How about a little trade deadline edition of the Friday Five?
The Yankees acquired Anthony Rizzo, Joey Gallo, and Andrew Heaney (as well as two others) ahead of Friday’s MLB Trade Deadline, and shortly after the 4 p.m. deadline passed, Yankees GM Brian Cashman spoke with the media about the frenzy that was the final week of July.
Here, then, are five quotes from Cashman about those three newcomers:
ON CHASING JOEY GALLO: “Gallo, I’ve been trying to get for quite some time. I thought we were close in spring training in March to Gallo. Didn’t happen, so he’s been someone we’ve been checking in on and trying to acquire for quite some time, because we thought it’d be a nice fit. At the end of spring training, I thought we were getting close to a deal with those guys, and it didn’t materialize. So we’ve stayed in touch throughout the whole season with them, and finally we were able to get him here at the trade deadline.”
ON WHY GALLO FITS: "Left-handed bat, even though in terms of evaluating Gallo, we always felt that he would fit really nice here at Yankee Stadium. Very athletic, can play a lot of different positions, left-handed bat to give us balance, so he’s been someone we’ve always been trying to check on.”
ON THE MOVE TO ACQUIRE ANTHONY RIZZO: "Rizzo obviously developed here in the more recent circumstances – within the last week. I can’t tell you at what point I checked in with Jed Hoyer, but as we were circling through all available players. The Cubs were willing to pay the salary, so it just came down to if we could tolerate the prospect value. We had to determine whether it was something that improved us – we felt without a doubt it would – and then, even though we have the position filled, is that something we should walk away from. The answer to that was no. We’re excited to have Rizzo.”
ON RIZZO’S FIT WITH LUKE VOIT RETURNING: “Luke is coming back but he’s been hurt all year, so we just felt this was an opportunity that made a lot of sense for us and we could make it work if we found the right player package that we could live with. We’re sorry about the way Voit’s season has gone so far, but we have a two-month sprint now to try to push ourselves into the postseason and take a shot at the ultimate prize, and we felt this enhances those opportunities for us.”
ON ANDREW HEANEY’S ROLE: “He’ll go into our rotation for now, and it'll be up to Aaron Boone and Matt Blake where to slot him in – he pitched July 28, so his next Angels day would be Monday. Adding depth to our rotation for the two-month sprint, because now, we’re in the penalty box with all teams where you can’t add anything but what you have from within. We have Luis Severino coming, we have Corey Kluber coming, and those are great positive opportunities, but there’s no guarantee over the next coming weeks or months who will be standing by the time it’s said and done, so we’re just adding to that list of choices. Every inning’s important the rest of the way, so we felt like the cost of acquisition we made was tolerable, and it was in our best interest to do so.”
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