Yankees truly blew it after details of Padres-Cubs Yu Darvish trade surface

Why couldn’t the Yankees pay a small price for Yu Darvish?

When New York Yankees fans watched the Tampa Bay Rays trade Blake Snell to the San Diego Padres on Sunday night, the American League looked that much more wide open. The Rays lost two-thirds of their starting rotation, which was largely responsible for their World Series run in 2020.

But the Rays deciding to cut bait with their best players, while very satisfying, shouldn’t define what the Yankees do. New York needs to make additions regardless if the immediate competition around them is getting worse. General manager Brian Cashman is on his own quest, which shouldn’t be affected by any outside factors.

That’s why we’re all scratching our heads after the Padres turned around hours after making the Snell deal and traded for Chicago Cubs starter Yu Darvish. How can a team like the Padres afford to continue to add to their payroll while teams like the Yankees (and Cubs) continue to fret about finances? And when you look at the return for Darvish, it’s clear the Yankees should’ve tossed their hat in the ring.

OK, inheriting $59 million across three years for Darvish certainly isn’t cheap, but the Pads surrendered a mediocre MLB pitcher and four young prospects outside of their top 10. Nos. 11, 13, 15 and 16 went to Chicago and three of them were 18 years old or younger. If you’re looking to contend for a World Series immediately, players of that age don’t matter.

The Yankees have a stacked farm system. This deal could’ve been done in minutes if they got on the horn. This would’ve been the equivalent of trading Luis Medina, Kevin Alcantara, Miguel Yajure and Anthony Seigler. One could argue those prospects are even better than what the Padres coughed up, so perhaps the Yankees could’ve given up a few lower on the totem pole or just fewer in totality.

What did the deals with Snell and Darvish prove most of all, though? That teams are willing to take a lot less to sell off debt.

Padres general manager AJ Preller gave up ONE top-100 prospect in exchange for two of the top starting pitchers in the game. San Diego has five prospects in the top 100. The Yankees have three, and it’s fair to say that Jasson Dominguez, Clarke Schmidt and Deivi Garcia wouldn’t have been involved in any of those deals.

Snell was never coming to the Bronx, we knew that. But a resurgent Darvish who’s past his elbow issues, has clearly returned to his ace-like form, and knows what it’s like to pitch under constant pressure? That could’ve gone a long way for the Bombers and we’re sure they could’ve gotten salary relief if they gave up some better prospects.

Once again, it feels as if the Yankees are being reactive rather than proactive, and it’s not comforting to watch.

Blake Snell trade latest evidence Rays are bad for baseball

The Tampa Bay Rays continue to ruin the American baseball player by trading Blake Snell. Just because it's good business does not mean it's good baseball.