Looking Ahead to the Next Potential Yankees Fire Sale

Dellin Betances

Trading away one of the team’s most popular homegrown stars would not be easy, but there are many reasons that trading away Betances at next year’s trade deadline might be a smart business decision.

The big righty will turn 29 before Opening Day next year and has thrown more innings (247) than any other reliever in baseball since breaking into the big leagues in 2014.

That workload may be beginning to catch up with him, as Betances’s struggles with control have become more frequent of late, and while his peripheral stats were right in line with his career norms, his 3.08 ERA was more than double the marks he had posted the previous two seasons.

Betances’s WHIP has steadily increased over his three big league seasons. Even when he got the job done in 2016, his appearances were regularly an adventure because of the rate at which he now allows baserunners.

Relievers typically don’t have a long shelf life, so the Yankees may want to cash out on Betances sooner rather than later. As long as he has a strong first half, New York should be able to ask for a similar return to what they got for Andrew Miller at last year’s trade deadline because both are elite relievers with multiple years of team control.

As with Tanaka, basically every contender would have interest in Betances next summer. The fact that he’s not s pure rental could open up his market even further.