3 Yankees prospects who should be trade bait ahead of 2025 deadline

For a team that enters each and every season with World Series aspirations such as the New York Yankees, it's never too early to start thinking about the trade deadline. The 2025 edition of the club has weathered the early injury storm, but that can only last for so long before reinforcements are needed.

The rotation has been in tatters since spring training, the back-end of the bullpen may need reinforcements should Devin Williams fail to turn things around, and now an already shaky infield may need additional reinforcements if Jazz Chisholm fails to heal as fast as he hopes.

Unfortunately for the Yankees, on the trade market, you need to give something to get something, and with a farm system ranked 24th in the league, that means parting with some real talent that will hurt.

The rapidly rising George Lombard Jr. is off limits as his hot start has opened the eyes of prospect evaluators and will send him flying up top prospect rankings. Beyond him, however, nearly everyone is on the table.

3 Yankees prospects who should be trade bait ahead of 2025 deadline

Spencer Jones

It's easy to salivate at the prospect of having two giants roaming the Yankee outfield for years to come, with 6-foot-7 Spencer Jones joining the 6-foot-7 Aaron Judge in a partnership of unprecedented power and physical stature.

At first glance, Jones, 24, is Judge 2.0. He possesses the same incredible raw power to go along with mind-bending speed. As an added plus, he hits from the left side, making him a tailor-made Goliath to unleash on the short porch in the Bronx.

It sounds silly to compare a prospect to the best player in baseball and one of the most unique players ever to step on a major league field, but somehow, Jones' physical traits might top Judge's. That makes it easy to dream.

As often is the case, dreams and reality are two very different things. While a common criticism of Judge as a prospect was questioning whether or not he'd ever be able to make contact at a high enough rate to become a viable major leaguer (something that sounds silly with Judge currently batting over .400), the numbers show Jones is an even greater risk.

Save for a minor-league rehab stint back in 2019, Judge's minor league strikeout rate never topped 28.5%. Jones is currently K'ing at a 34.6% rate to follow up 2024's eye-popping 36.8% rate at Double-A Somerset.

While it would seem that Jones, with eight homers in 24 games is finally tapping into his overwhelming power potential now repeating Double-A for the second straight season it's important to remember that he's about four months older on average than the competition at the level. That might not sound like much, but in prospect terms any age advantage is something to keep an eye on.

The bottom line is that Jones, who has fallen out of most top-100 prospect lists, may be a similarly freakish physical specimen to Judge, but he's nowhere near the polished prospect that Judge was at his age.

That said, as Judge annihilates baseballs, other teams will fantasize about finding their own version, giving the Yankees a pathway to capitalize and flip the talented-but-extremely-risky Jones to headline a package for an impact major league talent before the rest of the league catches on to Jones' shortcomings. He'll just need to get off the injured list soon.

Everson Pereira

Over the years, the Yankees have developed a frustrating habit of holding on to prospects until their value turns to dust. Miguel Andujar and Clint Frazier come to mind, though the most apt comparison for 24-year-old Everson Pereira is former bust Estevan Florial.

Pereira, currently the Yankees' No. 12 prospect, has already seen his stock drop after making his much-anticipated big league arrival in 2023 and promptly striking out 40 times in 103 plate appearances while batting just .151.

When he entered the organization, much like Florial, Pereira was considered to be a potential five-tool player and was regarded as one of the most well-rounded players in his international free agent class. Also, much like Florial, the strikeouts have become a problem and put a damper on his ceiling.

Still, Pereira has consistently produced at Triple-A and there's a world in which you can buy in to fixing the K rate. Last season he posted a .265/.346/.512 line with Scranton while this year he's off to a .284/.355/522 start even with strikeout rates of 32.4% and 34.2%, respectively.

He might not have as much luster as he did earlier in his career, but Pereira is still a chip that could bring something of value back to the Bronx. If he can ever fix his swing-and-miss problems, he could be a player the Bombers will regret trading. For now, the performance mixed with volatility makes him just enticing enough on the market and just palatable enough to move on from in the right deal.

Carlos Lagrange

Standing at an imposing 6-foot-7 with a fastball that can top triple digits, the once-unheralded Carlos Lagrange signed for just $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic back in 2022, but started to make a name for himself last season despite limited innings.

In addition to elite fastball velocity, Lagrange also features a cutter, changeup, and slider that at least look the part the arsenal of a rotation workhorse. The repertoire combined with the physical traits led Baseball America to rank him as one of the top pitching prospect breakout candidates for 2025.

On the flipside, Lagrange turns 22 later this month and has barely pitched for a variety of reasons since joining the organization. His control has been an issue, evidenced by his 8.16 BB/9 in five starts last season with Single-A Tampa. To his credit, that BB/9 has dropped to a much more manageable 2.75 this year in four starts with High-A Hudson Valley.

The lack of experience makes his future role hard to pin down. Is he a rotation fixture? An elite closer? Or a guy that walks the ballpark and flames out in the high minors? The jury is very much still out on his future.

What is for certain is that the prospect of him reaching his ceiling could tempt opposing clubs like a siren song come July, and the potential return he could bring as part of a trade package may outweigh the utility of gambling on him to stay healthy and reach his full potential in New York.

The Yankees need help now, and it would be worthwhile to capitalize on the buzz Lagrange is generating before he can prove that he might not be worth the hype.