Yankees: Does agent change make Miguel Andújar trade more likely?

Will the Yankees and Miguel Andújar end up examining the trade market now that he’s switched agents?

Ever since his mistimed slide into third base at the frigid-cold start of the 2019 MLB season, Yankees third baseman Miguel Andújar has seemed out of place in pinstripes.

If you’d told me that he’d fall out of favor so quickly after his remarkably clutch offensive explosion in 2018, I wouldn’t have believed you. But the baseball world moves fast, and the surgical procedure that rejuvenated his helicopter swing in May of that year quickly led to him being usurped by Gio Urshela, who brought a similarly potent bat and a glove Andújar couldn’t rival in his wildest dreams.

And so, it’s come to this.

Andújar enters the 2021 season still Yankees property. He’s a devalued trade target, and he already started that discussion in a strange place, given how prominent his defensive shortcomings were in ’18. It seemed possible/likely that no team would value him as highly as New York did … until his value here plummeted.

So what are the odds Andújar plays 2021 in another uniform? After he switched back to his old agency on Tuesday, they likely grew slightly higher.

Keep in mind at the tail end of 2020, Andújar’s now-ex-agent beefed with the Yankees front office, raising a stink about the third baseman ending up at the Alternate Site just as it seemed like he was finding his swing.

It was an unfortunate personnel move, sure. But it was also business.

Perhaps Andújar wants to patch things up with the front office to make their relationship in 2021 less frosty. And perhaps he wants to get that done so that trade demands don’t fall on deaf ears. His future in the Bronx is certainly uncertain, no matter who his representation is.

Oh, yeah, and there is one more thing — Andújar’s new agent also represents the other Yankee who has the most to gain or lose from 2021.

Two Yankees wild cards being managed under the same roof?

Regardless of the outcome, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner had better get used to hearing the name “Francis Marquez” ringing in their ears.

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