Brian Cashman might as well be trying to find a pterodactyl because difference-making starting pitching in this trade market is pretty much extinct.
In the last week, Detroit’s Michael Fulmer, St. Louis’ Carlos Martinez and Noah Syndergaard were placed on the DL. The week before, it was announced the Angels’ Garrett Richards needed Tommy John surgery.
Jacob deGrom is the Loch Ness Monster — there are rumors he has been seen on the trade market, just not from credible witnesses. The Yankees’ need is so acute that they should proactively call the Mets and offer Miguel Andujar, Justus Sheffield, Estevan Florial and take your pick of another pitching prospect from their trove of big arms, plus offer to take on the year-plus left on Todd Frazier’s contract because deGrom is that good and because he is under control through 2020.
But the Yankees wouldn’t offer that, and the Mets wouldn’t trade deGrom to the Yanks, and so that leaves the Yankees needing to revisit 2005.
You might remember that as a year in which the Yankees trailed the Red Sox by four games as late as Sept. 10, finished deadlocked for first and won the tiebreaker and the division championship. They had a homer-centric offense that only got better with the promotion of a wunderkind rookie second baseman in Robinson Cano (think the Gleyber Torres of his day, but without the top prospect fanfare).
They also had big rotation problems largely because Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, Chien-Ming Wang and Jaret Wright served significant DL time, Mike Mussina was not his prime best and Randy Johnson was not as good as hoped.
That was the season a desperate George Steinbrenner deputized Cashman — eight seasons into his GM term — to finally have a level of autonomy running baseball operations. Cashman’s biggest decision was that he would not trade anything substantial from what was then a weak farm system to help in the crisis. And it didn’t matter much because that market, like this one, had rumors of A.J. Burnett, Roger Clemens, Jason Schmidt and Barry Zito moving, but no noteworthy starter was traded.
The Yankees tracked down the Red Sox because Aaron Small, a 33-year-old journeyman of no distinction before or after, rose from the minors to go 10-0 with a 3.29 ERA. Plus Cashman, his team pretty much without a complete five-man rotation, traded two Double-A arms to the Rockies for Shawn Chacon, who from the beginning of 2004 to that moment had been 2-16 with a 5.49 ERA. Chacon went 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA for the Yanks.
Small and Chacon were inexplicable and magical for the Yankees, and if this starting market is going to remain this uninspiring, they kind of need Luis Cessa to be Small and whichever non-ace they obtain between now and 4 p.m. July 31 to be Chacon.
Cessa, once part of a trade for Yoenis Cespedes and so far for the Yankees the other guy who came with Chad Green from the Tigers, has made four starts in July (three at Triple-A and one against the Orioles) and has a 1.08 ERA, no homers allowed in 25 innings, five walks to 21 strikeouts and a slash line against of .155/.200/.202. Cessa has cited pitching coach Larry Rothschild’s counsel to be more aggressive early in the count and work inside for the upgrade.
Cessa starts Wednesday against the Rays. Is this month a mirage? Or can he be a Small miracle?
Cessa is scheduled to face Nathan Eovaldi, among the very available non-aces in the trade market. My suspicion is the Yanks have been there and done that with Eovaldi and would not revisit him in a trade.
The most likely candidate remains J.A. Happ, who was just an All-Star, but mainly because the Blue Jays needed a representative. He hasn’t reached the sixth inning in four July starts. But, again, whoever the Yanks acquire is going to have mid-rotation-or-worse flaws.
Whether it is Lance Lynn’s wildness, Kyle Gibson’s lack of big-game history, Tyson Ross’ frailty against lefties, Steven Matz’s wandering focus, Mike Minor’s fly-ball tendencies, Dylan Bundy’s diminished stuff, Kevin Gausman’s questioned fortitude or several others, what the Yankees obtain will not resemble deGrom.
But can they get the 2005 Chacon? A few months of unexpected rotation excellence to help them catch the Red Sox in the standings.