Two Additional Arms Enter the Trade Rumor Spotlight

The Yankees are not entering the All-Star break the way the team had hoped after storming to the top of the American League East less than a month ago. The team is seemingly in a bit of a free fall after being ravished by injuries and as the temperature rises the team is cooling down overall. In the words of manager Joe Girardi “it’s not what you want” but there is hope for the Bronx Bombers and their fans. More prospects are on the way and the July 31^st trading deadline is just around the corner so brace yourselves, reinforcements are coming. Here are two more arms for the Yankees to potentially look at during the trade deadline in 2017.

The Yankees bullpen is a mess right now and the need for another shutdown reliever has never been so obvious. While the Yankees have been great about developing power arms in their bullpen if the team wanted to look outside the organization they could look no further than Sean Doolittle of the Oakland Athletics. Doolittle is a 30-year old left-handed relief pitcher that has battled injuries over the past couple of years, which again is not what you want, but has looked healthy since coming off the disabled list on June 10. The price tag for Doolittle will presumably be down because of this although Doolittle is under team control for the 2018 season as well, so who knows what the Athletics will end up asking for him. I do know one thing, the A’s are in last place and they aren’t making the postseason thus making a 30-year old relief pitcher who has been the model of consistency over the past few seasons a valuable trade chip before the deadline. Doolittle won’t lead the Yankees to the World Series on his own but he almost has to be better than Tyler Clippard has been, right?

The Yankees may need a starting pitcher to go along with a bullpen acquisition if they want to make it to that World Series and while it’s nice to dream about acquiring Jose Quintana, Gerrit Cole or Johnny Cueto the truth of the matter is the team is not likely to part with the prospects to do so making arms such as Lance Lynn all that more attractive to the team. Lance Lynn is currently wearing a St. Louis Cardinals uniform in his age-30 season and while the Cardinals are in contention in the National League Central Division we have heard all season long about the plethora of pitching prospects they have ready to come through their system. Moving a 30-year old consistent arm like Lynn could clear the way for one of those prospects to make the big jump to the Major Leagues without too much pressure of a pennant race. Lynn would give the Yankees innings, let it be known that Lynn would be no more than a fourth-or-fifth starter in the Bronx, and could help give the bullpen a partial night off every fifth day. That’s valuable if the Yankees can get Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda right.