Yankees Rumors: Arizona Shopping Corbin and Miller

As the New York Yankees hunt for starting pitching continues at the Winter Meetings, the Arizona Diamondbacks are reportedly”willing to discuss” their rotation surplus.

With seven MLB-ready starters vying for their five rotation jobs, the Arizona Diamondbacks are one of the few teams in baseball with the enviable problem of having “too much” starting pitching going into 2017. New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has preached “pitching, pitching, pitching” as the club’s focus this offseason, but as of yet they’ve done little to upgrade their staff. Could their be a match between the two organizations?

Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that of the Snakes’ seven starters, they are “most open” to dealing Patrick Corbin and Shelby Miller. Both guys are still pretty young (27 and 26 respectively) and have had success in the past, but struggled badly in 2016, so the new front office’s willing to take offers on the pair is not particularly surprising.

At the same time, Piecoro cites sources from around the league that say the D’Backs are asking too much for their talented but inconsistent starters and therefore they “likely won’t find a deal.”

That sentiment supports what Cashman has said on multiple occasions at the Winter Meetings, that the price of starting pitching has skyrocketed because of such high demand and limited supply. Most recently, when asked by George A. King III of the New York Post whether the team would add a starter this offseason, Cashman responded:

I don’t anticipate it. It’s a tough market and the price tags are extremely high. We could play on a lot of things because we have a lot of prospects people desire and we desire them, too. I would say it’s less likely for us to acquire a starter.

More from Yankees News

• Carlos Correa-Giants-Mets bombshell makes Aaron Judge’s return to Yankees even better
• Did Yankees troll Jon Heyman with Aaron Judge contract tweet?
• Matt Carpenter leaving Yankees for massive raise is hard to argue with
• Yankees top prospects butt heads after Giants’ gritty win over Commanders
• CC Sabathia defends Yankees’ massive Aaron Judge contract

Both Corbin and Miller have been considered frontline starting pitching options in the recent past and have several years of team control remaining, which makes them valuable trade chips despite the fact that they got beat up in 2016.

Arizona’s new front office is completely within their rights to set a high price for both guys. They are too talented to give away for pennies on the dollar. At the same time, it makes complete sense that Cashman doesn’t want to meet that price given where the Yankees are at in their rebuilding process.

Next: Three Yankees Prospects Set to Break Out in 2017

Would Miller or Corbin be an upgrade over the team’s internal options? Maybe. Only if the coaching staff can identify and correct went wrong in 2016. That seems like a big risk considering you would have to surrender multiple top prospects to bring them on board.