Sometimes the Best Trade Is the Trade You Don’t Make

I found something interesting on Twitter yesterday morning that really caught my eye. While I have not been able to find a confirmation of this yet anywhere else the basic premise of the ideology and of this post remains the same, regardless of whether the information is true or not. Sometimes the best trade that you can make in Major League Baseball is the trade that you don’t make. Case in point, the Twitter post that stated that the New York Yankees offered Domingo German to the New York Mets last July in a potential deal for Jay Bruce. We know the Yankees offered the Mets prospects for Bruce’s services, but the group from Queens instead opted to send the left-hander to the Cleveland Indians for cash instead. If this is true… wow, for the Mets.

Let’s just assume this is true and the Yankees did offer German up to the Mets for a half-season of Bruce, the Yankees truly dodged a bullet here. Now, I am not one of these fanatics that are anointing German as the next Nolan Ryan after just on start in the Bronx, albeit a good one that saw him leave after six no-hit innings, but at the same time I have always thought of German as a potential serviceable MLB-caliber starter. Any time you can get a potential and serviceable MLB-caliber starter for two months of an aging veteran that, at the time, you have no intention of keeping you ALWAYS take that over cash considerations. Always. Unless you’re the Mets.

There have been plenty of these instances that can cement the mind set even if German was never offered to the New York Mets. George Steinbrenner and company tried to trade Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte on multiple occasions that we know of, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the club also tried to trade Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter at some point as well. Luis Severino and Aaron Judge were named in trade rumors before, although rumors are just that… rumors, as well as many of the men we see dominating at the Major League level today.

Brian Cashman gets killed for the trades that he loses, and doesn’t get enough praise for the trades that he wins, but what about the trades that he doesn’t make? Those, in time, may be the decisions that will ultimately cement his legacy. Stay tuned.