Most Popular Article of the Week: Yankees Should Trade One of Big Three, Yes or No?

The New York Yankees are a team full of expectations and talent but at least at the start of the 2016 campaign the team is not full of players meeting expectations or exceeding expectations. This is especially true in the Yankees starting rotation where outside of a great start from Masahiro Tanaka on Sunday the crew has struggled collectively. Now the Yankees are left with a few options, the first option being to wait it out and hope that the world of sample sizes and history even themselves out leading the Yankees to go on a roll. The second option is to call up a James Kaprielian or equivalent to try and spark the rotation and get some innings out of and the third option is to make a trade to bring in some talent. Not many teams are presumably open for business unless the deal is too sweet to pass up, could one such deal too sweet to pass up include one of the Yankees three-headed monster in the bullpen?


Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances have both lived up to the hype thus far this season recording outs and strikeouts like the zombie apocalypse is coming and their lives depend on it while Aroldis Chapman is staying fresh and stretched out down in minor league camps. Chapman is serving a 30 game suspension currently leaving his trade value low until he comes back but you would have to think the Yankees could move one of these three, not skip a beat, and still improve on the team. Look at the offer the team received for Andrew Miller from the Houston Astros before the season began. In case you missed it the deal was headlined by former first overall draft pick Mark Appel and dominant young stud Vincent Velasquez, could the Yankees pull a similar deal out of their hat or maybe even a better deal as the season goes along?


The Yankees bullpen could handle the loss of one of these men, especially if Chasen Shreve who also sports a 0.00 ERA at the time of this writing and especially if Johnny Barbato continues to be dominant, and the rotation as it stands today could use a punch in the arm. I’m truly on the fence about it though, sure the Yankees could survive a loss but I’m not sure that they should or not. The perfect recipe for a mediocre starting rotation is a strong bullpen that can take the ball after five or six innings and close things down with a lead. The 1996 Yankees did that and many teams before and since have as well and the 2016 version of the Yankees have done that. Sure they are going to burn out their arms at this torrid pace but one must remember that the warmer it gets and the longer we stretch into the season the longer these starters will go. One must also remember that Chapman will be back early next month taking some of the innings and some of the stress off of everyone else.


With all that said I pose the question to you. Should the Yankees trade one of their big three out of the bullpen to improve the starting pitching and go for it in 2016? Or should they trade one or more of them and build towards the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons? Or should they simply stand pat and see the plan and the course to fruition? Leave it below in the comments section or drop us a line on twitter by following @GreedyStripes.

Yankees Should Trade One of Big Three, Yes or No?

The New York Yankees are a team full of expectations and talent but at least at the start of the 2016 campaign the team is not full of players meeting expectations or exceeding expectations. This is especially true in the Yankees starting rotation where outside of a great start from Masahiro Tanaka on Sunday the crew has struggled collectively. Now the Yankees are left with a few options, the first option being to wait it out and hope that the world of sample sizes and history even themselves out leading the Yankees to go on a roll. The second option is to call up a James Kaprielian or equivalent to try and spark the rotation and get some innings out of and the third option is to make a trade to bring in some talent. Not many teams are presumably open for business unless the deal is too sweet to pass up, could one such deal too sweet to pass up include one of the Yankees three-headed monster in the bullpen? 

Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances have both lived up to the hype thus far this season recording outs and strikeouts like the zombie apocalypse is coming and their lives depend on it while Aroldis Chapman is staying fresh and stretched out down in minor league camps. Chapman is serving a 30 game suspension currently leaving his trade value low until he comes back but you would have to think the Yankees could move one of these three, not skip a beat, and still improve on the team. Look at the offer the team received for Andrew Miller from the Houston Astros before the season began. In case you missed it the deal was headlined by former first overall draft pick Mark Appel and dominant young stud Vincent Velasquez, could the Yankees pull a similar deal out of their hat or maybe even a better deal as the season goes along? 

The Yankees bullpen could handle the loss of one of these men, especially if Chasen Shreve who also sports a 0.00 ERA at the time of this writing and especially if Johnny Barbato continues to be dominant, and the rotation as it stands today could use a punch in the arm. I’m truly on the fence about it though, sure the Yankees could survive a loss but I’m not sure that they should or not. The perfect recipe for a mediocre starting rotation is a strong bullpen that can take the ball after five or six innings and close things down with a lead. The 1996 Yankees did that and many teams before and since have as well and the 2016 version of the Yankees have done that. Sure they are going to burn out their arms at this torrid pace but one must remember that the warmer it gets and the longer we stretch into the season the longer these starters will go. One must also remember that Chapman will be back early next month taking some of the innings and some of the stress off of everyone else. 

With all that said I pose the question to you. Should the Yankees trade one of their big three out of the bullpen to improve the starting pitching and go for it in 2016? Or should they trade one or more of them and build towards the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons? Or should they simply stand pat and see the plan and the course to fruition? Leave it below in the comments section or drop us a line on twitter by following @GreedyStripes.

Rumor: Yankees Turned Down Winter Deal Involving Andrew Miller

The New York Yankees were very aggressive this offseason on the trade market making every and any player available in the right deal. The names that were mentioned out loud to the media most often though were Ivan Nova, Brett Gardner and closer Andrew Miller. News broke this week, and I use the word "broke" loosely here, that the Yankees had a deal in place to trade at least one of them and they ultimately declined the deal at the end of the day.

The Houston Astros were looking for a closer for much of the winter and rumor had it that they at least had preliminary discussions with the New York Yankees about Andrew Miller. Ultimately the Astros ended up sending an impressive package of young players to the Philadelphia Phillies over the winter for their closer Ken Giles although before pulling the trigger an identical offer was made to the Yankees for Miller.

Houston ended up sending RHP Vincent Velasquez, RHP Mark Appel, RHP Harold Arauz, LHP Brett Oberholtzer and LHP Thomas Eshelman to Philadelphia for Giles. The Yankees reportedly wanted Lance McCullers Jr. in any deal involving Miller and ultimately turned down the deal from Houston.

I know I'm far from a GM at the Major League level but that would be an awfully hard deal to turn down if I were Yankees GM Brian Cashman. Velasquez was unproven at the time but had shown glimpses of brilliance in a small sample size with Houston in 2015 while Mark Appel is a former 1st round draft pick by Houston and 1st overall pick in the 2013 MLB Draft. Arauz and Eshelman are a pair of A-Ball pitchers with underwhelming stats overall while Oberholtzer is entering his fourth season in the Major Leagues and has yet to break out but this would have been an obvious deal for the future for New York.

Adding Appel to their minor league system alongside James Kaprielian while adding Velasquez to a young rotation alongside Luis Severino would have been great for the Yankees future but I am reserving judgement on whether it was a "good" non-trade or a "bad" non-trade at this time. There are a lot of moving parts here and a lot of young and relatively unproven moving parts in this deal as well. Velasquez could bomb, Appel could never reach his potential etc. etc. etc. These trades are a crap shoot.

Stay tuned for a "winner."

Game Thread: New York Yankees @ Houston Astros 6/26

Set the scene, it’s Friday night and many of us are surrounded by good friends, beer, chicken wings and the New York Yankees on your television sets. Life is good, right? It gets better now that it’s game time between the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros in the second game of a four game set this weekend inside Minute Maid Park. The Yankees will send Nathan Eovaldi to the mound to face off with Astros rookie Vincent Velasquez. The game will be played at 8:10 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV.

It is pay day for many of us so before you buy too many wings or too much beer set some money aside now to go grab some Yankees Tickets off the blog. By clicking the Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog you can get your Yankees tickets without paying any of those bulky fees or annoying shipping costs through our friends at Ticket Monster. If you’d rather sit around in the comfort of your own home with friends and enjoy the game, and who could blame you, then simply jump on Twitter (@GreedyStripes) and/or the comments section of the blog to interact with us and your fellow Yankees fans during each and every game this season.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Eovaldi are both sitting in the dugout and are fresh out of the bullpen so I need to pay attention to which one will take the mound tonight for the Yankees, that requires my full attention so I’ll end this post here. I’m hoping for a good start tonight from Eovaldi in his hometown, don’t choke! Go Yankees!

Game Preview: New York Yankees @ Houston Astros 6/26

The New York Yankees and the Houston Astros are back at it again on this Friday night as these two teams go head-to-head in the second of their four game set inside Minute Maid Park. Last night the Yankees sent their 6^th starter up against the ace for the Astros and tonight New York will send Nathan Eovaldi to the mound to face off against Vincent Velasquez for Houston. The game will be played at 8:10 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV.

• Eovaldi has only faced the Houston Astros once in his career and took a no-decision in that start as a member of the Miami Marlins. Eovaldi makes his second start against the team tonight in the city of his birth, Houston, looking to improve on his 6-2 record and 4.95 ERA for the Yankees.

• Velasquez is a rookie starting pitcher making just his fourth start of his major league career and first start against the Yankees tonight in Houston. Velasquez has yet to pitch into the sixth inning in any of his first three starts and has had trouble being effective and throwing strikes at time giving the Yankees a swinging chance tonight against the Astros.

If you’ve been keeping up this season with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Eovaldi you would see his two best starts of the season coming against good teams like the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Rays while his worst start of the season coming against a terrible Miami Marlins team. Houston is a good team and a first place team so if history is any indication of the future we should expect a lot more Mr. Eovaldi (the good one) and a lot less Dr. Jekyll (the one that leads the American League in hits allowed) tonight in Houston. We hope anyway, Go Yankees!