Brian Cashman returns serve against Chaim Bloom with latest waiver claim

MLB opening day is right around the corner, but the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox rivalry is already in mid-season form. Of course, the rivalry has been budding all offseason in preparation for 2022 with both teams reportedly pursuing some of the same marquee free agents.

This culminated with the Red Sox winning the Trevor Story sweepstakes and former Boston infielder Will Middlebrooks slandering New York and other competing clubs in the name of swaying Story’s decision.

Additionally, the Red Sox have been famous for signing and drafting former Yankees prospects.

From right-hander Garrett Whitlock, who stings the most given the success he enjoyed as a rookie in 2021, to outfielders Rob Refsnyder, and Tim Locastro, Chaim Bloom seemingly loves stirring the pot with New York.

Never one to back down from a fight, though, Brian Cashman returned serve against Boston’s chief baseball officer by claiming outfield prospect Jeisson Rosario off waivers from the Red Sox on Saturday.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman fired back at Chaim Bloom by claiming Jeisson Rosario off waivers from the Red Sox.

Is this a huge deal? In the grand scheme of things, probably not, but it’s still satisfying to see the Yankees poach a Red Sox prospect. Since Bloom was hired by Boston in 2019 to replace Dave Dombrowski as the club’s head of baseball operations, he’s seemingly gone out of his way to dip into the Yankees’ prospect pool.

The 22-year-old Rosario has had an up-and-down minor league career thus far. He was acquired from San Diego in the 2020 trade that shipped Mitch Moreland to the Padres and has since split time between Rookie Ball, Single-A, Double-A and the Puerto Rican Winter League over the last four seasons.

In 2021, Rosario hit .232/.335/.307 with three home runs, 15 doubles, 36 RBI and a .642 OPS over 98 games at Double-A Portland.

With the Red Sox’ 40-man roster stacked with outfielders and the club having a handful of promising prospects coming through the pipeline, Rosario became expendable and got DFA’d after Boston announced the Story signing.

For the Yankees, Rosario could add some needed insurance to the outfield rotation in the minor leagues, with so many guys such as Jasson Dominguez, Everson Pereira, Brandon Lockridge and Elijah Dunham expected to rocket up the ranks. As of now, at the major league level, with a Brett Gardner reunion looking highly unlikely as the weeks go by, Locastro and Ender Inciarte seem like the top candidates to win the fifth spot behind Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks and Joey Gallo.

With Estevan Florial and Miguel Andújar also waiting in the wings, the best-case scenario for Rosario would be to hit the ground running at Double-A and get promoted Triple-A Scranton for the first time in his young career.

It’s not a ground-breaking move by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ll welcome any opportunity for Cashman to fire back at Bloom.

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