Yankees Offseason Trade Target: Oakland Starter Sean Manaea

While Oakland’s Sonny Gray is the A’s pitcher to come up most often in trade rumors, Sean Manaea might be of more interest to the New York Yankees.

The mustache alone makes Sean Manaea an attractive trade target for the Yankees as far as I’m concerned. Ranked the 48th best prospect in the game by Baseball America prior to the season, Manaea made his big league debut in late April and has held his own as a league average pitcher (99 ERA+) through 23 starts since then.

He has a 4.03 ERA and 4.11 FIP through his first 131.2 innings of work. His 7.9 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 are both pretty solid, although his 1.3 HR/9 is a little high. That long-ball was never an issue for Manaea in the minors, so that might be bad luck or temporary growing pains.

The overall numbers for 2016 probably don’t give a realistic picture of Manaea’s true talent, however. After struggling to a 5.24 ERA through his first 12 big league starts, the 24-year-old lefty has been one of the American League’s most dominant pitchers in the second half, working to a 2.78 ERA in 64.2 IP, while seeing his strikeouts jump to 8.5 per nine.

Here’s an excerpt from Vince Lara-Cinisomo of Baseball America’s scouting report on Manaea when he was first called up by Oakland:

Pitching from a three-quarters arm slot, Manaea sits at 90-95 mph with his fastball with good downhill plane and late life. Manaea’s fastball also shows boring action at times. The slider flashes plus and the changeup has shown average with fading action at its best.

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In the spring of 2013, Manaea was one of the early favorites to go first overall in the June amateur draft, but hip and shoulder injuries caused him to slip all the way to the Kansas City Royals at 34th overall in the compensation round. Still, the Royals paid Manaea like a top-ten pick ($3.55 million- well over the recommended slot.

After signing, Manaea underwent hip surgery to fix a torn labrum. He also missed some of 2015 with abdominal and groin injuries, but the rest of his minor league career was pretty successful. He compiled a 2.85 ERA, 10.8 K/9, and 3.6 BB/9 in 217.2 IP during his quick dash up the MiLB ladder.

Kansas City sent Manaea and Aaron Brooks to Oakland to acquire Ben Zobrist at the 2015 trade deadline. The 6’5 lefty known as Baby Giraffe immediately became the Athletics’ best pitching prospect, giving fans hope for a super-powered one-two punch of Gray and Manaea at the top of their rotation.

As great as Manaea has been, Oakland’s general manager Billy Beane is always willing to listen on basically anyone on his roster. The Yankees would probably need to surrender at least two Top-100 type guys to land Manaea given how he’s looked down the stretch. Maybe Jorge Mateo and Justus Sheffield plus one or two throw-ins would be about right?

Next: Yankees to Pursue Jose Fernandez?

New York is in desperate need of a controllable front-line starter with Masahiro Tanaka possibly on the way out after next year and Luis Severino‘s struggles. Manaea is probably one of the better candidates available at this point.