Yankees: 3 MLB trade deadline chips plummeting in value

2. Miguel Andújar

Remember when the season almost made sense again for two seconds in the middle of June when Gerrit Cole was shoving on the road in Minnesota and Miguel Andújar was helicoptering baseballs into the night? Good times. Aroldis Chapman railroaded that era of good feelings, and everything’s been in bits and pieces fairly consistently ever since.

At one point, Andújar was actually finding his bat, which would’ve been a nice change of pace. With great lineup shakeups comes great responsibility, though, and soon the third baseman-turned-left fielder (?) found himself slumping again, then nursing a hand injury. It’s hard for his trade value to be any lower than it was while he was buried at the Alternate Site in 2020, but there’s certainly no team that will surrender high-profile assets for his bat or accept him as the MLB-ready piece of a trade package at this point.

No, not even the Indians.

The Yankees can sell Andújar as a left fielder as much as they want, but that still doesn’t make it true (though his instincts seem better than Frazier’s). They can sell him as an offensive weapon/doubles machine ready to break out again, but we’re not sure that’s true, either; he’s hitting .253/.284/.383, and his 83 OPS+ is a far cry from his 2018 career-high mark of 130.

2018 was a wonderful time (well … not really, the Red Sox won the World Series), and there were rumors at the end of that season that Andújar was on the market even then on account of his defensive deficiencies. We poo-pooh’ed it, but since that moment, he’s been either slumping, buried, or injured.

Joke’s on us.