Yankees Trade Rumors: Who should they keep and who is trade bait?

For a team with legitimate World Series aspirations such as the 2019 New York Yankees, roster gaps will need to be filled and holes will need to be plugged if they’re going to parade down the Canyon of Heroes this fall.

For fans especially, trading away prospects, particularly prospects who have already made an impact on the 2019 Yankees, is like trading away a beloved friend. The truth is that baseball is a business, it is not all fun and games. Ownership and Brian Cashman’s Baseball Operations team knows this better than anyone.

Sure, the Yankees have proved this year that they have unbelievable amounts of depth in their organization. But in all likelihood, Cashman and Co. will trade away some young talent in order to acquire a player(s) that can make an immediate impact on the big-league club.

For the sake of keeping this post from becoming a novel, I will focus on prospects that are currently on the 40-man roster. The players mentioned have undoubtedly given industry evaluators and Yankee brass reason to value their services enough to warrant including them in some sort of deal before the July 31st Trade Deadline.

The question is whether these players have become too important to this team to trade away, even when the likes of Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton, Dellin Betances, and others return from the Injured List.

Next up is the 23-year old middle-infielder Thairo Estrada who was sent down following Thursday night’s game to make room on the roster for the returning Didi Gregorius. By no means were the Yankees planning on having Estrada be on the 25-man roster in May of 2019, but nevertheless, Estrada has become an intricate player in the piecemeal roster that has categorized the first third of the Yankees season. Estrada has been touted as a top prospect for years now, and he’s shown why in limited time with the big club this season.

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In 50 at-bats this season, Estrada is hitting .280 with three home runs and three doubles. Besides his stellar offensive output, albeit a small sample size, Estrada’s defense up the middle at both second and third is more than good enough to become an everyday player in the coming years.

Middle infielders with offensive output are hard to come by and harder to successfully develop, so it is easy to assume that many teams will request Estrada in return when the Yankees coming calling for pitching depth this summer.

It would be foolish to assume that the Yankees will be open to trading Estrada just because they have the likes of Miguel Andujar, D.J. LeMahieu, Didi Gregorius, Gleyber Torres, and even Troy Tulowitzki manning infield spots now or in the near future. The only way I could see the Yankees dealing Estrada this July is if a team thinks extremely highly of Estrada and Cashman is able to maximize Estrada’s value in a trade for a high-end pitcher.

Verdict: Keep

Next comes the curious case of Tyler Wade. Wade is a twenty-four-year-old utility player, with his home being the middle-infield. Wade has been up and down with the Yankees over parts of the last three seasons, showing flashes of the lightning speed and incredible defense that kept him in the conversation as one of the top prospects in the Yankee organization for the last four years.

The lingering question with Wade is whether or not he’ll ever be able to hit enough to warrant a stable roster spot at the major league level. In 173 career at-bats, Wade is a .173 hitter slugging only .237. The same type of injuries that gave Thairo Estrada an opportunity this year have given Wade opportunities to establish himself as a viable everyday player for the Yankees.

Unlike Estrada, Wade has been unable to take advantage of those opportunities thus far in his career. The jury is not out on Wade quite yet, but he would be better suited getting the chance to play close to every day on a rebuilding team with the ability to exercise more patience than the World Series contending Yankees. Wade could either be a strong secondary piece for a big-name trade target or headline a smaller package as a major league ready utility player.

Verdict: Trade Bait

The fourth and final player on this list is first-basemen Mike Ford. Ford signed with the Yankees as a non-drafted Free Agent after his senior season at Princeton. Ford owns a .272 batting average and .820 Slugging Percentage in his minor league career, offering a solid combination of on-base ability while also hitting for power.

The problem is that Ford has always been blocked at first base. Besides the likes of Luke Voit,  Greg Bird, and D.J. Lemahieu at the big-league level, Ford has oftentimes had to split playing time with multiple other first basemen in the minor leagues.

Ford had a rather unsuccessful cup of coffee with the Yankees earlier this season but that shouldn’t deter a team from giving him the opportunity to prove he can be a big-league ballplayer. Unfortunately, Ford really does not have a place on this Yankee team, nor will he have a spot on the 40-man roster when injured stars begin to be activated off the 60-day Injured List. Ford probably doesn’t have much value but he could be traded as a secondary piece in a larger trade in the coming weeks.

Verdict: Trade Bait

As is always true for the Yankee fan base, never underestimate or assume the obvious with Brian Cashman and his team of Baseball Op. geniuses. For all we know, Yankee evaluators could be giving Frazier, Estrada and others extended at-bats this season only in hopes of increasing their trade value for a blockbuster trade this July.

All I know is the Yanks have great organizational depth that every team dreams of having. Depth is good, but excess depth can also be used to improve the 25-man roster, especially for a Yankee team that is looking to end a 10-year World Series title drought.