Yankees: 3 rental trade candidates Brian Cashman should avoid

The jury might still be out on the New York Yankees well into August. There’s just no telling what the 2021 iteration of this team is truly capable of.

We might sit here and call their first half of 2021 a “rollercoaster” — and in a sense it was. But beyond that, it was a bad three-plus months of baseball given the assortment of talent on the roster. There’s no excuse for a 46-43 record heading into the All-Star break when you have names like Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres, and more.

Fans could trace back the issues with this team to general manager Brian Cashman, who assembled a righty-heavy lineup, offered contract extensions to players far too early (when the team famously doesn’t offer extensions before a player’s contract year), and passed up on countless preferable free agents/trade targets over the last seven or so years.

Face it: the Yankees, for their standards, have been pretty damn bad since 2013. They’ve been punked by every hateable team. Their trash talk always backfires. They’ve gotten far too few “big game” performances from their top guys.

What’re we trying to say here? OK, we’ll spit it out. The Yankees needed a convincing stretch before the All-Star break and after it to justify the front office going out and making blockbuster moves to help restore order and make the Bombers World Series contenders. Despite the series win over the Red Sox this weekend to bring New York to 48-44, it’s clear the problems with this roster run much deeper than whatever disgusting voodoo has plagued them so far.

In summation, making blockbuster rental acquisitions ahead of the July 31 trade deadline is NOT the answer. Making moves for 2022 and beyond should certainly be the philosophy. There’s no sense in attempting to go for it all in a year in which hardly anything has gone your way.

The Yankees need to avoid trading for these three rental candidates at the deadline.

3. Jon Gray

The Yankees do need starting pitching help. What they don’t need, however, is an expensive rental who may or may not be able to move the needle. If they’re dipping into the rental waters to fortify this area of the roster, it needs to be for a Max Scherzer type.

That’s nothing against Jon Gray, however, who could be cooking up a career year with the Colorado Rockies. That’s great timing for the right-hander ahead of free agency, but not for the Yankees, who are shopping for starting pitching while his trade value is at an all-time high.

Gray has a 3.68 ERA, 1.22 WHIP and 3.99 FIP across his 17 starts this year and has only allowed one home run per nine innings. His fastball is averaging a cool 95 MPH and he pairs that with a devastating slider. Both really good pitches. He mixes in a curve and a changeup as well, but much less frequently.

In 2021, he’s avoiding barrels at an incredible rate (86th percentile), is inducing soft contact (72nd percentile in hard hit %) and possesses a .223 expecting batting average against. All what you want in a starter IF you’re a bonafide contender looking for a luxury addition.

Not the Yankees! We don’t know what they are, and Gray’s career 4.48 ERA and 1.33 WHIP (though an encouraging 3.96 FIP) will not be worth the asking price, especially since the Rockies have a floundering asset in the struggling Trevor Story.

1. Kris Bryant

Man! Wouldn’t this have been nice? Assuming the 2021 Yankees weren’t decimated and underperforming like you’ve never seen before, trading for Chicago Cubs star Kris Bryant would’ve checked so many boxes.

He can play all three outfield positions as well as the corner infield positions. He has World Series experience. He’s another battle-tested slugger who can lengthen the Yankees’ once-deep lineup. The only problem is that he’s another righty, but his defensive versatility can help the front office easily overlook that.

But with Bryant approaching a free agent year and his agent being Scott Boras, what’s even the point? This trade is tailor-made for a team hoping to put itself over the top. It’s a massive “f–k you” trade to all the other contenders, especially since just about every rival executive knows the Cubs are going to try and gouge the biggest bidder in hopes of turning that package around to help their 2022 rebuild/re-tool.

Putting Bryant in left field and quelling the Yankees’ paramount defensive concerns with Clint Frazier/Miguel Andújar and sandwiching him in between a healthy Luke Voit/Gio Urshela/Gary Sanchez combo in the lineup would’ve been a dream come true for a bonafide World Series-bound Yankees team looking to stomp on the Houston Astros’ throats over the next two-plus months.

The only way this makes sense for the Yankees is if they’re willing to conduct a wild offseason overhaul and give Bryant the mammoth contract he’s likely looking for. And even then … it doesn’t really work. The Yankees don’t need a Kris Bryant to build around in the coming years. They need to trim the fat from this current group, add some starting pitchers, and diversify their lineup with some more speed and contact-heavy guys.

Cashman almost never overpays in trades, so you can likely assure he’ll at least be staying far away from Bryant, even though we wish the Yankees were 5-10 games better than they are to justify something like this.

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