The New York Yankees made two trades on Monday night that have had a polarizing reaction from the fans.
The first of them is the more polarizing part of the trade. The Yankees traded relief pitcher Adam Warren to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for more international bonus pool money.
The Yankees have now maxed out on acquired bonus pool money between the Warren trade, the Shreve/Gallegos trade, and the Frare to the White Sox trade.
I’m still pretty surprised at this one. While the bullpen is certainly a position of strength for the Yankees, it’s weird, to me, that they would move someone from that position of strength as the biggest player in the deal in either direction while they are in a pennant race. Warren, while his July hasn’t been great, has overall good numbers.
Here are Warren’s stats in 24 appearances: 30.0 innings, 2.70 ERA, .227 BAA, 3.6 BB/9, and a career-high 11.1 K/9 (28.9 K%). His walks and hits are up, but so are strikeouts. He’s basically been the same as always for the Yankees, which is a very good back-end reliever.
Warren’s departure is also surprising because they had just upgraded the bullpen further by adding Zach Britton, but Shreve was the odd man out when he was traded, so it seemed everyone else’s job was safe.
Perhaps Tommy Kahnle is close to being ready to come back up to the big leagues, and I love that crazy person, Kahnle, so if he’s coming back up then I am pretty cool with all of this. Kahnle was a monster in the playoffs.
There was a report before the Warren news broke that Tyler Austin had been taken out of his minor league game after the first inning. There was speculation of a trade, of course, but after Warren was moved there was the thought that perhaps Austin could be getting the call-up to take the backup DH/1B/Corner OF role that the Yanks have wanted to fill since Aaron Judge went down.
After making the Warren trade, there was a report that the Yankees were closing in on a relief pitcher and outfielder, dispelling any rumors of an Austin call-up. Austin was going to be traded.
Then the announcement came the Austin and a lower level prospect had been traded to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for RHP Lance Lynn.
Lynn was a free agent pitcher over the winter that the Yankees had some interest in bringing in. They ultimately didn’t do it, and he signed with the Twins.
Lynn’s overall numbers are ugly. In 20 starts he has pitched 102.1 innings of 5.10 ERA-baseball, with 9.2 hits/9 and 5.5 BB/9. Strikeouts are up, overall, from last year, though.
The thing about the numbers are that they aren’t completely representative of Lynn’s season, and it seemed like the fans all realized that together. Lynn signed so late in the offseason that he didn’t have a real spring training. If you take out April and the one horrible start on July 1 against the Cubs, Lynn has a 2.81 ERA in 77 innings. Much better!
Lynn seems to be sliding into the Adam Warren role, for now,, and will certainly be in that spot come playoff time. I would guess that he will get plenty of spot starts as the sixth starter, since the Yankees will want to get guys extra rest as they monitor Luis Severino’s innings as a 24-year-old, keep an eye on CC Sabathia’s workload, and acknowledge the pattern of success Masahiro Tanaka has had on extra days of rest. Lynn will get some starts.
The Twins will be paying about half of what is remaining on Lynn’s deal, making the pair of moves essentially a wash, financially. They don’t lose any space before the luxury tax threshold and they get extra bonus pool money for an upgrade at the pitching position. It’s a marginal upgrade, but it is an upgrade. As much as I like Warren and think he is valuable, this move makes a lot of sense for the Yankees, so I trust Brian Cashman once again.
Featured Image via Flickr/Keith Allison
