Yankees strike bizarre, expensive trade with Marlins for former first-round pick

Edward Cabrera? Not quite. The Chicago Cubs already got him in a trade with the Miami Marlins. Ok, well what about Sandy Alcantara? Eury Perez?

How about double no? New York Yankees fans, you will take your dose of Ryan Weathers in 2026 and you will like it.

The Yanks acquired Weathers from the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night in exchange for FOUR minor league players. Four! Weathers, a left-hander, made just eight starts last year and has appeared in only 40 games since the start of 2022.

Not to mention, he dealt with a forearm strain to open the 2025 season and was then sidelined with a lat injury later on. And whatever he was able to showcase apparently cost the Yankees these prospects: outfielder Brendan Jones No. 15), outfielder Dillon Lewis (No. 16), infielder Dillon Jasso (No. 23) and infielder Juan Matheus (unranked). Thats right, two Dillons in the same deal!

So what does Weathers have that the Yankees front office values? Why ... team control, that is! He's not a free agent until 2029 and is making just $1.35 million in 2026. We suppose it's nice for pitching depth, but at this point Weathers seems like a poor man's Ryan Yarbrough given what he's been able to provide to date.

The former San Diego Padres' first-round draft pick from 2018 seemingly has some promising upside, but it's never been realized beyond short spurts. The Pads eventually grew frustrated with the injuries and inconsistency, which prompted them to trade him to Miami in 2023.

Yankees trade for Marlins starter Ryan Weathers and fans are on verge of surrendering

With all of the rumors surrounding Freddy Peralta and Cody Bellinger, this certainly wasn't the news Yankees fans wanted to hear. And they definitely didn't want to learn that the trade market for starting pitchers was this expensive. Perhaps it was understandable for guys like Shane Baz and Mike Burrows, to an extent, given their youth and much higher ceiling ... but for someone like Weathers? Who debuted in the bigs in 2021 and whose best campaign to date is a 3.63 ERA, 4.11 FIP and 1.18 WHIP in 16 starts in 2024? Don't know about that.

Unless the Yankees plan on strictly turning him into a reliever, this raises questions about their plans for the rotation in the early going of 2026. Is Weathers going to be last year's Yarbrough, popping in for random spot starts to keep the train rolling? Or is he going to battle for a full-time spot in spring training while the team waits for Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón to return?

That's not necessarily a bad plan, but it was seemingly being sold to fans that the addition of someone like Peralta's caliber would just push others like Yarbrough, Will Warren and Luis Gil down the line to pave the way for a better, more elite option. Instead, Weathers seems to be pushing all of them up a step, placing more emphasis on that group.

Could Weathers be an asset? Maybe. But it's not going to be viewed that way under these questionable and incomplete circumstances. And if the Yankees could've better packaged the aforementioned prospects in a different trade for a more proven commodity, that's not going to sit well with anybody. Just think about how silly trading top-10 prospect Roc Riggio for Rockies reliever Jake Bird looks right about now.

Weathers' father, David, played for the Yankees in 1996 and 1997. He was a key bullpen piece on the 1996 World Series team. Seems like it's time for Ryan to give pops a call and get ready to carve out an important role in the 2026 roster.