The Yankees made eight trades in the few days leading up to the MLB trade deadline, including five on Thursday alone, acquiring seven new major-leaguers while also giving up almost two dozen prospects (and one major-leaguer in Oswald Peraza).
As GM Brian Cashman has been wont to say in the past, though, prospects are suspects until proven otherwise, and at this trade deadline, that small roster was one he was willing to give up – as tough as some of them were – to get the players he needed and wanted to supplement the big-league Yankees.
“We’ve improved the team we believe. We tried to address the areas of need – we added to the bullpen, and improved our position player group to give our manager more choices to play matchups,” Cashman said in a post-deadline conference call. “We’ve addressed a lot of areas of need to try to give us the best shot we can take. I think we’ve had a good team, and you can have a good team that’s not playing well. I do believe that team was good and can do good things, and it was our job to try to find a way to improve upon it.”
Perhaps the biggest thing for the future is that, in addition to acquiring a handful of players who are under team control beyond this season, they surrendered less than a third of their Top 30 prospects per MLB.com – and none in the Top 5, which includes Spencer Jones, George Lombard, and RHP Carlos Lagrange.
They did, however, decimate their catching depth, trading Rafael Flores, Jesus Rodriguez, and Edgleen Perez, but, as Cash noted, you have to give to get.
“I think like anybody, we try to protect and stay away from some to the degree you can. Some guys are more touchable than others, but there’s a lot of guys we like, and we parted with a lot of guys we like, too,” Cashman said. “Trying to stay away from some guys more than others, but recognize you have to give to get. The deadline forces teams to make a lot of decisions, but we will have a shot to defend the AL title, so we tried to make every decision based on that.”
In the end, the roster will come together at some point during this weekend’s series in Miami – Jose Caballero just had to switch clubhouses, and Camilo Doval is in New York as the Giants will play the Mets this weekend, but the other acquisitions are TBD – and once they do, a team that was already good (even if slumping lately) has gotten a lot better, and now, it’s time for the players to show that the moves were the right ones.
“I haven’t seen what anyone else has done, but I know we improved ourselves. I have great people behind me advising me, and you get after it and prepare for whatever’s gonna come your way,” Cashman said. “There will be twists and turns you don’t expect, but I feel like we were buttoned up and prepared and hopeful to execute things, and now it’s time to test that theory with the group we have. Looking forward to these players competing against some high-end teams, and see where it plays.”
And in the end, there’s only one thing Cashman could say about his deadline spree:
“I know we’re better today than we were yesterday, so mission accomplished there.”