Yankees GM Brian Cashman Wins Yet Another Trade

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman sent well regarded left handed reliever Justin Wilson to the Tigers last year in exchange for then prospects Chad Green and Luis Cessa. 

The trade that sent Justin Wilson to Detroit in December was received with mixed reviews by fans and pundits at the time. People were wondering why the Yankees would trade a valuable set-up man for two pitching prospects. This piece from Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News looked at both sides of the move. 

The move was made before the Aroldis Chapman deal, and many of critics, myself included, did not like how thin the Yankees bullpen was becoming. The Yankees and Cashman made this deal for two reasons: to get rotation depth in Triple-A and to avoid paying Justin Wilson as he was going into his first year of arbitration.

After that trade, the Yankees upgraded their bullpen with Chapman, and now have both Chad Green and Luis Cessa in their starting rotation.

Justin Wilson on the other hand, has struggled this year at Detroit. Wilson’s ERA has gone from a 3.10 with the Yankees to a 4.47 with the Tigers. He has also really struggled of late, giving up runs in 4 of his last 6 outings. Relievers are volatile and it was smart to sell on Wilson when he was at peak value.

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Luis Cessa was traded by two different organizations, the Mets and the Tigers, in less than a year. In the Mets deal, he and Michael Fulmer were traded for Yoenis Cespedes. Cessa struggled last year in Triple-A posting a 5.97 ERA for the Tigers and an 8.51 ERA for the Mets in the hitter friendly PCL league.

Cashman’s willingness to buy low on Cessa, a hard throwing righty with four quality pitches, ultimately will make this deal a steal for Cashman. Cessa has been shuffled back and forth between Triple-A and the majors but looked like he finally turned a corner with a relief appearance against the Red Sox.

Cessa earned the win in that game with two dominant innings where he struck out Xander Bogaerts and David Ortiz. Then there was his start yesterday where he was filthy for six innings against the Angels.

Then there is Chad Green, who was ranked as the Tigers number 19th prospect and has been everything the Yankees could of asked for this year. He has been shuffled from long relief to starting and has been impressive in a couple of his starts this year.

Green has allowed just one earned run in 12 innings over his last two starts, striking out 16 and walking one. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The main point here is Brian Cashman turned a good reliever into two controllable starting pitchers who look like potential building blocks for the Yankees. At worst they turn into a swingmen/spot starter type guys like Adam Warren or David Phelps. That type of player certainly has value to.

Hopefully Cashman, will do something similar this winter and add further depth to a rotation full of question marks.