Yankees could reunite with forgotten old friend for 2021 bullpen

The New York Yankees could reunite with David Phelps at a bargain for 2021, fresh off a bad 2020.

We’ve spoken at length about the Yankees’ most prudent reunions for 2021.

DJ LeMahieu? Well, we haven’t let him out the door yet, but he counts. The team needs to bring him back, plain and simple.

What about Yankees from the recent past who could be interesting fits? We’ve spoken ad nauseam about Didi Gregorius, who seems like he will be opting not to return, though it might be a fun little infield shuffle! We briefly touched on David Robertson, which the Yanks could probably pull off for a song, but which they probably won’t.

But did you know a different David was lurking in Joe Girardi’s bullpen at the end of last season, too, and is hitting the market at a low point? NJ.com mentioned David Phelps on Saturday in their idealized offseason writeup, and we’ve got to say, we hadn’t even considered the 34-year-old as a Luis Cessa upgrade.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1295110905450168321?s=20

With Cessa due $1 million or more in arbitration this year, maybe the Yanks would like to slightly upgrade with Phelps?

The ex-Yankees starter is now a pretty great short-term reliever, if you ignore his face plant at the tail end of 2020. After being acquired from Milwaukee, where he used a snapdragon curveball to post a 2.77 ERA, he arrived in Philly and caught whatever disease the rest of the bullpen had already come down with, ending his year with a 12.91 mark in 7.2 innings.

He’s come a long way since being dealt to the Marlins back in 2014 as a part of the Martin Prado-Nathan Eovaldi (and Domingo German!) deal, and might seriously be a borderline bargain-basement upgrade at the margins.

We hadn’t made Phelps a part of our offseason plan because we lost track of his travels, but he’s certainly evolved since his Yankees days, and likely makes more sense/can handle more innings than Robertson at this point.

Let’s make a deal.

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