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Post by kaybli on Jul 30, 2024 11:06:54 GMT -5
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Post by Rockaway Park on Jul 30, 2024 11:27:16 GMT -5
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Post by ypaterson on Jul 30, 2024 11:59:24 GMT -5
Too quiet around here. Anyone hearing rumors of a Trevor Bauer signing ?
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Post by yankeesfaninboston on Jul 30, 2024 12:07:15 GMT -5
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Post by qwik3457bb on Jul 30, 2024 12:08:29 GMT -5
I’m getting a “the prices were too high” vibe from rumors reported publicly. Now maybe the sellers’ positions will soften just before 6 pm, but considering the Soto trade and free agency....
Well maybe Cashman is thinking without Soto the prospects have to be kept for a rebuild, but he traded all the pitching depth away for him, and they might only have him this season, so I think he has to risk overpaying to take a real shot at a title run. I’d have everyone on the table except Dominguez, I wouldn’t trade him for a solid closer. I might trade him for a Skubal or a top third baseman who’s young with multiple years of control left. That’s about it.
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Post by JEGnj on Jul 30, 2024 12:10:24 GMT -5
Cashman went all in with Soto and Dugo and nothing else, now paying the price.
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Post by Max on Jul 30, 2024 12:17:22 GMT -5
Cashman went all in with Soto and Dugo and nothing else, now paying the price. The Yankees need a trade partner. Teams might be asking for too much. |
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Post by Max on Jul 30, 2024 12:18:52 GMT -5
Just my 2 cents...I have no problem if Judge was giving the Yankees front office a hint.
They need bullpen help.
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Post by Max on Jul 30, 2024 12:25:05 GMT -5
Just speculating on all the speculating.
So if some of the speculation happens... It sounds like the Yankees would have traded Cortes, Torres, Verdugo, prospects. And added Flaherty, Scott, Diaz. My guess is that Dominguez or Judge would have been the Yankees LFer.
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Post by ypaterson on Jul 30, 2024 12:26:45 GMT -5
Cashman went all in with Soto and Dugo and nothing else, now paying the price. That is true...but if he had signed Rodriguez, Giolito and Montgomery things would be just as bad. |
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Post by yankeesfaninboston on Jul 30, 2024 12:46:16 GMT -5
I know it's always pitching, pitching, pitching but I'm just emotionally scarred from the lineups we've seen over the last few years. Too much JD Davis at cleanup type of stuff. And I'm looking at next year where only 5 guys out of 9 lineup spots - Judge, Volpe, Stanton, Chisholm, Wells - are under contract as actual everyday player caliber guys. And Volpe is a below league average hitter, Chisholm's history isn't much more than league average, Stanton posts decent final lines because of the HRs but is tough to watch in the rest of the ABs, and IDK but I'm still not sold on Wells 100% yet (at least not as a real quality middle of the order bat). Dominguez is the only guy coming up soon in the pipeline that I really respect as having everyday potential.
I don't trust Hal to spend to keep Soto and even if he does, I assume he'll tighten the purse strings on the rest of the roster which would mean bottom 3rd of the lineup consistently being filled out with washed up/flat out bad options like DJ, Cabrera, Grisham, etc. Yuck!!!
I'd really, really feel much more secure this year and long term if the team went out and got some guys like Yandy Diaz and Luis Rengifo. Even if it means moving out FA-to-be guys like Torres and/or Verdugo. It'd be some improvement this year based on the play of these guys so far, and longer term I'd sleep better knowing we can fill the lineup card with real talent this year and into the near future. So I'm hoping that we can still add a couple of bats and solidify the lineup.
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Post by Max on Jul 30, 2024 13:08:58 GMT -5
Cashman went all in with Soto and Dugo and nothing else, now paying the price. That is true...but if he had signed Rodriguez, Giolito and Montgomery things would be just as bad. Monty had another bad start yesterday. |
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Post by fwclipper51 on Jul 30, 2024 13:21:33 GMT -5
From MLB Rumors
Yankees To Acquire Mark Leiter Jr.
By Darragh McDonald | July 30, 2024 at 1:05pm CDT
The Yankees have a deal in place to acquire right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. from the Cubs, according to Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN on X. In return, the Cubs will receive INF Ben Cowles and right-hander Jack Neely. Rob Zamparelli has previously relayed on X that Leiter was headed to the Yankees.
Leiter, now 33, has been great for the Cubs over the past few years after a late-bloomer trajectory. The son of Mark Leiter and nephew of Al Leiter, the younger Mark made it to the big leagues by 2017 but didn’t impress in his first tastes of the show. By the end of 2018, he had a 5.53 earned run average in 114 big league innings. He then required Tommy John surgery early in 2019 and was on the shelf for an extended period of time. He signed a minor league deal with the Tigers in 2021 but didn’t get a call to the show.
A minor league deal with the Cubs going into 2022 turned into the opportunity he needed. He was selected to the big league roster by mid-April that year and eventually tossed 65 2/3 innings for the Cubs with a 3.99 ERA. He struck out 25.9% of batters faced while giving out walks at an 8.9% clip and kept the ball on the ground at a 48.9% rate.
Despite that generally strong work, he was nudged off the club’s roster in January of 2023. He had exhausted his final option year and so the Cubs designated him for assignment, with all 29 clubs passing on the chance to grab him off waivers. He elected free agency but re-signed with the Cubs on a minor league deal prior to the next season.
He was added back to the roster for Opening Day and has been a key part of the Chicago bullpen since then. Going back to the start of 2023, he has a 3.75 ERA in 100 2/3 innings. His strikeout rate is up to 30.9% in that time while he still has decent walk and ground ball rates of 8.8% and 47.1% respectively.
This year’s 4.21 ERA doesn’t look pretty but that’s mostly due to a tiny strand rate of 55%, well below the 71.9% league average. Since he’s striking out 34.9% of batters faced and also getting grounders at a 50.6% clip, his 2.11 FIP and 2.42 SIERA suggest he’s been about 2 runs better than his ERA would have you believe.
The Cubs have been balancing present and future needs at this deadline. Just over a week ago, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said that the club would be prioritizing “2025 and beyond” in their transactions. That didn’t necessarily point to a deadline selloff, as the club then went out and acquired Isaac Paredes from the Rays and Nate Pearson from the Blue Jays, with both of those players having multiple years of control.
But there were also some rumors that they might make some pitching available and there’s a logic to Leiter being moved out. Due to his unusual trajectory, Leiter still has a couple of years of club control remaining after this one. But given his age, the Cubs probably didn’t consider him a core piece of their future-focused agenda and made him available.
Those circumstances are likely also why the win-now Yankees wanted to get him. He only just qualified for arbitration for the first time coming into this season and is making $1.5MM, not much above this year’s $740K league minimum. The Yankees are slated to pay the competitive balance tax for a third straight year and finish well above the top tier. That means they face a 110% tax rate for any new spending, so Leiter’s minimal salary fits in nicely for them, and they can keep him around for two more years beyond this one.
More to come.
Yankees Interested In Luis Rengifo, Kyle Finnegan, Lucas Erceg
By Darragh McDonald | July 30, 2024 at 11:53am CDT
11:53am: Jorge Castillo of ESPN reports that the Yanks are more focused on pitching an acquiring Diaz is unlikely, which could perhaps apply to Rengifo as well.
11:49am: The trade deadline is just a few hours away now but teams are still scouring the market for upgrades. Per Jon Heyman of The New York Post on X, the Yankees have infielders Yandy Díaz and Luis Rengifo on their radar, as well as relievers Tanner Scott, Pete Fairbanks, Kyle Finnegan and Lucas Erceg. He adds that they could also look to add a starting pitching but might not meet the asking prices.
Some of those guys have already been connected to the Yankees in rumors. The connections with Rengifo, Finnegan and Erceg are new but also in line with their previously-reported pursuits. Even after adding Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the roster, they have seemingly still been looking for more infield help, which Rengifo could certainly help with.
The 27-year-old is in his 3rd straight above-average offensive season. Since the start of the 2022 campaign, he’s hit .272/.323/.433 for a wRC+ of 110. He’s also stolen 35 bases in that time while bouncing to all 3 outfield spots and 3 infield positions to the left of 1st base. He’s not considered a strong defender at any 1 position but the ability to move all around is certainly attractive.
The Yankees are still trying to figure out their best alignment at the moment. Chisholm’s 1st game as a Yankee was in center field, where he has been spending most of his time in recent years. But then the Yanks moved him to 3rd base last night, a position he had never played before. Now that Giancarlo Stanton is back and in the DH slot, Aaron Judge moved to center field, flanked by Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo. Acquiring another infielder could result in Chisholm moving to second and bumping out Gleyber Torres, or perhaps Verdugo will get nudged out of the outfield mix.
Rengifo is making a modest $4.4MM this year, with roughly $1.5MM left to be paid out. That’s likely attractive to the Yankees as they are slated to be a 3rd-time payor of the competitive balance tax and well above the top tier, meaning they will pay a 110% tax on anything they add to the ledger. He can also be retained via arbitration for 2025 and could perhaps slide into next year’s 2nd base job with Torres slated for free agency after the current season. Verdugo is also an impending free agent, so perhaps Chisholm could be in the outfield with Rengifo on the infield. There’s also the looming Soto free agency to consider, though the Yankees are expected to be aggressive in trying to re-sign him. Rengifo has also been connected to clubs such as the Red Sox, Dodgers and Royals in recent weeks.
The extra year of control means that the Angels don’t have to move on from Rengifo but there would be logic in doing so as they haven’t been meaningfully competitive for quite some time. Now that Shohei Ohtani is gone and Mike Trout is having annual trouble staying on the field, the odds of them turning things around between now and the end of 2025 seem long.
Bullpen adds are generally on the radar of all contending teams and the Yankees are surely exploring all options there. Finnegan has been the Nationals’ closer for quite some time but is nearing the end of his window of club control, with 1 year remaining after this one. The Nats have already traded Hunter Harvey and Lane Thomas, 2 players that were also controllable through 2025, and Finnegan seems likely to move today as well.
He has a career 3.52 ERA in 272 appearances. He has struck out 23.9% of batters faced, given out walks at a 9.4% rate and kept the ball on the ground at a 46.8% clip. That includes racking up 28 saves this year with a 3.48 ERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate and 40.5% ground ball rate. He’s making $5.1MM this year.
Erceg can still be retained by the Athletics for 5 seasons beyond this one, but he’s a late bloomer who is now 29 years old despite his limited experience, which could tempt them to sell high. He has a 3.68 ERA this year, 26.3% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 50.5% ground ball rate. The fact that he’s pre-arbitration and therefore making a modest salary is surely appealing to the Yankees but the cost might be high. Even rental relievers are netting big returns at this year’s deadline so getting Erceg might take an uncomfortable haul.
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Post by qwik3457bb on Jul 30, 2024 13:22:35 GMT -5
Yanks traded for an OK reliever in the Cubs' Mark Leiter. He's not a closer or the Cubs, who have gone through multiple options at that spot recently, would've given him a longer look. He has pitched much better than his ERA, which is one of the things analysts look for, and while his strand rate is very low this year, a red flag for pitching in high leverage, his rate of inherited runners scoring is also very low, just 3 of 21, 14%, well below the MLB average of 33% this season. The ERA simulators think his ERA should be 1-2 runs lower than the current 4.21.
He was hit hard in June, basically ruining his season's numbers, giving up 8 earned runs over 4 consecutive appearances and 3 1/3 innings the last two weekes that month. but he's been almost literally perfect in 7 games since then: 7 games, 7 2/3 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 BB and 14 K's. I hope he can stay hot with the Yanks. The trade should help the pen, but I don't think he's the closer they're looking for. Stranger things have happened.
Infielder Ben Cowles and right-handed pitcher Jack Neely were the prospects sent to the Cubs. Cowles is a 24 year old middle infielder having a very good year in AA, plays 2nd and SS, batting .294 with medium power and a good walk rate, but also a pretty high K rate. He wasn't in the Yanks top 37 prospects on The Board at Fangraphs. Neely is a 24 year old right handed reliever who pitched well at AA and AAA this year, the Cubs might call him up to replace Leiter later this season. He was not in the top 37 either, but was mentioned in last year's prospects with as "depth reliever" and Longerhagen said at the time: "Neely has a plus slider and sits 93-94; that’s a little less velo than is ideal given his lack of command.". HIs K rates in the minors have always been huge, but his BB rates have been somewhat high as well. Apparently, the slider is a wipeout slider, but I haven't seen him pitch, maybe someone who has can add some detail.
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Post by ypaterson on Jul 30, 2024 13:34:10 GMT -5
That is true...but if he had signed Rodriguez, Giolito and Montgomery things would be just as bad. Monty had another bad start yesterday. I don't like trading pitching for position players, even for Juan Soto. The problem is finding good, healthy ptichers is a gamble. |
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