It is time, once again, to go back and take a trip through the MLB Trade Rumors archives. We’re now in May 2011, so the season is well underway and teams have started to get serious about prep work leading up to the trade deadline. The Yankees lost Andy Pettitte (retirement) and Cliff Lee (signed with the Phillies) in the offseason, but did add Rafael Soriano.
The big story heading into May 2011 was CC Sabathia’s impending opt-out clause. That was a thing all season. Sabathia was still a bonafide front of the rotation workhorse at the time, and the possibility of losing him to the opt-out clause was scary, particularly after missing out on Lee. The Yankees were still looking for rotation help in May as well. Time to have some fun and dig back through old rumors.
May 1st, 2011: New York Notes: Lowe, Reyes, Mets, Ownership
The Braves could look to trade Derek Lowe even if they’re still in the playoff hunt, according to a scout who follows the team. Ken Davidoff of Newsday says the Yankees, who “negotiated seriously” with Lowe when he was a free agent, would be an obvious candidate to kick the tires on the right-hander if he’s available.
True fact: I wanted the Yankees to sign Lowe, not A.J. Burnett, during the 2008-09 offseason. Good thing that didn’t happen. Burnett at least gave the Yankees one really good year in 2009. Lowe came out of the gate with a 4.67 ERA (4.06 FIP) in the first year of his four-year, $60M deal with the Braves.
Atlanta did not trade Lowe during the 2011 season. They instead send him to the Indians in a pure salary dump trade after the season. Lowe didn’t pitch well in Cleveland in 2012 either, so they released him at midseason, at which point the Yankees picked him up off the scrap heap. He had a four-inning save in his first game in pinstripes. Remember?
11:23am: ESPN.com’s Buster Olney confirms (via Twitter) that Millwood has opted out of his contract with the Yankees.
Millwood was very weirdly a hot topic for a few weeks back in 2011. It appeared the Yankees had major rotation issues and he was a familiar name, but he was also 36 years old and coming off a season with a 5.10 ERA (4.86 FIP) for the Orioles. There’s nothing wrong with a minor league deal though, so the Yankees signed him, Millwood allowed eight runs in nine Triple-A innings, then opted out. He later spent some time in Triple-A with the Red Sox before the Rockies let him make nine starts that year. The infatuation with Millwood was always a bit odd to me.
May 3rd, 2011: Minor Deals: Halsey, Cintron
The Yankees have signed left-hander Brad Halsey to a minor league contract, according to the AP (via the Washington Post). Halsey began his MLB career with the Yankees, who drafted him in 2002, but he hasn’t appeared in a big league game since 2006. The 30-year-old has a 4.84 ERA with 5.0 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in 286 1/3 career innings for the Yankees, Diamondbacks and Athletics.
Ergh. Halsey, who the Yankees sent to the Diamondbacks in the Randy Johnson trade, had his career sabotaged by major shoulder problems. He had a 7.52 ERA in 32.1 minor league innings with the Yankees in 2011 and never pitched again after that. Halsey had drug problems throughout his career and was killed in a fall in 2014. Josh Peters wrote about Halsey’s career and off-the-field problems. Really sad stuff. He died at 33.
May 5th, 2011: Yankees Notes: Russo, Prospects, Granderson
The Yankees explored trading Kevin Russo during Spring Training, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link). Sherman notes that New York could take Russo off their 40-man roster to make room for Jorge Vazquez as a replacement for the injured Eric Chavez, though Chad Jennings of the LoHud Yankees blog believes Ramiro Pena will be called up instead.
Russo had his moments with the Yankees in 2010 (this game and this game, most notably) but there was no role for him on the 2011 team. He was a classic versatile/good stats minor leaguer who looked maybe like he could be a useful bench player, but it didn’t happen. The Yankees designated Russo for assignment literally the day after Sherman’s report, and he later cleared waivers and remained in the organization as a non-40-man roster player. Russo never did get back to MLB after 2010. He did hit .249/.301/.315 in an independent league last year though.
May 6th, 2011: Yankees Claim Jess Todd
The Yankees claimed right-hander Jess Todd off of waivers from Cleveland, the Indians announced. The Indians had designated Todd for assignment on April 30th.
Jess Todd is definitely a real person and not someone made up. For a while Todd and Chris Perez were supposed to be the long-term 1-2 punch in the Cardinals bullpen, but Perez was traded away and Todd never panned out. He allowed two runs in 1.2 innings with Triple-A Scranton before being released. Unlike Perez, Todd was still active full-time last season. He had a 5.51 ERA in 81.2 innings with Boston’s Triple-A club. He is not pitching anywhere this season as far as I can tell.
May 8th, 2011: New York Notes: Reyes, Jeter, Logan, Pridie
Within a piece about slow starters, Joel Sherman of the New York Post says he talked to 12 scouts or officials and not a single one believes Derek Jeter will “approach his old self.”
This is why scouts make the big bucks, folks. It takes a trained eye to tell you 38-year-old Jeter will not approach his old self, especially coming off a season in which he hit .270/.340/.370 (93 wRC+). Of course, Jeter then went out and hit .297/.355/.388 (104 wRC+) in 2011, and followed it up with a .316/.362/.429 (117 wRC+) effort in 2012. Sometimes scouts screw up the easy ones too.
May 10th, 2011: New York Notes: Jeter, Berkman, Mets
As Joel Sherman of the New York Post points out, it’s easy to forget that the Yankees declined their 2011 option for Lance Berkman. The switch-hitter has been among the best hitters in baseball this year, but the Yankees couldn’t have known that in the fall. At the time, they had a DH of their own (Jorge Posada) and Berkman’s $15MM option seemed steep, even for the Yankees.
This was a weird thing for Sherman to write because the Yankees agreed not to pick up Berkman’s option to get him to accept the trade, per Ken Rosenthal. He wanted to become a free agent after the season and test the open market. Besides, the Yankees had Posada at DH and Mark Teixeira at first base. There was no room for Fat Elvis even if they wanted to pick up the option. Facts get in the way of this LOLYanks story.
May 11th, 2011: Bartolo Colon Looks To Stem Cells For New Start
What’s to explain Colon’s resurgence, at age 37 and after five years dominated by shoulder and elbow problems? According to a story in the Dominican daily Diario Libre, the new life in Colon’s arm could be partially attributable to two treatments of stem cells – or “células madre” as they’re called in the Dominican Republic, where Colon had the procedures. The doctors, Sergio Guzman and Leonel Liriano, told the newspaper they had envisioned using the treatment on Pedro Martinez, but they also sent “an invitation” out to Colon, which he accepted in March 2010. (Pedro’s invitation, the article says, is still open). Guzman was quick to insist, though, that when they took fatty tissue and bone marrow from Colon’s hip and injected it into injured tissues in his rotator cuff and elsewhere in his right shoulder, they weren’t doing anything revolutionary.
This was a big deal back in 2011. Colon was pretty awesome early that season — he had a 3.86 ERA (3.78 FIP) in 37.1 innings on the day of this report — and the doctors he used in the Dominican Republic were kinda shady, so suddenly performance-enhancing drugs entered the conversation. For what it’s worth, MLB looked into things and walked away satisfied. Of course, Colon was suspended 50 games after failing a PED test in August 2012 when he was with the Athletics, so yeah. The guy was as close to out of baseball as it gets in 2010. The Yankees took a chance on him and he has a 3.64 ERA (3.62 FIP) in 935.2 innings since. Wild.
May 13th, 2011: Quick Hits: Astros, Lincecum, Yankees, Beltran
Rosenthal says the Yankees shouldn’t rush lefty Manny Banuelos to the Majors. “Let Manny become Manny … No sooner than 2012,” Rosenthal writes.
There were an awful lot of Yankee fans who saw Banuelos strike out Kevin Youkilis with a 3-2 changeup in Spring Training in 2011 and deemed him MLB ready. That was weird. Banuelos, who was still only 20 at the time, had a 3.75 ERA (4.15 FIP) in 129.2 innings at Double-A and Triple-A in 2011. He made six minor league starts in 2012 before blowing out his elbow. Banuelos has been dealing with elbow problems ever since. That’s a shame. Calling him up 2011 was definitely a thing that was talked about. The Yankees never really needed him though.
May 14th, 2011: Jorge Posada May Be In Breach On Contract
7:31pm: Mired in a season-long slump, Jorge Posada pulled himself from tonight’s lineup according to Yankees GM Brian Cashman on the FOX Saturday Night broadcast. Posada had been penciled into the ninth spot in the order for the first time in 12 years, and ESPN’s Buster Olney says (on Twitter) that he refused to play for that reason. He has given no indication that he’s retiring.
This was ugly and Joe Girardi absolutely deserves some of the blame. Posada was not hitting at all — he went into that game with a .165/.272/.349 (68 wRC+) batting line — and Girardi was not wrong to move him down in the lineup, but he chose to bat Posada ninth for the first time during a nationally televised game against the Red Sox. Not the best timing. That was pretty embarrassing for Jorge.
That said, Posada had no right to pull himself from the lineup no matter how pissed off he was about batting ninth. There was talk he would retire, that he demanded a trade, that the Yankees would suspend him or even look to void his contract and call up Jesus Montero, all sorts of crazy stuff. Posada sat out a few days to collect himself before making an apology. The team accepted the apology and the matter was closed. That was rough though. The end of the line is rarely pretty for legacy players and Posada was certainly no exception.
May 17th, 2011: Yankees Sign Randy Flores
The Yankees signed lefty reliever Randy Flores to a minor league deal, reports Danny Knobler of CBS Sports. The deal includes an opt-out, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets that the opt-out is before the All-Star break.
The Yankees signed Pedro Feliciano in the offseason and he almost instantly blew out his shoulder, leaving the team short a lefty reliever. (World Series hero Damaso Marte, who was still with the Yankees at the time, was hurt as well.) Flores was a depth pickup and he was okay with Triple-A Scranton (3.07 ERA in 29.1 innings), but apparently the Yankees didn’t like what they saw, so they released him. That 2011 season was Flores’ last as a player.
May 21st, 2011: Quick Hits: Branyan, Bedard, Vazquez, Turner
Joel Sherman of The New York Post points out that the Yankees once drafted Mets‘ infielder Justin Turner, but he turned down a $200K offer as 29th round pick in 2005 and returned to school for his senior season. Turner signed with the Reds for $50K as a seventh round pick in 2006, then was traded to the Orioles in the Ryan Freel–Ramon Hernandez swap and was later claimed off waivers by the Mets. He went 3-for-4 with an RBI against the Yanks last night.
Here is a mostly complete list of active big leaguers the Yankees drafted but did not sign: Turner, Jon Gray, Tyler Lyons, Jake Petricka, Gerrit Cole, Rob Scahill, Drew Storen, Tyler Ladendorf, Doug Fister, and Chris Davis. I think that’s all of them. Cole and Davis are the headliners, obviously. Storen and Fister are pretty big names too. Gray is a recent top prospect who is still cutting his teeth at the MLB level. Turner’s had some nice years recently and everyone else is an up-and-down depth player. Every team has a list of players like this though. They’ve all failed to sign a draft pick who went on to become a pretty good player down the line. The Yankees are not unique.
May 23rd, 2011: Quick Hits: Herrera, Bautista, Blevins
Mike Axisa of River Ave. Blues points out that recently-designated southpaw Jerry Blevins could be an appealing option for the Yankees if they’re looking for more upside than Randy Flores offers.
This was when RAB made it big and first started appearing on MLBTR. I remember being all over Blevins in 2011. The A’s waived him like four times that year and every single time I said the Yankees should claim him. They never did. No one did, actually. Blevins remained with the A’s all season and for another two years as well.
Blevins, who was only 27 at the time, had five years of team control remaining including that 2011 season. He pitched to a 3.29 ERA (3.61 FIP) with +2.5 WAR in 216 relief innings during those five years of control. Lefties hit only .188/.251/.323 with a 28.3% strikeout rate and a 5.8% walk rate against him during that time too. Lefties who are still in their 20s with an out-pitch breaking ball and a minor league strikeout rate over 30% are almost always worth a claim. SMH, Yankees. SMH.
May 25th, 2011: Yankees Notes: Soriano, Colon
A third MRI on Rafael Soriano‘s elbow has prompted the Yankees to send the pricey reliever to see Dr. James Andrews, report Mark Feinsand and Sean Brennan of the New York Daily News. The writers note that this marks Soriano’s sixth elbow-related DL stint; he’s a survivor of Tommy John surgery and ulnar nerve transposition surgery. I’m not sure what surgeries are left, but the decision by Hal and Hank Steinbrenner and Randy Levine to overrule GM Brian Cashman on this signing is looking bad. If the team’s bullpen depth is compromised due to the Soriano injury, Cashman might be forced to throw more money and/or prospects at the situation.
Soriano’s first year in pinstripes was really bad. He was hurt for most of it, and when he did pitch, he wasn’t all that good: 4.12 ERA (3.97 FIP) in 39.1 innings. By the end of the season David Robertson had emerged as Mariano Rivera’s primary setup man and Soriano was the seventh inning guy. Soriano really bailed the Yankees out when Mo got hurt in 2012, but yeesh, 2011 was bad. Real bad. That the signing cost the team a first round pick and came from over the baseball operations department’s head was a little extra salt in the wound too.
May 25th, 2011: Yankees Claim Kanekoa Texeira
The Yankees claimed right-handed reliever Kanekoa Texeira off of waivers, the Royals announced. Kansas City had designated the former Yankees farmhand for assignment last Wednesday.
Kanekoa! He is best known as the other guy the Yankees received from the White Sox in the Nick Swisher trade. He had a nice year with Double-A Trenton in 2009 (2.84 ERA and 3.64 FIP) before being picked by the Mariners in the Rule 5 Draft after the season. Texeira bounced from the Mariners to the Royals and then back to the Yankees. He was hurt and awful (11.74 ERA) in 2011, and he’s spent the 2012-16 seasons bouncing around the minors, Mexico, and independent leagues. He’s thrown 15 innings for the Braves’ Triple-A team this season, so he’s still out there slingin’.
May 27th, 2011: Quick Hits: McCourt, Abreu, Sizemore, Purcey
Joe Girardi said he could move Nick Swisher into a platoon with Chris Dickerson if Swisher doesn’t pick up his hitting from the left side of the plate, reports Wallace Matthews of ESPNNewYork.com. Swisher still has four months to get on track, but right now it looks like there’s no chance the Yankees will pick up his $10.25MM option for 2012.
When he woke up on May 27th, 2011, Swisher was hitting .204/.321/.289 (70 wRC+) with two home runs in 184 plate appearances. He was bad early that season. Swisher then hit .283/.396/.513 (146 wRC+) with 21 homers the rest of the way because he was quite good at baseball back in those days.
The “it looks like there’s no chance the Yankees will pick up his $10.25MM option for 2012” comment was so far disconnected from reality though. Swisher was very good with the Yankees from 2009-10, and even if he stunk in 2011, his track record ensured he would get much more than $10.25M in free agency. At worst, the Yankees would have picked up the option and traded him. There was this very weird obsession with declining Swisher’s option after 2011. It make zero sense.
May 28th, 2011: Yankees Notes: Trade Calls, Myers, Scouts
Dan Barbarisi of The Wall Street Journal wrote about the club’s pro scouting department, which helped unearth Bartolo Colon and others this offseason. “It’s easy to recommend a guy when the numbers are there,” said scout Tim Naehring. “The most difficult thing is feeling confident and putting in a report when the production isn’t there. The biggest challenge is sticking your neck out and saying,’I know there’s more in there. I know there’s better performance coming.'”
I’m not really sure I have much to add to this. I just thought it was a pretty cool comment. The Yankees hit the lottery with some scrap heap pickups back then, most notably Colon but also Freddy Garcia, Luis Ayala, and Eric Chavez. Naehring, by the way, took over as Brian Cashman’s right hand man this past offseason when Billy Eppler left to take over as Angels GM.
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