NY fans want Yankees to clean up Dodgers' roster again after Yamamoto signing

Less than three short weeks ago, the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers opted to tango in the wake of Shohei Ohtani's cataclysmic signing in Hollywood.

While The Great Ohtani never considered the Yankees -- or New York in any capacity -- Brian Cashman still managed to pique the Dodgers' interest in the wake of the 10-year, $700 million (kinda) deal, helping LA make things official by sending non-40-man top prospect Trey Sweeney their way.

In turn, the Dodgers cleared a pair of 40-man spots, mailing top-10 prospect Jorbit Vivas to the Bombers, in addition to 2020 World Series hero Victor González.

But things could've ended up slightly differently, and a different fringe left-hander logically could've been included in the deal if the Yankees hadn't been willing to surrender a top name in Sweeney: Bryan Hudson, who just found himself DFA'd in the wake of the Yoshinobu Yamamoto deal.

Could Yankees leap line and add DFA'd Dodgers lefty Bryan Hudson?

While the Yankees would very obviously rather have Yamamoto (not to mention Ohtani), fans began begging almost immediately for New York to take a flyer on the 6'8" Hudson, another controllable reliever with command problems and swing-and-miss stuff. He's half-baked, but he could be full-Blake'd by the end of 2024, if you know what we mean.

Hudson might just be a super-tall pipe dream spoon-feeding hope to the desperate, but there's certainly a chance everything clicks after a long wait.

Still just 26 years old, Hudson whiffed a remarkable 86 men in 55.1 Triple-A innings last season. Something appears to have clicked in the Swing-And-Miss Department since 2021 -- but doesn't that always seem to happen in Los Angeles' lab? Hudson was once upon a time a Cub, and as a starter, he struck out only 78 men in 113 innings in the Carolina League in 2018. That ticked up to about one K per inning until the lefty made a leap commensurate with his height in 2022 (76 in 59 innings), which he improved upon further last summer.

Warts, though? He's got 'em. He walked 26 men last season and posted an uninspiring 1.31 WHIP. He was surprisingly hittable in a big-league cameo, allowing 12 in 8.2 innings across six games. Given the choice between Hudson and González, you'd probably pick the known commodity 10 out of 10 times, but luckily, the Yankees now have a chance to obtain both, a notion that hasn't escaped their fans.

Hudson might be a lanky lefty who never nips the corners and becomes too hittable when exposed to big-league offenses. He also might be a whiff-inducing left-handed swingman, the reverse of Cody Morris.

The Yankees can offer a PTBNL if they want to leap the line here.