Ranking Brian Cashman's worst pitching trades for Yankees

2010: Mark Melancon

Yes, Mark Melancon was a Yankee! The Yankees drafted him in 2006 and then traded him to the Houston Astros (alongside Jimmy Paredes) in the Lance Berkman deal in 2010. This one's different because it's Cashman trading a pitcher away, but the point still stands! He seemingly can't do this! So how did that one turn out?

Melancon immediately delivered for the Astros (classsssic) by going 10-4 with a 2.85 ERA, 3.24 FIP, 1.21 WHIP, 85 strikeouts and 20 saves across 91.1 innings between 2010 and 2011. A brief and horrible layover in Boston in 2012 took him off course for a moment, but then he found his stroke in 2013.

He spent four years with the Pittsburgh Pirates and earned three All-Star nods and racked up 130 saves, all the while maintaining a 1.80 ERA and 0.93 WHIP. He fell off a bit when he left the Pirates. From 2017-2019, he spent time with the Giants and Braves, but couldn't maintain his dominance. Then, in the shortened 2020, he got back on track with Atlanta before leading the league in saves with the Padres in 2021. He came crashing back down to earth with Arizona in 2022, but the Yankees could've had a lengthy, successful career from a back end reliever instead of 37 games of Berkman, who suffered an ankle injury after the acquisition and also injured Alex Rodriguez by rocketing a line drive off his ankle. Epic.