Yankees: Indians haul in Mike Clevinger-Padres trade makes you wonder

The Indians got a large package of nothing in return for Mike Clevinger. Makes you think, Yankees fans.

The Yankees have struggled to make the same impact in recent years as buyers on the trade market that they did as sellers in summer ’16.

Based on the evidence presented, though, it may not be their own fault.

After all, when the rest of the league treats the Yankees like the enemy and forces them to pay double for quantities that other teams are getting for half off, it becomes difficult to wheel and deal.

The Padres and Indians completed their Mike Clevinger deal on Monday morning, a fight the Yankees seemed to be a long shot in. But perhaps this is another instance of New York getting taxed for being New York? Because we guarantee the Yanks could’ve matched the package that ultimately got the job done.

Cal Quantrill and Josh Naylor are two “meh” pieces that have already found varying degrees of lukewarm success in the bigs. Quantrill is probably a reliever. Naylor is probably a .270-hitting outfielder. He’s Mike Ford-ish.

Gabriel Arias, Joey Cantillo, and Owen Miller are San Diego’s seventh-, ninth-, and 11th-best prospects. New York would’ve met that and exceeded it, too, probably.

Austin Hedges is not worth mentioning.

It’s hard to believe there wasn’t a better package waiting in the Bronx — after all, we know there was a brighter deal in Atlanta, considering Drew Waters was attached to these talks, a more impressive player than anyone San Diego surrendered.

We can’t guarantee Cashman wasn’t pressed extra here, but everything about this “win now but probably lose now” return evokes Colin Moran and Joe Musgrove going to Pittsburgh for Gerrit Cole, while the Bucs demanded Clint Frazier plus Miguel Andujar plus more from the Yanks.

It’s a shame. We’d already accepted Clevinger wasn’t coming to the Bronx because of excessive cost in a bizarre year. We should’ve baked in that the cost would be excessive only for us.

Of course, the Yankees had a ready-made excuse for not obtaining Clevinger’s services: they were worried about his arbitration figure. Plus, they like their guys.

Or maybe, just maybe, they’re used to this, and they knew Cleveland would rather accept a bunch of Bs from someone else while asking the Yankees for their A-pluses.

That seems to be the way this works these days.

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