Yankees: 3 players Brian Cashman should regret missing out on at deadline

New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman claims he doesn’t regret standing pat at the deadline, but…come on, man, these moves would’ve been easy.

The Yankees have a difficult pathway to navigate every single year: How do you make fair and balanced trade deadline deals when the entire rest of the league wants to see you fail?

This year, if we believe Brian Cashman’s comments, things were more difficult than ever.

Cash claims to this day that every deal he was offered would’ve made the team’s prospects worse in the long-term, which isn’t exactly what fans want to hear, considering their prospects are hovering around rock bottom as their .500-ish record craters.

The Mike Clevinger and Lance Lynn deals on the table seemed to fall into the same insane category as 2019’s “Matt Boyd for Gleyber Torres” talks. Never gonna happen, no matter how much bargaining was done.

But there simply had to be some marginal upgrades available, right? Something that would’ve injected even a modicum of joy into the fan base, while lending stability to the creaky parts of the roster?

Looking back on it a week later, we still do not understand why the Yankees weren’t in on these three targets to a stronger degree, nor what asking price could’ve possibly dissuaded them from participating.

3. Mychal Givens

The Yankees couldn’t outbid the Rockies for Mychal Givens? Or didn’t want to?

Ahh, remember Aug. 31? When the Baltimore Orioles were still sellers instead of world-beating behemoths who are knocking on the door of the postseason, at the expense of the Yankees? Good times, indeed.

In the final throes of deadline day, the O’s jettisoned both Miguel Castro (to the Mets) and Mychal Givens (to the Rockies) from their bullpen, and over a week later, the question still lingers.

Why did the Rockies want Givens? And why couldn’t the Yankees leapfrog them? Was … was Brian Cashman outsmarted by the dysfunctional Rox?

Givens cost Colorado prospects Terrin Vavra and Tyler Nevin (Phil’s son!), who now rank as Baltimore’s No. 13 and No. 23 prospects, per MLB Pipeline. Does surrendering talent at that level really leave the Yankees immeasurably worse in the future? Perhaps that equates to former LSU infielder Josh Smith and a wild card from the mid-20s.

The Yankees once gave up Nick Solak AND Taylor Widener for Brandon Drury, the most minor of upgrades. If you believe in your roster, you can justify giving up similarly mid-range prospects for Givens, who sports a 2.16 ERA on the year, with his own imitation of Adam Ottavino’s frisbee slider.