval at the time the Yankees dealt his good friend Wilson:

"I wasn’t happy.I don’t want to say I was mad at Cash, but I didn’t want to see us trade Justin Wilson. I loved the guy. But those two guys we got back are special. You’ve got them both for six-plus years and both are very, very capable of striking in the middle or the top of the rotation for years to come."

On Saturday night, Cessa used his four-pitch arsenal, fastball, slider, changeup, and curve–to attack the strike zone with a beautiful mixture of his 97mph heater, and knee-buckling off-speed pitches. Each and every time Cessa completed his poised and polished follow through, he quickly grabbed the ball thrown back from Gary Sanchez, marched up the mound, and was immediately ready to go again.

The only person who loves Cessa’s pace of play more than Joe Girardi has to be MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. Talk about economic. Cessa allowed just three hits while walking one and striking out five as he improved to 3-0 this season.

"He used his fastball extremely well on both sides of the plate, he pitched inside effectively. His slider was good, he threw some early curveballs in the count to show them two different breaking balls. You can’t let these guys get comfortable because they’re going to do damage if they do."

On Sunday afternoon, the Yankees will send Green to the bump, in hopes of a clean sweep against the injury-ravaged Los Angeles Angels. If Green can manage anything similar to what he did last Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays (11 strikeouts over six innings in a 1-0 win), the Yankees should improve upon those four games back in the Wild Card standings.

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This Yankees club is a lot of fun to watch. Obviously, most of the talk has been about the barrage of home runs off the bats of the Baby Bombers, and rightfully so; but if this organization can rely on consistent performances by guys like Cessa and Green moving forward, this team could very well ascend to the top of the standings as soon as 2017.

Yes, the pitching staff still has plenty of question marks. Nathan Eovaldi’s days as a Yankee are essentially over. Luis Severino has seemingly lost all confidence as a starter, and Michael Pineda is either very good or very bad depending on the day of the week he pitches.

In Saturday’s postgame presser, Joe Girardi’s take on what the club currently has in it’s stable going forward was a mostly positive one. If you read between the lines, he even managed to drop a hint to Cashman, that the Yankees may still be in need of further reinforcements.

"I think it’s important to know what you have going into off-seasons where if the guy doesn’t necessarily pitch at this level, you think you know what you have, but you’re not quite sure. It gives you a better idea of what’s in your system and where your strengths are and where maybe you need some help."

As for the ex-Yankee Justin Wilson, his 2016 campaign started off strong enough, but he recently received a cortisone injection for an ailing elbow, which may have attributed to a stream of subpar numbers including a 3-4 record and 4.47 ERA, while giving up 49 hits in 46 innings.

Next: Beltran Likes Texas Better Than New York

All-in-all, you have to give kudos to the Yankees’ front office for knowing it was time to deal away a player before he hit his expiration date. Receiving two prospect shooters who have panned out to date, is a huge bonus.