New York Yankees Editorial: Where are they now? The O’Brien/Prado deal.

By Wayne Cavadi | Jul 17, 2015

Sometimes hindsight is 20/20. Other times you wish it was more along the lines of 20/70 so you couldn’t see it at all.

Last season at the trade deadline, the New York Yankees shipped off one of their top power prospects in Peter O’Brien to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Martin Prado. Personally, I loved the trade at the time. Living in Atlanta, I saw Prado up close and personal, and this was just the kind of scrappy guy the Yankees needed at the time. He could play a plethora of positions and he always swung a consistent and clutch bat.

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Prado delivered in his brief 37-game stint with the Yankees hitting .316 with seven home runs and 16 RBI. This offseason, he was sent to Miami with David Phelps for Nathan Eovaldi, Garrett Jones and Domingo German. German was the only piece of the trade I actually liked.

Enter Devil’s Advocate (drum roll, please).

So essentially, as it stands right now, budding prospect Peter O’Brien got the Yankees a fourth starter and a struggling power bat off the bench. Man, I wish the Yankees still had Prado.

Prado would have actually filled a bigger need at the beginning of the season with the second base woes the Yankees had (hopefully Rob Refsnyder changes the horrific production since… well, since they thought a broken Brian Roberts and an ageless Kelly Johnson was the “right fit”). Phelps and Eovaldi, if you look at it, have essentially the same exact numbers. Baseball is a business though and I get it, the Yankees received a young arm under control for a few extra years.

O’Brien is beginning to flourish however with the Diamondbacks.

The 25-year old righty always possessed massive power. He also never held back swinging on a pitch he liked, and unfortunately, many other pitches he didn’t like as well. At the time for the Yankees, he was a catching prospect that seemingly couldn’t play catcher. Sounds like a terrible mix. How could you blame them for jumping at a team that wanted his services?

The Yankees attempted a brief conversion to both the outfield and first base, but in their eyes, O’Brien didn’t have anywhere to go at either of those positions. Kyle Roller and Greg Bird now have first base and DH locked down in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Aaron Judge is manning right field.

Again, hindsight is 20/20. Neither Bird nor Judge are going to be rushed to the big leagues, and they apparently view Roller as a Quad-A hitter, despite how much yours truly would rather see him in the big leagues. O’Brien could have easily filled the role Jones has thus far in 2015, and quite possibly even better.

O’Brien isn’t there yet. He is still very much a free swinger who seems to be allergic to taking a walk, but his all around game has improved.

O’Brien is becoming more of a hitter: he already has more doubles than last year, he is on pace to crush his hits and RBI totals in any stop he has ever made. I will give you the fact that he is in the very hitter-friendly PCL, but the more important number is that his strikeout rate is down.

Last year, O’Brien struck out 28-percent of the time. This year he is striking out 24-percent of the time. It is still very high, but Jones is striking out 25-percent of the time for the Yankees, so there’s that.

I know what you’re thinking. “This guy is a moron. If O’Brien is so good, why can’t he crack the Diamondbacks roster?” That’s pretty easy. Paul Goldschmidt is at first, and if you haven’t paid attention, he is leading in two thirds of the Triple Crown race right now. Translation: he is good. Yasmany Tomas is in right field, and they spent half their international spending pool on the guy, so he is going to play.

The Yankees have Carlos Beltran in right field. Ramon Flores, Slade Heathcott, Mason Williams, even Jones. Those guys have all been shoved out there to cover Beltran over the many weeks he has and is about to miss, and none have stuck. It’s hardly unimaginable to think that O’Brien wouldn’t be making mince meat of erred pitches at Yankees Stadium.

It won’t go down as one of the most absurd trades in recent Yankees history, but it could very well be surrounded by question marks. At the end of the day, the Yankees are in first place with the roster they have, and as everyone knows, the only way to get anything of value in baseball is to give. Still, it sure would be fun to see O’Brien teeing off in Yankees Stadium.

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