Yankees: Luis Medina disappearance causes trade deadline panic

The New York Yankees are bound to make some trades headed into the deadline whether they should be buyers or not.

Of course, that means it’s time to reckon with our greatest paradoxical fear: everybody wants established stars, but everybody also loves their prospects, leading to a series of emotional #HugWatches every summer.

On Thursday, we were all treated to some momentary panic regarding one of the Yankees’ prime candidates to be traded: electric righty Luis Medina, who recently showed off his stuff in the Futures Game.

He’s extremely talented, routinely hitting 100+ with his nasty fastball. On the downside, though, he’s been quite erratic until 2021, meaning this could be a rare opportunity to sell an unfinished package high.

On Thursday, Medina was scheduled to start for Double-A Somerset, a team for which he hasn’t quite been performing up to his own personal expectations (4.88 ERA in five starts).

Unfortunately, he disappeared before he could get on the mound, and all we knew was that he wasn’t placed on the IL. So…what was it? Who’d the Yankees trade him for? Why don’t we know more information?!

According to Lindsey Adler’s research about 40 minutes later, no dice. No trade. Not yet. So what happened?!

Yankees fans panicked about Luis Medina’s disappearance.

This might not be the end of the chatter surrounding Medina; if the Yankees are going to outbid the Padres for Joey Gallo, such a deal would almost certainly include the hard-throwing righty. Though the rumors we’ve seen haven’t included his name, it’d also be hard to believe the Rockies wouldn’t be intrigued in a Trevor Story deal.

Though it might not seem like it at the moment, the Yankees’ farm system is actually quite fertile, and genuine prospects at every level appear to be reaching their ceilings. Beyond Medina, the minor-league pitching market includes the excelling Luis Gil, Glenn Otto and Ken Waldichuk, as well as Janson Junk, who isn’t as vaunted, but is leading all of MiLB in ERA. On offense, you can’t name the studs on two hands, though Anthony Volpe, Donny Sands, Trevor Hauver and Austin Wells have certainly raised their profiles.

The ending to this Medina story is still unwritten, but he did appear just before first pitch in Somerset, NJ on Thursday evening.

Will he be traded? Can’t say, at this point. Rumor has it he won’t pitch through the weekend, which would suggest he’s still being held back.

As of Thursday, though, the resolution to this story involves a guy peering out of the dugout and casually asking, “What’s up?”

Not satisfying.

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