Tag: trade deadline

New Kids on the Block

(This story originally appeared in the September 2021 edition of Yankees Magazine.)

For months, the Yankees said that they weren’t too right-handed. Then they went out at the trade deadline and added left-handed batters Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo. That’s baseball, Suzyn.

Obviously, the team had a lineup balance issue, and it’s to general manager Brian Cashman’s credit that he was able to address it without doing too much damage to the top levels of the team’s farm system. Neither Gallo nor Rizzo ended up being the difference makers the Yankees needed to make a deep run in the postseason, but both were worthy additions to the team’s lineup, and while Rizzo heads into the offseason as a free agent, Gallo should get another run with the Bombers in 2022, giving him a chance to go to town on the stands in right field.

To me, though, the best thing about this story is something that is barely mentioned inside, but that I hope comes through. The interviews for this piece were the first that I did in person since spring training of 2020. I had long conversations with both Rizzo and Gallo in the dugout at Yankee Stadium, and it was amazing to remember just how different it is to get to speak to your interview subject one-on-one, face-to-face, as opposed to doing it on Zoom. Things like body language, follow-ups, shared small laughs — I think they make a huge difference in the storytelling process. I hope that it came through in the piece.

https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-magazine-anthony-rizzo-joey-gallo-usher-in-new-season

End Game

(This story originally appeared in the September 2018 edition of Yankees Magazine.)

As the 2018 trade deadline approached, it seems that the Yankees were in desperate need of a starting pitcher. So general manager Brian Cashman went out and acquired one of the best … relief pitchers? … on the market? On the surface it made little sense. But baseball is changing, and all you need to do is look at the ways that the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays approached this year to see it. And sure, the Yankees are playing their part, too.

Starting pitchers are throwing fewer innings than ever, and since the game is still nine innings long, that means that managers and pitching coaches are being forced to rely on relievers more than ever before. So in Zach Britton, Cashman added a fourth elite closer to the Yankees’ bullpen, joining Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances and David Robertson.

For this story, I tried to introduce Britton to Yankees fans, while also looking at what the acquisition can tell us about the new team-building philosophies at play. I had never interviewed Britton before this, and we had a really fun chat. He’s incredibly honest and thoughtful in his answers. A highlight for me was when we talked a lot about all of the high-leverage situations he would face in his hybrid role on the Yankees’ roster. An experienced closer who wouldn’t be doing much ninth-inning work, he was excited about the change, anxious to add a new club to his bag. Britton is enough of a student of the game (in particular, of the ways that former Yankee Andrew Miller has thrived in a unique bullpen role) to know that the idea of the ninth inning being where all the money is made doesn’t really make sense anymore.

But at the same time, he admitted that he couldn’t really explain why it was still important to him, why he still expected that when he enters free agency after the 2018 season, he expects to find a job closing again. He was almost treating it like a thought experiment, brainstorming responses. “I have the American League record for consecutive saves,” he told me, more thinking out loud than anything else. It turns out, the game might be changing faster than even the players can comprehend (for more on this, ask Greg Bird about the shift. Then back away slowly).

I think it’s going to be fascinating to see how all of this develops in the coming years. In the meantime, I hope you’ll check out this story.

https://www.mlb.com/yankees/news/britton-trade-added-to-yankees-deep-bullpen/c-294600990?tid=163658034

The Future Has Arrived

(Story originally published in the September 2016 edition of Yankees Magazine)

When Yankees general manager Brian Cashman got to show off some new muscles at the 2016 trade deadline, it was a landmark moment for the franchise. The Yankees — and Yankees fans, it was thought — simply wouldn’t accept rebuilding. Would they?

It turns out that they would — as long as Cashman nailed all the deals. And he did that, and more, rebuilding a farm system into one of the league’s best (in the offseason after the rebuild, MLB.com would rank the Yankees’ system the second-best in baseball). The club acquired Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier as the new organizational cornerstones, but the rest of the players who came over — guys like Justus Sheffield, Ben Heller, J.P. Feyereisen, Dillon Tate, Billy McKinney, and a slew of others, as well — have fans in the Bronx hopeful for the future. Some will arrive sooner than others, but it should be interesting to see develop.

Soon after the deadline, Cashman and his top deputy, Jean Afterman, walked me through all the chaos of the day of the deadline, the way that the last-minute deals went down. I always wanted to get to see how the pieces all moved, how tight things got, what rumors were true. They really gave me the full run-down, and I tried to recreate that in the story.

I hope you’ll enjoy.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/199119640/yankees-use-trade-deadline-to-rebuild/