Yankees Still Have Time for Some August Win-Now Moves

The New York Yankees still have a week to explore the August waiver trade market to bolster their roster for a last-ditch playoff push.

While the Yankees were clearly sellers at the August 1st trade deadline this year, the front office was careful not to completely blow up the roster, ensuring that New York would remain competitive down the stretch and into 2017.

The move to acquire Tyler Clippard from the Arizona Diamondbacks is a good example of this. The Yankees had just traded away their two best relievers for a huge haul of prospects. It seemed weird to see them turn around and add an OK, but not great veteran arm to the pen the same day.

The same thing could be said about why Adam Warren was included in the Aroldis Chapman trade rather than a fourth prospect. GM Brian Cashman has walked a fine line between contending and rebuilding since the failure of the 2014 team. He wants to keep the product on the field just good enough to stay in the race while still reloading for the future.

To the credit of the front office, the Yankees should still be playing meaningful baseball in the final month of the season. They are definitely a long-shot for the second Wild Card, but remain within reasonable striking distance should the club go on a tear.

The Yankees have several guys on the roster who made sense as August trade candidates if they decided to continue selling off pieces this month. Instead they have decided to hold onto what they have and try and make a run.

That seems like a fine choice given where they are in the standings. If they continue winning over the next week and get even closer to a postseason spot, they could even consider going in the opposite direction and making a win-now August trade.

Think about where the Yankees bullpen would be without Warren and Clippard right now. There are several areas on the roster where the team could make similar low-cost veteran acquisitions to provide slight boosts without compromising the rebuilding effort.

To be clear, I am not proposing the Yankees trade away any significant prospects for rentals. These should be largely salary dump moves or dealing from their depth of low level lottery ticket types at best.

Two guys who stand out as excellent “rent-an-arm” targets for the Yankees down the stretch are Colorado Rockies lefties Jorge de la Rosa and Boone Logan. Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors recently opined that both guys are are “logical trade candidates over the final eight days of the month, now that the Rockies are out of the playoff picture.”

Both pitchers are free agents after the season, so the cost to acquire them for a month’s work should be negligible.  The 35-year-old de la Rosa has an ugly 5.07 ERA in 110 IP this season, but has put together a string of six strong starts since the end of July (3.13 ERA in that span).

I won’t lie, the peripherals are a mess, but then again, he’ll be moving out of Coors. It may be worth a shot given the state of the Yankees rotation.

Former Yankees reliever Boone Logan is having a solid campaign for the Rox, with a 3.11 ERA and 2.46 FIP in 37.2 IP. Is he an upgrade over Tommy Layne? Meh. I guess. He has a much stronger track record as a late-inning type arm. As a bonus, he had a 3.38 ERA in 176 IP for New York from 2010-2013.

Most of the guys who have cleared waivers this month are likely too expensive for the Yankees taste. Joakim Soria, James Shields, and Matt Kemp may be upgrades over the team’s internal options, but are not worth close to the money they are owed.

I would have loved to have seen Cashman take a shot at Scott Kazmir before the lefty hit the disabled list. Ryan Howard could be a platoon pinch hitting option. He’s hitting .209/.268/.472 in 257 plate appearances against right-handed pitching and has picked it up significantly in the second half. That’s probably better than what Mark Teixeira can manage at this point.

Next: Ronald Torreyes Fighting for His Roster Spot

There’s no huge upgrades available admittedly, but with 40 roster spots to work with, any player who has a chance to help the Yankees win next month is worth looking at.