Yankees Trade Nick Goody to the Indians for a PTBNL

The New York Yankees have announced they have dealt reliever Nick Goody to the Cleveland Indians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

When the New York Yankees designated promising reliever Nick Goody for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for the signing of closer Aroldis Chapman, it seemed all but certain that his days with the organization were numbered.

As expected, Tuesday afternoon the team revealed that he would be joining former teammate Andrew Miller in the Cleveland bullpen for 2017, filling the Indians’ final open 40-man spot.

The Yankees will either receive a player to be named later or cash considerations for Goody, but this is basically a trade in name only. Don’t expect to see a useful prospect come back in return. If Goody had any trade value, they wouldn’t have DFA’d him in the first place.

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I for one am sad to see the 25-year-old righty go. He was one of the more intriguing members of the 2015 Scranton Shuttle, putting up a 1.59 ERA in 62.1 minor league innings that year and flashing a plus slider during seven big league appearances down the stretch.

Goody got a longer look in 2016 and apparently failed his audition, most notably allowing seven home runs and 12 walks in 29 big league innings. He did manage to strike out 34 of the 128 batters he faced (26.6%), but ultimately got hit too hard for the liking of the team’s decision makers and struggled at times to get the ball over the plate.

He did continue to dominate International League batters this year, pitching to a 1.93 ERA in 23.1 IP for Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre, striking out 40.2% of batters (13.5 K/9) while walking just 4.6% (1.5 BB/9). He was a little too prone to the long ball for comfort in MiLB as well though, allowing 1.5 HR/9.

Next: 2017 Yankees Top 20 Prospects with Scouting Reports

I wouldn’t have predicted that the Yankees would be ready to move on from Goody just yet, but apparently they’ve seen enough. The club has plenty of exciting young right-handers to duke it out for bullpen spots next spring like Ben Heller, Jonathan Holder, and Giovanny Gallegos, it seems unlikely they will regret letting Goody go next year.