The trade deadline is inching closer and closer, and now that we’re in June, it’s time for another trip through the MLB Trade Rumors archives. June is typically when trade chatter starts to pick up, and usually we see a few deals as well. For the most part though, the month of June is about laying the groundwork. Scouting players, seeing who’s available, that sort of thing.

On the morning of June 1st, 2012, the Yankees were 27-23 and in third place in the AL East, only 1.5 games back of the Rays and Orioles, who had identical 29-22 records. The Yankees closed out May with six wins in eight games. At that point of the season, the Yankees had already suffered three major injuries: Michael Pineda (shoulder), Brett Gardner (elbow), and Mariano Rivera (knee). There was no real shortage of needs. Let’s jump into the MLBTR archives.

June 1st, 2012: Yankees Eyeing Matt Garza

Matt Garza interests the Yankees more than other potentially available starters, so GM Brian Cashman could pursue the right-hander this summer, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reports. The Red Sox could also pursue Garza, Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com notes (on Twitter).

I remember being all about Garza in the weeks leading up to the 2012 trade deadline. He was only 27 at the time, and he was coming off a 3.32 ERA (2.95 FIP) in 198 innings in 2011. Plus he was under team control as an arbitration-eligible player in 2013. It was a chance to get a high-end starter with AL East experience in the middle of his prime.

The Yankees and many other teams reportedly remained engaged with the Cubs about Garza — the Cubbies went 61-101 that season and were clear sellers — though all the trade talk was put on hold when he left his July 21st start with elbow stiffness. Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with a stress reaction and shut down for the season. Good thing the Yankees didn’t make a deal in June, huh? I was very much on board with going after Garza before the injury.

June 2nd, 2012: Orioles Acquire Steve Pearce, DFA Bill Hall

The Orioles have acquired first baseman Steve Pearce from the Yankees and designated utility man Bill Hall for assignment, according to Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com (via Twitter).  The Yankees will receive cash considerations in return, tweets Brittany Ghiroli of MLB.com.

A quick recap of Steve Pearce’s 2012 season:

• March 27th: Released by the Twins.
• March 29th: Signed minor league deal with the Yankees.
• June 2nd: Traded to the Orioles for cash.
• July 28: Claimed off waivers by the Astros.
• August 27: Traded to the Yankees for cash.
• September 29: Claimed off waivers by the Orioles.

That couldn’t have been fun for Pearce. Imagine if the recent Ruben Tejada trade plays out the same way. The Yankees trade a superfluous Triple-A depth player to the O’s in early June, then he inexplicably hits .258/.339/.482 (127 wRC+) the next three seasons.

June 7th, 2012: AL East Notes: Reyes, Rundles, Blue Jays

The Yankees have signed 22-year-old Dominican right-hander Manolo Reyes, reports Ben Badler of Baseball America.  The contract is worth $600K but is contingent on Reyes obtaining a visa and passing an MLB investigation into his identity and age, as Reyes has already served one year-long suspension due to problems with his paperwork.  Reyes was originally signed by the Braves in 2009.

Manolo! Reyes threw extremely hard. He was one of the hardest throwers in the farm system at the time, routinely hitting 99-100 mph. He also had no idea where the ball was going. Reyes was with the Yankees from 2013-16, and during that time he had a 4.14 ERA (3.78 FIP) in 87 total innings, none above High-A ball. He walked 65 (16.3% of batters faced) and struck out 90 (22.5%). The Yankees released Reyes last year and, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t hooked on anywhere since. They paid him a $600,000 bonus plus however much in annual salary for 87 Single-A innings. It’s good work if you can get it.

June 9th, 2012: Yankees Not Looking For Outfield Help

Left fielder Brett Gardner has played just nine games this season due to a right elbow strain, and today he suffered a setback that will likely keep him out through the All-Star break. Despite that, Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters (including Chad Jennings of The Journal News) that he hasn’t looked into trading for outfield help just yet.

“I haven’t been looking,” said Cashman. “That doesn’t mean that (it’s out of the question). Now you’ve passed the draft, people will be more interested in having conversations. I have not had any conversations with anybody about anything.”

Gardner hurt his elbow making a sliding catch in April and it just wasn’t getting any better. He eventually had surgery in July and was able to return very late in the season. The injury pushed Raul Ibanez into left field on a nearly full-time basis before the Yankees swung the trade for Ichiro Suzuki. Eight different players started a game in left field for New York that year:

1. Raul Ibanez: 65 starts in left
2. Andruw Jones: 41
3. Ichiro Suzuki: 26
4. Dewayne Wise: 9
5. Jayson Nix: 9
6. Brett Gardner: 8
7. Eduardo Nunez: 3
8. Chris Dickerson: 1

Don’t forget Darnell McDonald either! He played one game in left field during his four days as a Yankees, though he did not start. The Yankees got a .241/.312/.415 (92 OPS+) batting line from their left fielders that season, which was a) not that awful considering the personnel, and b) their least productive position. The 2012 Yankees could score some damn runs.

June 13th, 2012: Ben Sheets Throws For Team

Righty Ben Sheets threw for scouts today in Monroe, Louisiana, MLBTR has learned.  Scouts from the Phillies, Braves, Yankees, and Angels were in attendance.

Oh man, I loved Ben Sheets. His 2004 season is one of the best pitching seasons no one talks about. Injuries completely ruined his career — he threw 119.1 innings from 2009-11, all in 2010 — but when he was young and healthy, he was dominant. Dude was tough as nails and his curveball was as pretty as it gets:

The Yankees never did sign Sheets that year. He wound up hooking on with the Braves and throwing 49.1 innings in nine starts with a 3.47 ERA (4.11 FIP). I have absolutely zero recollection of Sheets in Atlanta. He never pitched again after that. Sheets is still only 38, you know. He’s basically the same age as John Lackey.

June 14th, 2012: Yankees Notes: Quentin, Swisher, Nunez

The Yankees don’t consider Carlos Quentin as a fit for their needs, tweets Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.  The Yankees would want to fill left field with someone “speedier” than Quentin, which probably also means someone more defensively capable (Quentin has a career UZR/150 of – 9.1). 

I didn’t love the idea of Quentin, but I understood it. The Yankees needed a left fielder in the wake of Gardner’s injury, and Quentin was hitting .421/.542/.921 (290 wRC+) on the day of this report. That was small sample size noise though. Quentin didn’t make his season debut until May 28th after having knee surgery in March. He finished the season with a .261/.374/.504 (146 wRC+) line and 16 homers in 340 plate appearances.

The two biggest reasons I wasn’t a fan of trading for Quentin were his defense and his injury history. He was a brutal outfielder, especially after knee surgery. One of the few players who was as bad or worse than Ibanez. And the guy got hurt all the time, partially because he was so prone to getting hit by pitches (127 HBP in 834 games). Only three times in nine MLB seasons did he play at least 100 games. The Padres never did trade Quentin. They signed him to a three-year extension in July instead. He played 132 games during the three-year deal.

June 15th, 2012: Yankees Like Dempster; Dodgers Eyeing Garza

Several contenders, including the Yankees and Dodgers, covet Dempster, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Unlike Garza, Ryan Dempster was an impending free agent in 2012, so the Cubs pretty much had to move him. He was having a good year too. A 2.11 ERA (3.28 FIP) through 12 starts and 81 innings following his start on the day of this report. The Yankees stuck to their guns and didn’t trade for any rotation help in 2012. They won 95 games and rode it out with what they had.

Dempster, meanwhile, was traded to the Rangers at the deadline for a package that included Kyle Hendricks. Dempster with the Cubs: 2.25 ERA (3.43 FIP) in 104 innings. Dempster with the Rangers: 5.09 ERA (4.08 FIP) in 69 innings. Reminder: don’t pay for outlier performance at the trade deadline. This was Dempster’s final start with Texas:

That game, Game 162 in 2012 to decide the AL West, was easily one of the most fun and exciting non-Yankees games of the last ten years. As long as you weren’t rooting for the Rangers, that is.

June 15th, 2012: East Notes: Blue Jays, Phillies, Braves, Soler

The Braves were right there with the Cubs and willing to spend $30MM on Jorge Soler, tweets Peter Gammons of MLB.com.  The White Sox and Yankees, meanwhile, had bids that fell between $25MM and $30MM.

The Yankees tried and failed to sign Soler, which has become a bit of a pattern with the top Cuban prospects over the years. Soler was billed as the ultra-talented superstar in waiting, as all young Cuban players are, and five years later, he’s basically the next Jose Guillen. Lots of power, too much swing and miss, awful defense. I remain absolutely stunned the Cubs were able to trade him straight up for one year of Wade Davis. How?

June 18th, 2012: Quick Hits: Padres, Phillies, Drabek, Vlad

GM Brian Cashman told Jim Bowden on MLB Network Radio that the Yankees haven’t pursued contract extensions for Robinson Cano or Curtis Granderson, but aim to keep both players long-term (Twitter link).

Welp.

June 20th, 2012: Astros Will Listen On Wandy Rodriguez

The Astros will listen to offers for left-hander Wandy Rodriguez, and teams are watching the left-hander in anticipation of the July 31st trade deadline, Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports writes. The Yankees, Giants and Blue Jays had representatives in attendance for Rodriguez’s start against the Royals last night, Morosi reports.

The Astros were still in the National League at the time, and there was a lot of concern Rodriguez, a finesse southpaw on the wrong side of 30, wouldn’t be able to cut it in the so-called Junior Circuit. He had been a solid pitcher for a while though:

• 2009: 3.02 ERA  and 3.54 FIP in 205.2 innings
• 2010: 3.60 ERA and 3.50 FIP in 195 innings
• 2011: 3.49 ERA and 4.15 FIP in 191 innings

On the day of this report, he had a 3.29 ERA (4.20 FIP) in 95.2 innings. He finished the season with a Wandy-esque 3.76 ERA (3.93 FIP) in 205.2 total innings and was traded to the Pirates at the deadline. Wandy bounced around a bit at the end of his career, and his final big league appearance was a one-inning, seven-run disaster in this game:

That was a fun game. I didn’t realize it effectively ended Wandy Rodriguez’s career.

June 20th, 2012: Yankees To Sign Omar Luis

4:23pm: The left-hander will obtain a $4MM bonus, Ben Badler of Baseball America reports. He has five pitches, including a fastball that ranges from 86-92 mph, and a competitive approach.

Luis was the last Cuban player the Yankees signed before the new international bonus pools kicked in on July 2nd. He might have been the last player they signed before the bonus pools period. Anyway, Luis was a total dud. He had a 4.80 ERA (5.11 FIP) with nearly as many walks (75) as strikeouts (86) in 99.1 lower level innings before being released following the 2015 season. He’s been out of baseball since. Also, his $4M bonus was later reduced to $2.5M after the Yankees saw something they didn’t like in his physical. A swing and a miss, this was.

June 26th, 2012: Yankees Claim Danny Farquhar Off Waivers

The Yankees have claimed Danny Farquhar off waivers from the Athletics, the team announced. Oakland designated the right-hander for assignment over the weekend.

How often does a player go from waiver claim to trade bait within a month? That’s what happened with Farquhar. The Yankees grabbed him on waivers, he spent a few weeks with Double-A Trenton (11 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 14 K!), then he went to the Mariners in the Ichiro deal. Farquhar has carved out a nice little career for himself as a middle reliever/sometimes setup guy. Grabbing a dude on waivers then trading him for a future Hall of Famer the next month is some video game roster building stuff. I’m pretty sure I’ve done that in MLB: The Show a few times over the years.

June 28th, 2012: Zack Greinke Rumors: Thursday

“A couple of teams,” including the Yankees, feel that Greinke may not be suited for pitching in a large market, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.  Greinke did tell the Yankees he would pitch for them when he was in the process of being dealt from the Royals to the Brewers. 

Does anyone still believe this “Greinke can’t handle a big market” nonsense? I hope not. That ridiculous assertion was made by people who really have no idea what social anxiety disorder, something Greinke battled way back in the day with the Royals, actually is. He had a 2.30 ERA (2.97 FIP) in three years with the large market Dodgers, including a 2.38 ERA with a .186/.217/.310 batting line against in six postseason starts, all while pitching with a monster contract. Not sure he can handle the spotlight, you guys. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a truly great player — Greinke’s going to end up a borderline Hall of Famer when it’s all said and gone — be more unfairly characterized as Greinke.

June 29th, 2012: Yankees Claim Schwinden, Designate Farquhar

The Yankees claimed right-hander Chris Schwinden off of waivers from Cleveland, the Indians announced. The Yankees designated Danny Farquhar for assignment in a related move, Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News reports (on Twitter).

My favorite part of these MLBTR Archives posts is being reminded of players I had completely forgotten about, like Schwinden. This was a one-month stretch of his life in 2012:

• June 2nd: Claimed off waivers by Blue Jays from Mets.
• June 6th: Claimed off waivers by Indians from Blue Jays.
• June 29th: Claimed off waivers by Yankees from Indians:
• July 5th: Claimed off waivers by Mets from Yankees.

Hopefully he got some airline miles and hotel points out of that. Schwinden appeared in one game as a member of the Yankees organization, allowing four runs in four innings in a spot start for Triple-A Scranton. He’s been out of baseball since 2014, though at least he got to get a taste of the show with the Mets in 2011 and 2012.

June 29th, 2012: Quick Hits: Thome, Blue Jays, Oliver, Orioles

As the Phillies look for a place to move Jim Thome, the Rays and Yankees are not interested, sources tell Buster Olney of ESPN.com (via Twitter). 

JIM THOME. Man, that would have been fun. Because Ibanez was playing so much left field in the wake of the Gardner injury, the Yankees had an opening at DH, and they rotated players in and out at the position all season. Seventeen different players saw time at DH in 2012. 17! Among them were — and I’m not joking — Ramiro Pena and Melky Mesa. They could have used Thome at DH. Jimmer Jammer was with the Phillies as a bench bat at the time, and they later traded him to the Orioles, where he hit .257/.348/.396 (102 wRC+) with three homers in 115 plate appearances. That was the final chapter of his should-be Hall of Fame career. The Yankees ended it in the ALDS that October.

We’re in a new month, which means it’s time to once again go back through the MLB Trade Rumors archives. Five years ago was May 2012. May is kind of a weird month for trade rumors. There are very few free agent rumors, and at this point of the season, teams are still evaluating their rosters and internal depth options. They’re not yet aggressively pursuing outside help.

The Yankees went into May 2012 with a 13-9 record and a +18 run differential, which had them right behind the 15-8 Rays in the AL East. Michael Pineda, their prized offseason pickup, had already been lost for the season with a shoulder injury. Hiroki Kuroda, the other prized offseason pickup, got off to a slow start in pinstripes — “He’s just another NL pitcher!” was a thing that was said at the time — before turning it around. Let’s dive into the May 2012 archives, shall we?

May 2nd, 2012: Yankees Sign Adonis Garcia

9:21pm: Garcia signed a one-year minor league contract worth $400K according to Marc Carig of The Star Ledger (on Sulia).

4:16pm: The Yankees have signed Cuban outfielder Adonis Garcia, Ben Badler of Baseball America reports. The 26-year-old became a free agent in February and drew interest from a number of teams.

Adonis! I didn’t realize he received such a large bonus. Well, large by normal people standards, not by baseball player standards. Garcia was in the farm system from 2012-14 and spent most of his time with Triple-A Scranton, hitting .286/.329/.429 (110 wRC+) in 844 plate appearances. The Yankees released him following that 2014 season.

The Braves have a thing for ex-Yankees, so they scooped up Garcia, and a few weeks later he was their starting third baseman. The Yankees signed him as an outfielder and he reached the show as a third baseman. Garcia hit .273/.311/.406 (90 wRC+) last year and was basically replacement level due to his defense: +0.9 fWAR and +0.2 bWAR. Atlanta is still running him out there at the hot corner while they wait for a long-term option to emerge.

May 3rd, 2012: New York Notes: Rivera, Chamberlain, Harvey, Bay

Joba Chamberlain has been transferred to the 60-day DL, the Yankees announced today.  In corresponding moves, Jayson Nix has been called up from Triple-A and Eric Chavez has been put on the seven-day DL due to a possible concussion.

And thus begins the Jayson Nix, Ballplayer™ era. It all started with a Chavez concussion. The Yankees had signed Nix to a minor league contract over the winter — it was one of their very first offseason moves, so they were in a hurry to sign him, apparently — and he wound up playing 161 games and getting 505 plate appearances with the Yankees from 2012-13. Basically a full season’s worth of playing time, at a variety of positions. Nix hit .239/.307/.340 (78 wRC+) with +1.2 bWAR and +1.2 fWAR during that time. He hasn’t played in MLB since 2014 or anywhere since 2015. With all due respect to Nixie, Ronald Torreyes is much more fun utility guy.

May 4th, 2012: Mariano Rivera Suffers Torn ACL

THURSDAY: Rivera told reporters that he plans to return to baseball, tweets Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News.  “I am coming back. Write it down in big letters. … I’m not going out like this,” said the closer.

WEDNESDAY, 11:40pm: Mariano Rivera appears to have suffered a torn ACL in his right knee, Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters after tonight’s 4-3 loss in Kansas City.  Rivera suffered the injury while chasing a fly ball during batting practice earlier today, a pre-game ritual that Rivera has undertaken throughout his entire career. The ace closer will consult with doctors tomorrow in New York and, if the initial diagnosis is confirmed, Rivera will miss the rest of the 2012 season. 

What an awful day that was. Rivera took a misstep chasing after a fly ball during batting practice and blew out his knee on the Kauffman Stadium warning track. Here’s the video:

I remember being in denial. “He’ll be fine, he just rolled his ankle or something,” I said to myself as Mo clutched his knee in pain. After the game we found out it was a torn ACL and that his season was over. It felt like the Yankees’ season was over! Rivera was so important to their success over the years that he seemed irreplaceable. The security blanket was gone. Those easy, stress-free ninth innings would turn into nail-biters. No one could do what Mo did!

There’s a lot of unnecessary panic in baseball, I’ve learned. The Rivera injury was a legitimate panic-inducing moment.

May 4th, 2012: Quick Hits: Rivera, Yankees, Contracts

Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com hears that the Yankees will not aggressively pursue a reliever in a trade in the wake of Rivera’s injury (Twitter link). They are confident in David Robertson and Rafael Soriano in the late innings.

No surprise here. I mentioned this last week in the Adam Eaton post. Any time a team suffers a major injury, they always come out and say they will replace the player from within. No need to go outside the organization! They don’t want to look desperate because that only creates more problems. Suddenly prices will go up.

Robertson had his insane breakout year in 2011 and Soriano was a Proven Closer™, meaning the Yankees would be in good shape. Robertson actually got the first chance to replace Rivera. Not Soriano. His first save chance was a typical Houdini act — one hit and two walks in a scoreless innings — but the second was a disaster. Robertson allowed four runs, including three on a Matt Joyce homer, to turn a 1-0 ninth inning lead into a 4-1 loss.

Robertson hit the disabled list with an oblique strain after that, pushing Soriano into the closer’s role. He kept it the rest of the season. Soriano went 42-for-46 in save chances the rest of the way and had a 2.26 ERA (3.36 FIP) in 55.2 innings. That’s when #untuck became a thing.

Robertson served as Soriano’s setup man and was excellent. Even without Mo, the Yankees had a dominant setup/closer tandem. That ninth inning success pushed Soriano to opt-out of his contract after the season. He hooked on with the Nationals and the Yankees used the compensation draft pick on Ian Clarkin.

The Rivera injury was bad. Don’t get me wrong. Losing an elite closer would be a devastating blow to just about every team. The Yankees were able to survive and thrive thanks to Soriano, who had a so-so first season in pinstripes in 2011. Some guys just need the adrenaline rush of the ninth inning to be at their best, I guess.

Soriano, by the way, announced his retirement this past winter. He last pitched in 2015, allowing four runs in 5.2 innings with the Cubs.

May 7th, 2012: Rosenthal On Ethier, Santana, Blue Jays, D’Backs

A scout tells Rosenthal that Andy Pettitte “does not look close to ready” and will need several more minor league starts before he’s ready to return to the Yankees.

May 7th: A scout says Pettitte “does not look close to ready.” May 13th: Pettitte allows four runs in 6.1 innings in his return to the big leagues. Eh. But! May 18th: Pettitte strikes out nine in eight shutout innings. I guess he needed that one last tune-up start to get ready.

In his return to baseball, Pettitte pitched to a 3.22 ERA (3.40 FIP) in nine starts and 58.2 innings before a comebacker broke his leg at the end of June. Blah. It was a great story before it got cut short. Andy did return in September to make three starts (three runs in 16.2 innings total) and he made two postseason starts too. Three runs in seven innings against the Orioles in the ALDS, then two runs in six innings against the Tigers in the ALCS.

That broken leg pushed Pettitte to come back in 2013 though. Andy said initially he thought he would get it all out of his system in 2012 and go back into retirement, but, after the injury, he wanted to give it another go. Pettitte made 30 starts with a 3.74 ERA (3.70 FIP) in 185.1 innings in 2013. He tossed a complete game in his final big league start.

That 2013 season was pretty crummy overall. But at least we got some very memorable farewells out of it between Pettitte and Mo.

May 12th, 2012: Yankees Claim Justin Thomas Off Waivers

The Yankees have claimed left-handed reliever Justin Thomas off of waivers from the Red Sox, Marc Carig of the Star-Ledger confirms (via Twitter).  The move was first reported by Maureen Mullen of CSNNE.com (via Twitter). 

The never-ending search for reliable lefty relief led the Yankees to Thomas, who wound up spending most of the season in Triple-A. He got a September call-up and allowed three runs in three innings. He hasn’t pitched in the big league since. Thomas ended up in Japan in 2013 and Korea in 2014. He’s been out of baseball since.

May 17th, 2012: Yankees Claim Matt Antonelli

The Yankees have claimed infielder Matt Antonelli off of waivers from the Orioles, Marc Carig of the Star-Ledger tweets. Antonelli, who was designated for assignment four days ago, will report to Triple-A.

The Yankees went a little waiver crazy in mid-May. Antonelli was a former first round pick and top prospect with Padres who, by this point in time, was on his fourth organization in the previous three years. Antonelli never did play for the Yankees. He appeared in 15 games with Triple-A Scranton, went 12-for-61 (.197), then was released in July. Antonelli played a handful of Triple-A games with the Indians in 2013 before retiring. At least he made it to the show, appearing in 21 games with the 2008 Padres. I remember being excited about this pickup, thinking he could be a late bloomer. So much for that.

May 18th, 2012: Oswalt Worked Out For Phillies, Red Sox

11:48am: Rosenthal reports (on Twitter) that neither the Yankees or Tigers are in the mix for Oswalt at this time. The righty intends to sign soon, possibly within the week, and pitch in MLB by mid or late June, Rosenthal tweets.

The Yankees were connected to Oswalt every year from roughly 2006-14. Either at the trade deadline or free agency. That sound about right? At this point Oswalt was 34 and coming off a solid season with the Phillies, throwing 139 innings with a 3.69 ERA (3.44 FIP) in 23 starts. And yet, no one signed him during the 2011-12 offseason.

Eventually Oswalt signed with the Rangers at midseason, people were mad the Yankees missed out, then he threw 59 innings with a 5.80 ERA (4.23 FIP) for Texas, and people were less mad the Yankees missed out. That was pretty much it for Oswalt. He allowed 31 runs in 32.1 innings for the Rockies in 2013 and has not pitched since. Oswalt went from finishing sixth in the 2010 NL Cy Young voting to dunzo in 2013.

The Yankees, meanwhile, never did bring in any rotation reinforcements in 2012. Not even after losing Pineda to season-ending shoulder surgery. They got Pettitte back and that was it. They stuck it out with what they had in-house, and hey, it helped get them to the ALCS.

May 25th, 2012: Minor Moves: Maine, Hernandez, Lindsay

The Yankees will sign right-hander John Maine to a minor league deal, Evan Drellich of MLB.com tweets. The Red Sox recently released the 31-year-old, who has missed considerable time with shoulder injuries. He posted a 7.43 ERA in 46 innings with the Rockies’ top affiliate in 2011 before signing with the Red Sox this January.

John Maine! Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the whole “they never brought in any rotation help” thing. They tried. Maine never did pitch for the Yankees though. He spent the season with Triple-A Scranton, throwing 79.2 innings with a 4.97 ERA (3.96 FIP). The Yankees cut Maine loose after the season, he hooked on with the Marlins, and actually got back to MLB in 2013, allowing ten runs in 7.1 innings in Miami. He did not pitch in the show at all in 2011 or 2012 before resurfacing in 2013. The Marlins released Maine at the end of April 2013 and that was it. He’s been out of baseball since. The Yankees haven’t had to go out and sign a veteran starter hanger-on like Maine this year because of their farm system depth. If anything, they have more starters than rotation spots at the upper levels.

May 29th, 2012: Yankees Claim Ryota Igarashi

The Yankees claimed right-hander Ryota Igarashi from the Blue Jays, Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News reports (Twitter links). The Yankees transferred right-hander Brad Meyers to the 60-day disabled list to create 40-man roster space for Igarashi, who will report to Triple-A.

Igarashi was a bit of a big deal back in the day. The success of Akinori Otsuka had teams scouring Japan for bullpen arms. The Mets gave Igarashi a two-year, $3M deal in December 2009, then he threw 69 innings with a 5.87 ERA (4.41 FIP) from 2010-11. So it goes. Igarashi spent most of the 2012 season in Triple-A with the Yankees, throwing 36.2 innings with a 2.45 ERA (2.07 FIP). They called him up twice in shuttle moves and he allowed four runs in three innings.

By the way, Igarashi is still active. He returned to Japan following that 2012 season and has been there since. So far this season Igarashi, now 37, has allowed two runs in 13 innings with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. The Yankees went through a lot of random relievers in 2012. We haven’t even gotten to Chad Qualls and David Aardsma and Derek Lowe yet.

We are now in April and a new season has begun. That is true today and it was true in 2012 as well. Now that we’re in a new month, it’s time to go through the MLB Trade Rumors archives again. April is usually a slow month for rumors and transactions though. The season has just started and most teams are evaluating their rosters and minor league depth before looking for help outside the organization.

The Yankees remade their rotation during the 2011-12 offseason by signing Hiroki Kuroda and trading for Michael Pineda. They also brought back Freddy Garcia and salary dumped A.J. Burnett. The Yankees didn’t just lose on Opening Day in 2012 — that was the first of these six straight Opening Day losses — they got swept in the first series by the Rays. The cries of panic were quickly erased by a 10-3 stretch. The Yankees went 13-9 in April overall. Let’s dive into the MLBTR archives, shall we?

April 1st, 2012: Minor Moves: Scales, Bulger

The Yankees have signed Jason Bulger to a minor league contract, tweets MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. He’ll pitch at Triple-A. After signing a minor league deal with the Twins this winter, Bulger disappointed in Spring Training, allowing 10 earned runs on eight hits and five walks in four innings. He last enjoyed success in 2009 with the Angels.

Bulger had some nice years with the Angels back in the day, throwing 99 innings with a 3.64 ERA (4.40 FIP) from 2009-11. He was just trying to hang on by time he signed with the Yankees. Bulger, then 33, spent the 2012 season in Triple-A, where he had a 3.41 ERA (4.50 FIP) in 34.1 relief innings. He walked 21 and struck out 28 as the designated “veteran arm who makes sure the kids don’t get overworked” reliever. The Yankees have a few guys like that this year (Ernesto Frieri, Jason Gurka), though they’re much deeper in young arms than they were five years ago. The odds of seeing Frieri and Gurka in the Bronx aren’t as good as they would have been a few years back.

April 4th, 2012: Giants, Yanks Swap George Kontos For Chris Stewart

2:32pm: The Yankees have acquired Stewart in exchange for right-hander George Kontos, reports MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch (on Twitter).

The big-ish surprise trade. Opening Day was April 6th, 2012, and two days earlier the Yankees changed course behind the plate and acquired Chris Stewart to back up Russell Martin. Francisco Cervelli was optioned to Triple-A. It was right around that time we started to learn about the value of pitch-framing, and Stewart was a master at it. Here are the numbers, per StatCorner:

	Stewart	Cervelli
2011	+16.8 in 460.1 innings	+8.4 in 316.1 innings
2012	+14.1 in 395.1 innings	+0.2 in 5 innings
2013	+21.7 in 844.1 innings	+3.2 in 138 innings

On a rate basis, Stewart was one of the very best pitch-framers in baseball at the time. Cervelli was good, but not as good as Stewart. Stewart backed up Martin in 2012 and hit .241/.292/.319 (65 wRC+) in 157 plate appearances. Cervelli hit .246/.341/.316 (89 wRC+) in 99 Triple-A games.

The Yankees let Martin walk as a free agent following the season and were planning to go with Stewart and Cervelli behind the plate in 2013, but a foul tip broke Cervelli’s hand in April and kept him out most of the season. That gave Austin Romine his first extended taste of big league action.

Kontos, meanwhile, has two World Series rings with the Giants, and has carved out a nice career as a middle reliever. He came into this season with a 2.64 ERA (3.66 FIP) in 264 career innings. I thought Kontos had a chance to be a setup guy and wasn’t too pleased with the trade, but whatever. What’s done is done.

April 4th, 2012: Yankees Sign Ramon Ortiz

The Yankees signed right-hander Ramon Ortiz, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets. It’s a minor league deal, Marc Carig of the Star-Ledger tweets. The Giants recently released the 39-year-old Praver/Shapiro client.

The Yankees have some nice pitching depth in the minors, which hasn’t always been the case over the years. It’s hardly been the case, really. They used to have to pick up guys like Ortiz to chew up innings in Triple-A. Ortiz, then 39 with over 1,400 big league innings to his credit, spent the entire season with Triple-A Scranton, where he had a 3.45 ERA (4.06 FIP) in 169.1 innings. That was the season Scranton had to play entirely on the road while PNC Field was being renovated, so Ortiz, a 12-year MLB veteran, stuck it out and road buses and lived in hotels all summer. Some guys stick around so long because they truly love the game.

By the way, those 169.1 innings Ortiz threw that season are still the most in the farm system since Steven White threw 175.1 innings back in 2006. Aside from Ortiz, only four Yankees farmhands have reached 160 innings in a single minor league season since White: Shaeffer Hall (164.1 in 2012), D.J. Mitchell (161.1 in 2011), Hector Noesi (160.1 in 2010), and Jason Jones (160 in 2008). Geez, those are some names. Shaeffer Hall was the Dietrich Enns of his time.

April 5th, 2012: Yankees Claim Cody Eppley

The Yankees claimed reliever Cody Eppley off of waivers from the Rangers, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets. The Rangers had designated the right-hander for assignment yesterday.

You never see it coming with these fringe relievers. The Yankees claimed Eppley off waivers the day before Opening Day, and while he didn’t make the Opening Day roster, he was called up in the middle of April and spent the entire rest of the season in the big leagues. He threw 46 innings with a 3.33 ERA (3.66 FIP) and a 60.3% ground ball rate. Eppley appeared in two games with the Yankees in 2013 before being released at midseason. He’s been bouncing around independent leagues and the Mexican League since 2014. The Yankees got their 40-something good innings out of Eppley and that was it, time to move on.

April 6th, 2012: NL West Notes: Padres, Dodgers, Phelps

The Giants originally requested right-hander David Phelps from the Yankees for catcher Chris Stewart, George A. King III of the New York Post reports. The Yankees ultimately sent right-hander George Kontos to San Francisco.

I don’t remember this at all. Phelps had yet to pitch in the big leagues at the time of the Stewart-Kontos trade, though he made his debut in the middle of the 2012 season. It’s easy to understand why the Yankees said no to Phelps but yes to Kontos. Phelps could start. Kontos couldn’t. Also, Phelps had a much cleaner injury history. (Kontos had undergone Tommy John surgery a few years prior.) The Yankees have never really missed Kontos. They would have missed Phelps given the 299.1 league average-ish innings he threw for them from 2012-14 though.

April 18th, 2012: Quick Hits: Lannan, Martin, Nationals, Orioles

The Yankees have no plans to talk to Russell Martin about a contract extension soon, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). Martin will become a free agent after this season, and the two sides briefly discussed a multi-year deal this past offseason.

The two sides did talk about an extension at some point, but nothing came of it and Martin ended up signing with the Pirates after the season. That led to the Stewvelli era in 2013. Here are the catchers the Yankees have lost or traded away over the last few offseasons:

• After 2016: Brian McCann traded to Astros.
• After 2015: John Ryan Murphy traded to Twins.
• After 2014: Francisco Cervelli traded to Pirates.
• After 2013: Chris Stewart traded to Pirates.
• After 2012: Russell Martin leaves as free agent.
• After 2011: Jesus Montero traded to Mariners.

The Yankees did all of that and they still have a budding star behind the plate in Gary Sanchez. Pretty cool. The super early guess here is Romine is sent packing after the season so Kyle Higashioka can take over as the backup in 2018, continuing the annual tradition of jettisoning a catcher in the offseason.

April 19th, 2012: Yankees Sign Nelson Figueroa

The Yankees have signed right-hander Nelson Figueroa to a minor league deal, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets.

Nelson Figueroa too? Geez, the Yankees signed so many veteran guys to stash in Triple-A in 2012 that I had to go back to look at their rotation to start the season. Here are their Opening Day starting pitchers:

• Game One: Manny Delcarmen (!)
• Game Two: Dellin Betances
• Game Three: Manny Banuelos
• Game Four: D.J. Mitchell
• Game Five: Adam Warren
• Game Six: Ramon Ortiz

The Delcarmen start was basically a rehab thing. He moved to the bullpen after that one little start, at which point Ortiz took his rotation spot. Figueroa helped replace Banuelos, who got hurt early in the season. Others on the 2012 Triple-A Opening Day roster include Mike O’Connor, Craig Heyer, and Pat Venditte. I had a prospect crush on Heyer for a while.

April 20th, 2012: No More Personal Service Deals & Milestone Bonuses

Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have agreed to put an end to personal service deals and milestone bonus clauses, ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark reports. Existing contracts with these deals or bonuses won’t be affected by the changes, which were agreed to this month.

I don’t remember this. Alex Rodriguez had those home run milestone bonuses in his contract, though he didn’t trigger the first bonus until 2015. MLB and MLBPA changed the rules three years before that was a thing. I know Albert Pujols has an option for a ten-year, $10M personal services contract in his deal with the Angels, which was signed a few weeks before this report. Ryan Zimmermann has a personal services clause in his contract too.

MLB and MLBPA determined milestone bonuses violated a clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that says performance statistics can not be used as a basis for incentives. The personal services stuff violated a clause about contracts extending beyond the player’s career as an active player. So, if you’re looking for a way the Yankees can sweeten the pot to lure a free agent in the future, milestone bonuses and personal services agreements are a no go.

April 25th, 2012: Michael Pineda To Undergo Labrum Operation

Michael Pineda has a tear in his right labrum and will undergo arthroscopic surgery next Tuesday, according to Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News (Twitter link). The 23-year-old will likely miss a full year, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch tweets. The Yankees acquired Pineda in an offseason trade that sent their top hitting prospect to the Mariners, but the right-hander has yet to pitch his first inning in pinstripes.

Oh boy. That was a bad day. Pineda’s velocity was down all throughout Spring Training — he came to camp out of shape too — and the Yankees had him start the season on the disabled list with what they called shoulder tendinitis. He made a rehab start a few days prior to this report and left the game after only a handful of pitches with pain in his shoulder. Tests revealed the labrum tear. Brian Cashman called it a “tragic diagnosis” at the time.

Pineda missed close to two full seasons following the surgery — he did throw 40.2 minor league rehab innings in the second half of 2013 — and all things considered, his stuff has come back very well following surgery. He can still get his fastball into the mid-90s regularly and his slider can be devastating. Pineda still doesn’t have a reliable changeup though, and his command is pretty terrible, which may or may not be the result of the surgery. I remember being worried he’d come back throwing 88-89 mph with no bite on his slider. That didn’t happen.

Even with his stuff coming back, the shoulder injury definitely derailed Pineda’s career to some degree. He missed his age 23 season and most of his age 24 season. Those are crucial developmental years, years Pineda could have been working on his changeup and command. There’s no guarantee Pineda would be a better today had he not undergone surgery. The surgery didn’t do him any favors though. Sucks.

April 28th, 2012: Bobby Abreu Links: Angels, Wells, Trout, Yankees

Mike Axisa of the River Ave Blues blog thinks the Yankees might have an interest in Abreu as at least a short-term fix while Brett Gardner is on the DL.  New York tried to acquire Abreu for A.J. Burnett in the offseason, before Burnett blocked the deal to avoid playing on the west coast.

That idiot Mike Axisa has a good idea every once in a while, but this probably wasn’t one of them. Gardner suffered what was essentially a season-ending elbow injury making a sliding catch in the team’s 11th game of the season — he did return very late in September and for the postseason — which sent the Yankees scrambling for outfield help. Here are their games started leaders in left field in 2012:

1. Raul Ibanez — 65 starts
2. Andruw Jones — 41
3. Ichiro Suzuki — 26
4. Dewayne Wise and Jayson Nix — 9 each
5. Brett Gardner — 8
6. Eduardo Nunez — 3
7. Chris Dickerson — 1

I remember Nunez have some adventures during those three starts in left field. The Yankees rolled with an Ibanez/Jones platoon for much of the season, but Andruw was awful that year, which led to guys like Nunez and Nix playing out there. Eventually the Yankees traded for Ichiro to replace Gardner.

Anyway, I’ve gotten sidetracked. The Yankees and Angels reportedly agreed to a Burnett-for-Abreu trade during the 2011-12 offseason, but Burnett invoked his no-trade clause to block the deal because he didn’t want to go to the West Coast. He was traded to the Pirates, who were not on his no-trade list, a few weeks later.

Abreu, then 38, hit .208/.259/.333 (62 wRC+) in eight games with the Angels before being released on April 27th. The player called up to take his roster spot? Mike Trout. A good decision, that was. Abreu then hooked on with the Dodgers and hit a serviceable .246/.361/.344 (100 wRC+) in 92 games. Ibanez hit some enormous home runs late in 2012 and Ichiro played well after the trade. Good thing the Yankees didn’t listen to me and sign Abreu, huh?

Is it really March already? Geez. I feel like New Years was last week. Anyway, now that we’re in a new month, it’s again time to go back through the MLB Trade Rumors archives. We’re now in March 2012, and March is traditionally one of the slowest months for free agent and trade rumors. The offseason is over and teams usually wait a few weeks into the regular season before getting serious about acquiring upgrades.

The Yankees wrapped up their 2011-12 offseason business in February, when they traded A.J. Burnett following the Hiroki Kuroda and Michael Pineda pickups. They also filled out their bench with low cost veterans like Raul Ibanez and Eric Chavez. The rotation looked great and an offense that ranked second in baseball with 5.35 runs per game in 2011 was mostly intact. There were plenty of reasons to be excited in March 2012. Let’s dive into the rumors.

March 1st, 2012: Quick Hits: Burnett, Sizemore, Posey, Yankees

Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner confirmed to reporters, including Marc Carig of the Star-Ledger, that he is intent on lowering payroll below $189MM by 2014 for luxury tax purposes (Twitter link).

The first reports of the austerity plan arrived a few weeks before this nugget. It started out as a little thing, then it continued to gain steam over the next year or two. The Yankees still haven’t gotten under the luxury tax, as you know, mostly because they reacted to their yucky 2013 season by committing $438M total to Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran. (That doesn’t include the $20M release fee for Tanaka.)

Given what we know now, those four signings have worked out fairly well overall. The Ellsbury deal is pretty bad and will only look worse over time. Both McCann and Beltran were productive during their time in pinstripes though, and they were traded for some pretty good prospects. Tanaka has been pretty damn awesome when healthy, which has been most of the time. At the same time, the Yankees have played one postseason game since handing out those contracts, and you know the team’s ultimate goal is playing in October. Either way, the austerity play went bye bye in 2014. The Yankees are poised to try again in 2018.

March 7th, 2012: Mariano Rivera May Announce Decision Before All-Star Break

“I think maybe it will be before the All-Star break,” legendary Yankees closer Mariano Rivera told Kevin Kernan of the New York Post regarding an announcement of whether he will pitch in 2013.  Rivera wants to be certain of his decision, which he seems to have already made privately.  Rivera said that when he does retire, “It would be nice that you tell the fans, so every stadium you go to, the fans will be there to show their appreciation and you appreciate the fans.”

Mo never did get a chance to announce his decision that year. He blew out his knee on the Kauffman Stadium warning track on May 3rd, ending his season. Rivera later said he was planning to retire following the 2012 season, and the injury changed his mind. He didn’t want to go out like that. Thank goodness. Had Rivera not changed his mind, this never would have happened …

… and that would have sucked.

March 10th, 2012: Levine: Yankees Plan To Keep Cano And Granderson

With the Yankees planning to get under the $189MM luxury tax threshold by 2014, many have wondered if the club will be able to retain both Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson after their contracts expire following the 2013 season.  Today, team president Randy Levine flatly stated that the team has a plan in place to retain both stars, writes Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com.

I literally lol’d when I saw this headline. I guess the plan was a) never make Granderson a competitive offer, and b) hope Cano is willing to take a discount. Swing and a miss, that was.

In all seriousness, this is a nice reminder plans can and do change. Levine made these comments 20 months before Granderson and Cano actually became free agents, and I’m sure the Yankees had every intention of retaining both at the time. Then Granderson missed a ton of time with hit-by-pitch related injuries in 2013 and Cano continued to raise his earning potential with his performance. Something something best laid plans.

March 11th, 2012: Cafardo On Phillies, Blanton, Lannan, Ramirez

With several teams in the market for a center fielder, Cafardo asked a National League scout if the Yankees would entertain a deal for Brett Gardner.  Gardner is currently slated to start in left field for the Yanks but a National League scout said that at some point the club might seek out a more traditional left field option.

Does the scout make those comments if the Yankees were playing Granderson (41 homers in 2011) in left and Gardner (49 steals in 2011) in center instead of vice versa? Granderson’s production certainly qualified him as a “traditional left field option,” and hey, Gardner in center and Granderson in left would have been a better defensive alignment too. Each position has a traditional offensive and defensive profile, but it’s okay to break from the norm once in a while.

March 15th, 2012: AL East Notes: Ibanez, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Orioles

Raul Ibanez doesn’t have emotional, historical or financial ties keeping him on the Yankees’ roster, so Joel Sherman of the New York Post wonders how long the club will stick with Ibanez if his struggles continue. But as Sherman point out, it’s still just March 15th.

Ibanez was so, so bad in Spring Training 2012. He hit .150/.190/.333 in 63 plate appearances, and it wasn’t until the final week of camp that he finally hit a ball out of the park. Ibanez wasn’t particularly great in the first half either, hitting .240/.298/.457 (98 wRC+) before the All-Star break. For a bat only dude, that ain’t good. Gardner hurt his elbow making a sliding catch in April though, leaving the Yankees short an outfielder the rest of the season. I wonder if they would have moved on from Ibanez at some point had Gardner been healthy. Fortunately for the Yankees, they kept Ibanez and he got molten hot at exactly the right time in September (and October).

March 16th, 2012: Yankees Notes: Pineda, Ibanez, Willis

The Yankees offered Dontrelle Willis a minor league deal this offseason, Sherman tweets. The Yankees might look into signing Willis, who was released by the Phillies this morning.

Dontrelle Willis! I don’t remember the Yankees being on him on at all. Willis was pretty far gone by this point too. His last good season was 2006, and from 2008-11, he had a 6.15 ERA (5.46 FIP) in 199 total innings. I assume the Yankees were looking at the then 30-year-old Willis as a reliever — he held left-handed batters to a .123/.169/.200 (.168 wOBA) batting line with 33.3% strikeouts, 3.3% walks, and 58.3% grounders in 2011, albeit in a limited sample. D-Train continued pitching in the minors and independent ball until 2014. He never pitched in the big leagues after 2011 though. It went so bad, so fast with him.

March 16th, 2012: Yankees Sign Andy Pettitte

A year after retiring, Andy Pettitte is back in pinstripes. The Yankees announced that they signed the 39-year-old left-hander to a minor league contract. Pettitte, a Hendricks Sports client, can potentially earn $2.5MM on the deal, which doesn’t include incentives. 

I’ll never forget the moment we learned Pettitte was coming out of retirement. Joe and I were in the middle of recording the RAB Podcast (RIP) when Jack Curry broke the news on Twitter. We were both just kinda speechless, so we scrapped that podcast and started writing about the signing instead. It was a pretty crazy afternoon. Pettitte’s un-retirement came out of nowhere. There were no rumbling at all. If anything, there was the opposite. Pettitte was in camp as a guest instructor that year and he told everyone he had no interest in playing again. Funny how that works.

Andy’s return — he threw another 260.2 innings with a 3.49 ERA (3.64 FIP) after coming back — was pretty awesome. I was kinda worried he’d come back and get knocked around, and it would all look like one giant mistake, but nope. He was great.

March 17th, 2012: Yankees Links: Pettitte, Garcia, Posada, Wise, A-Rod

Alex Rodriguez told Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com that he’d like to own a baseball team one day (Twitter link). According to the game’s bylaws, A-Rod will have to wait until he’s no longer under contract with one of the 30 clubs to do so.

I too would like to own a baseball team one day. My chances aren’t as good as A-Rod’s though. Being an owner is pretty good work if you can get it. The national television contracts and revenue sharing system make it basically impossible to lose money. I feel like it’s only a matter of time until A-Rod gets involved with an ownership group and purchases a team. Same with Derek Jeter. A-Rod stays in Miami and buys the Marlins while Jeter stays in Tampa and buys the Rays. Sounds good to me.

March 20th, 2012: Yankees Notes: Pettitte, Hughes, Nova, Damon

There was a split between upper management and the field staff over whether to sign Johnny Damon or Raul Ibanez, Tom Verducci of SI.com writes. Damon told the Yankees he would play for whatever they were offering Ibanez, but it wasn’t enough.

Interesting! I don’t remember hearing this. I assume the front office wanted Ibanez since, you know, he’s the guy they actually signed. Plus it makes sense that Joe Girardi and the other members of his staff would prefer Damon since they had him for a few years, and won a title with him. Ibanez went on to hit .240/.308/.453 (102 wRC+) with 19 homers in 2012, plus he had all the postseason heroics. Damon hit .222/.281/.329 (70 wRC+) with four homers for the Indians that year and was released in August. Score one for the front office nerds.

March 21st, 2012: Spanish Links: Vazquez, Wandy, Jorge Vazquez

Slugging Yankee prospect Jorge Vazquez is growing impatient with the minor leagues and would like to try Japan or Korea if there’s not a place for him in the major leagues, according to the president of the Mexican League’s Tigres de Quintana Roo, where Vazquez played in 2007 and 2008. “If they don’t give him an opportunity this year, he wants them to trade him, or to go to [play] baseball in the east,” Cuauhtémoc “Chito” Rodríguez told Fernando Ballesteros at Puro Béisbol. “He doesn’t want to continue on in Triple A anymore, not just with the Yankees, but with any other organization as well.” Vazquez made a case for being MLB-ready in 2011, putting up a .262/.314/.516 line with 32 homers at Triple A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

That .262/.314/.516 (121 wRC+) line in 2011 also came with a 33.2% strikeout rate and a 6.0% walk rate. He was repeating the level too. Remember how much everyone freaked out about Aaron Judge’s strikeouts in Triple-A in the second half of the 2015 season? He had a 28.5% strikeout rate and an 11.2% walk rate. Vazquez was an extreme free swinger. The Yankees ended up releasing him at the end of Spring Training in 2012 and he’s been playing in Mexico ever since. He hit .319/.403/.513 (146 wRC+) with six homers in 33 games last year, and, as far as I can tell, he’s under contract to play again this year too.

March 22nd 2012: DePaula Obtains Visa; Yankees Deal Still In Place

Rafael DePaula is finally on the verge of beginning his professional baseball career. The pitching prospect agreed to sign with the Yankees for $500K in November, 2010, but hasn’t had a visa until now, so the deal hasn’t been completed. Agent Charisse Espinosa-Dash told MLBTR today that DePaula has his visa and that the original deal is expected to go through once the Dominican right-hander passes a physical.

The DePaula signing came with a lot of headache and very little reward. It took about 18 months for the contract to be finalized due to visa issues — DePaula had been previously suspended for lying about his age, which tends to gum up the works — and once he was able to play, his top prospect status didn’t last long. The Yankees traded DePaula as the second piece in the Chase Headley trade a few years back. DePaula, 26 next month, had a 2.66 ERA (2.17 FIP) with 32.8% strikeouts and 8.3% walks in 64.1 innings between Double-A and Triple-A last year. It was his first season as a full-time reliever. DePaula was not selected in December’s Rule 5 Draft for the second straight year. Lot of hype, little payoff. Such is life.

March 23rd, 2012: Quick Hits: Nationals, Blue Jays, Soria, Carpenter

Joba Chamberlain dislocated his right ankle and lost a life-threatening amount of blood yesterday, Anthony McCarron of the New York Daily News reports. The injury will end Chamberlain’s season and could threaten his career.

Ugh, the Joba ankle injury. That was brutal. Joba was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery at the time of the trampoline accident, so the ankle injury didn’t delay his return all that much. He returned on August 1st and had a 4.35 ERA (4.01 FIP) in 20.2 innings the rest of the season. Chamberlain had a 3.70 ERA (3.62 FIP) in 382 innings before the Tommy John surgery and ankle injury, and he has a 4.05 ERA (4.29 FIP) in 173.1 innings since. He’s in camp as a non-roster players with the Brewers this spring. Prospects will break your heart, yo.

March 24th, 2012: Quick Hits: Phillies, Garcia, Abreu, Beras, Mets

Word is that the Yankees offered Freddy Garcia to the Marlins but Miami wasn’t interested, tweets Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com.  Garcia, who is a trade candidate following the club’s signing of Andy Pettitte, is signed to a one-year deal worth $4MM plus incentives.

In 2011, the Yankees had so little pitching they were signing guys like Garcia and Bartolo Colon out of near retirement. In 2012, they had so many arms they were able to trade Burnett and shop Garcia. Sweaty Freddy never did go anywhere though. He had a 5.20 ERA (4.68 FIP) in 107.1 innings spread across 17 starts and 13 relief appearances for the Yankees year. Yuck. In hindsight, letting Colon go and keeping Garcia was a huge mistake. You’re lying if you said you knew Colon would still be pitching in 2017 (!) though.

March 25th, 2012: Phillies Have Interest In Yankees’ Ramiro Pena

With second baseman Chase Utley sidelined with no timetable to return, the Phillies plan to start Freddy Galvis and are hoping to bolster their infield depth behind him.  With that in mind, General Manager Ruben Amaro & Co. have some interest in Yankees utilityman Ramiro Pena, according to George A. King III of the New York Post.

That’s 2009 World Series Champion Ramiro Pena to you. He had his moments as an up-and-down utility man from 2009-11. Pena spent just about the entire 2012 season in Triple-A, where he hit .258/.325/.328 (85 wRC+) in 101 games. The Yankees dropped him from the 40-man roster after the season and Pena went on his way. Rakin’ Ramiro did play in the big leagues last year, you know. With the Giants. He hit .299/.330/.425 (103 wRC+) with a homer in 30 games while they were dealing with some infield injuries. Pena signed with the Hiroshima Carp, Kuroda’s former team, over the winter.

March 28th, 2012: Yankees Sign Jack Cust

The Yankees have signed Jack Cust to a minor league contract, reports Sweeny Murti of WFAN (on Twitter). Last night we heard that the TWC Sports client was likely to sign with an NL team, but the Yankees apparently swooped in.

I completely forgot the Yankees had Cust for a while. He never did play for them in the big leagues, but he did hit .249/.400/.475 (147 wRC+) with 20 homers in 98 games with Triple-A Scranton before being released. My lasting memory of Cust will be his baserunning gaffes against the Yankees back in 2003:

The Yankees led the game 5-4 in the 12th inning at the time. Had Cust not fallen down (twice!), he would have scored the game tying run. I miss the days when the O’s were a punching bag. Don’t you?

March 28th, 2012: Yankees Claim Craig Tatum Off Waivers

The Yankees have claimed catcher Craig Tatum off waivers from the Diamondbacks, the team announced. The 29-year-old backstop has been claimed off waivers three times in the last few months, first by the Astros, then by the D’Backs, and now by the Yankees. Their 40-man roster is now full.

I am an embarrassingly huge baseball nerd, so it’s not often a transaction involves a player I’ve never heard of, especially if said player once played for the Yankees. I have zero recollection of Tatum though. None at all. Apparently the Yankees claimed him from the Diamondbacks, outrighted him off the 40-man roster a few days later, and he played eight games with Triple-A Scranton that summer. Been out of baseball since. I remember most things and I have no memory of this happening. Now I wonder what else I’ve forgotten.

March 28th, 2012: AL East Notes: Maxwell, Moore, Red Sox

The Astros and Orioles have some interest in Yankees outfielder Justin Maxwell, but haven’t discussed a possible deal with GM Brian Cashman, George A. King III of the New York Post reports. Maxwell is out of options and could be available in trades before Opening Day.

“The stupid Yankees shoulda kept Maxwell and dumped Andruw Jones” was a thing for a while in 2012. Andruw was terrible that year, hitting .197/.294/.408 (89 wRC+) overall and .202/.294/.411 (88 wRC+) against lefties. The Yankees had no room on the roster for Maxwell, who was claimed by the Astros after New York put him on waivers at the end of camp. He went on to hit .229/.304/.460 (106 wRC+) overall that year, and .272/.387/.505 (143 wRC+) against lefties. Maxwell has bounced around since then, and he currently plays for the Lotte Giants in the Korea Baseball Organization.

March 29th, 2012: Minor Moves: Bard, Sullivan, Pearce, Michaels

The Yankees have signed Steve Pearce to a minor league contract, reports Josh Norris of the Trentonian (Twitter link).  Pearce, a former well-regarded prospect with the Pirates, signed a minor league deal with the Twins in December but was released on Tuesday.

At the time Pearce was a busted former top-ish prospect. He’d hit .232/.302/.366 (78 wRC+) in 521 total plate appearances with the Pirates as an up-and-down guy from 2007-11. Pittsburgh then cut him loose after the 2011 season. Here is how Pearce’s 2012 season played out:

• March 27th: Released by Twins (signed a minor league deal over the winter).
• March 29th: Signs minor league deal with Yankees.
• June 2nd: Traded to the Orioles for cash.
• July 28th: Claimed on waivers by the Astros from the O’s.
• August 27th: Claimed on waivers by the Yankees from the Astros.
• September 29th: Claimed on waivers by the Orioles from the Yankees.

Pearce didn’t play for the big league Yankees the first time. He hit .318/.419/.568 (173 wRC+) with eleven homers in 73 games with Triple-A Scranton before exercising an opt-out clause in his contract. The Yankees could either trade him to the O’s for some cash, or let him complete the opt-out and go there as a free agent. They took the cash.

After coming back to New York in August, Pearce went 4-for-25 (.160) with a homer in 30 plate appearances for the Yankees. He was essentially an extra bench bat once rosters expanded in September. It wasn’t until 2013 that Pearce really established himself as a big league caliber hitter. I was hoping the Yankees would sign him this winter — for the Chris Carter role, essentially, except Pearce can also play the outfield — but alas. He’s with the Blue Jays now.

Now that the calendar has flipped to February and Spring Training is creeping closer and closer, it’s time for another trip through the MLB Trade Rumors archive. February can be a sneaky busy month for rumors and transactions. Teams are looking for last minute roster fillers and free agents rush to take whatever jobs they can find. Lots of small moves happen in February.

The Yankees addressed their rotation in one fell swoop in January 2012, when they acquired Michael Pineda and Hiroki Kuroda on the same day. They then spent much of February shopping A.J. Burnett, who they no longer needed, and making minor signings for the bench and Triple-A depth. Time to look back at the surprisingly busy month that was February 2012.

February 2nd, 2012: AL West Notes: Rangers, Trumbo, Morales, Mariners

The Mariners inquired about Yankees prospect Mason Williams during the Michael Pineda trade talks, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (via Twitter).

At the time, Williams was 20 years old and coming off a .349/.395/.468 (148 wRC+) batting line with three homers and 28 steals in 68 games with Short Season Staten Island. Baseball America ranked him the 85th best prospect in the game right around the time this rumor came out, four spots ahead of Chris Archer. That wasn’t Mason’s peak as a prospect — that came the following year — but he was someone on the rise.

I would have traded Williams for Pineda instead of Montero a hundred times out of a hundred back then. Williams was a super tooled up and interesting young player. Montero was an elite prospect who raked during his September cameo in 2011. I was ready for Montero to go all Miggy Cabrera on the AL East when they traded him for Pineda. Alas. By the way, Williams has Montero beat in career fWAR (+0.5 to -0.8) and bWAR (0.0 to -0.1).

February 7th, 2012: Yankees Sign Bill Hall

The Yankees have signed utility infielder Bill Hall, based on his tweet, “IT’S OFFICIAL IM A YANKEE!!!!!!!! #IwannaRing!!!!”  He signed a minor league deal, tweets Erik Boland of Newsday.  Hall is a client of Gaylord Sports Management.

I have nothing to add to this. I just thought the “IT’S OFFICIAL IM A YANKEE!!!!!!!! #IwannaRing!!!!” stuff was pretty funny. Hall was very excited to be a Yankee … then he got released at the end of Spring Training and spent the season in Triple-A with the Orioles. Life comes at you fast.

February 8th, 2012: Yankees Sign Russell Branyan

The Yankees signed first baseman Russell Branyan to a minor league deal with a spring training invite, reports Dan Martin of the New York Post.

Oh man, I completely forgot the Yankees had Branyan. They were looking for a cheap left-handed designated hitter at the time and Branyan was as good a candidate as anyone. He split 2011 between the Diamondbacks and Angels, hitting .197/.295/.370 (84 wRC+) with five homers in 146 plate appearances. Still, Big Russ could do this:

Branyan, who was 36 at the time, never did play for the big league Yankees. He was hurt and played only 33 games with Triple-A Scranton in 2012, during which he hit .309/.438/.655 (199 wRC+) with eleven homers. Branyan didn’t play at all in 2013, resurfaced in the Mexican League in 2014, and has been out of baseball since.

February 9th, 2012: East Links: Yankees, Jones, Cespedes, Rays, O’s

The Yankees want Garrett Jones from the Pirates in any trade involving A.J. Burnett reports ESPN’s Buster Olney, but Pittsburgh isn’t interested in moving him and talks haven’t progressed (Twitter links). Yesterday we learned that the Pirates are not on Burnett’s no-trade list.

The Yankees were after Jones a long time before finally getting him as part of the Martin Prado-Nathan Eovaldi trade. They tried to get him from Pittsburgh a few times and tried to sign him as a free agent during the 2014-15 offseason. You’ll notice a trend in this post. The Yankees tried to trade Burnett for a bunch players who ended up wearing pinstripes at one point anyway.

February 13th, 2012: AL East Links: Vlad, Theo, Red Sox

“Vladimir Guerrero has made it known to the Yankees that he wants their DH spot,” tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney, but Raul Ibanez remains the frontrunner.

The Yankees never did sign Vlad — he hooked on with the Blue Jays, played a handful of minor league games in 2012, then retired — but this rumor reminded me just how badly I wanted them to sign Guerrero back during the 2003-04 offseason. He had just turned 29 and had hit a) .330/.426/.586 (152 wRC+) with 25 homers in 2003, and b) .324/.405/.581 (145 wRC+) with 98 homers from 2001-03. George Steinbrenner wanted Gary Sheffield though, so the Yankees signed Sheffield and Vlad went to the Angels. Bah. I mean, Sheffield was pretty great, but he was no Vlad.

February 14th, 2012: A.J. Burnett Rumors: Tuesday

The Hafner for Burnett deal is no longer on the table, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch tweets.

Like I said, the Yankees tried to trade Burnett for a bunch of guys who ended up being Yankees at some point anyway. Travis Hafner was entering the final year of his contract and had just hit .228/.346/.438 (118 wRC+) with 12 homers in 66 games around injuries in 2011. He would have slotted in as the team’s left-handed hitting designated hitter in 2012. Instead, Hafner had to wait until 2013 to get that job.

February 15th, 2012: Latest on Jorge Soler

TUESDAY, 2:18pm: The Yankees have serious interest in Soler, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tweets.

12:33pm: Many teams remain involved in the bidding for 19-year-old Cuban prospect Jorge Soler, according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). The Cubs have been extensively linked to the outfielder, but they’re not the only club involved. 

Has it really only been five years since Soler was a free agent? Seems like it was much longer ago. Anyway, the Yankees did what they usually do with a big name Cuban free agent, which is bring him in for a workout and feign interest, but ultimately don’t come particularly close to signing him. The Cubs gave Soler a nine-year deal worth $30M, and while he would go on to develop into a top prospect, he’s yet to put it together at the MLB level. Chicago traded him straight up for Wade Davis this winter, which still blows my mind. Somehow the Yankees got much more for a half-season of Aroldis Chapman than the Royals did for a full season of Davis.

February 15th, 2012: A.J. Burnett Rumors: Wednesday

The Yankees tried to convince the Angels that Burnett could be their fifth starter, according to Wallace Matthews of ESPNNewYork.com.  The Yankees would have obtained Bobby Abreu in the proposed trade, but Burnett rejected the deal because he’d prefer to play on the East Coast.

Abreu played for the Yankees before the Burnett trade, but I’m still counting this. The Yankees tried to trade Burnett for a bunch of dudes who played for them at one point or another. Abreu, who was about to turn 38 at the time, had lost all his power by this point — he hit .242/.350/.342 (96 wRC+) with eight homers in 2011 — and he was so bad in 2012 that the Halos released him before the end of April. The Yankees and Angels had a deal though. Burnett for Abreu. Burnett said no because he and his wife preferred the East Coast though. That was his right.

February 18th, 2012: Yankees Sign Clay Rapada

The Yankees have signed lefty reliever Clay Rapada to a minor league contract with an invitation to Spring Training, reports David Waldstein of The New York Times (Twitter links). MLB.com’s Zack Meisel first reported that the two sides were nearing a deal. The Meister Sports Management client was released by the Orioles a few days ago.

The Yankees are said to be looking for a cheap lefty reliever these days, and five years ago, they were in the exact same position when Rapada fell into their laps. He was nails in 2012, throwing 38.1 innings in 70 appearances (lol) with a 2.82 ERA (3.20 FIP). Lefties hit .183/.263/.255 (.238 wOBA) with 28.7% strikeouts and 44.9% ground balls against him. Pretty awesome for a scrap heap pickup. Rapada hurt his shoulder in Spring Training 2013 and spent the next few seasons bouncing around the minors. He retired following the 2015 season.

February 19th, 2012: Pirates Acquire Burnett From Yankees

After more than a week of back-and-forth discussion, the Yankees and Pirates formally announced the deal that will send A.J. Burnett to Pittsburgh.  The trade allows the Bombers to unload $13MM of the $33MM still owed to the veteran pitcher over the next two years.  Aside from shedding payroll, the Yanks also receive outfielder Exicardo Cayones and right-hander Diego Moreno in the trade.

And there it is. Most trades involving the Yankees these days come together quickly. We’ll hear a rumor or two, then bam, the deal is done. Some come out of nowhere, like the John Ryan Murphy-Aaron Hicks swap. A press release just showed up in everyone’s inbox when that trade was made. The deal was done. No rumors at all.

The Burnett trade was not like that. This one dragged on for a little while. Burnett went on to have two good years with the Pirates, throwing 393.1 innings of 3.41 ERA (3.17 FIP) ball from 2012-13, while the Yankees received little more than salary relief from this trade. Moreno hung around the system for a few years and did reach the big leagues in 2015. You may remember his 5.1 innings of no-hit relief against the Rangers:

The Yankees release Moreno last summer and he’s since hooked on with the Rays. Cayones was one of the two players the Yankees sent to the Angels for Vernon Wells in 2013. The Halos released Cayones after the 2015 season and as far as I can tell he hasn’t played anywhere since. (The other player the Yankees traded for Wells, lefty Kramer Sneed, spent last year in indy ball and the Mexican League.)

February 20th, 2012: Yankees Notes: Chavez, Martin, Rivera

Catcher Russell Martin told Daniel Barbarisi of the Wall Street Journal he talked this winter about a three-year deal with the Yankees, but the discussion never progressed beyond the initial stages.  Martin avoided arbitration with a $7.5MM contract for 2012.

At this point the “no extensions” policy was in full effect, though the Yankees were willing to make an exception for Martin. Quality catchers are hard to find. The two sides never did reach a deal and Martin left as a free agent following the 2012 season. We were then subjected to a year of Chris Stewart and Francisco Cervelli before Brian McCann arrived.

I wonder how the long-term catching situation would have shaken out had the Yankees and Martin agreed to a three-year deal. It would have meant no Stewvelli in 2013, first and foremost, but also no McCann. It could have played out like this:

• 2012: Martin and Stewart
• 2013: Martin and Cervelli
• 2014: Martin and Cervelli
• 2015: Murphy and Austin Romine
• 2016: Murphy and Romine
• 2017: Gary Sanchez and Murphy

Eh, who knows. Fun to think about it. I’m glad the Yankees have Sanchez now and we didn’t have to sit through any more Stewvelli than we had to.

February 21st, 2012: Yankees Sign Raul Ibanez

The Yankees have found their new designated hitter, officially announcing an agreement with Raul Ibanez that was first tweeted by ESPN’s Buster Olney yesterday.  The framework for a deal was done weeks ago with the ACES client, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post, who pegs the value at $1.1MM.  Plate appearance incentives can bring the total to $4MM, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.

After being unable to trade Burnett for a lefty hitting designated hitter, the Yankees signed Ibanez. And you know what? He kinda stunk for most of the season. Ibanez was hitting .235/.303/.437 (95 wRC+) on August 31st, which, when combined with his terrible defense (Brett Gardner missed most of 2012 with an elbow injury, forcing Ibanez to play the outfield fairly regularly), meant he was sub-replacement level. Then Raul started smacking clutch dingers left and right in September and October. That was pretty cool. He made everyone forget about those rough few months in a hurry.

February 22nd, 2012: Yankees Notes: Rivera, Betances, Rodriguez

Joel Sherman of the New York Post doubts the Yankees will spend on the best free agent closer available, though it’s a strategy they might have chosen in the recent past. Brian Cashman believes it’s unwise to sign relievers other than Rivera to significant contracts, and the GM aims to keep payroll under $189MM by 2014.

How times have changed, eh? Then again, you could argue Chapman is the closest thing we’ve seen to Rivera in terms of year in, year out dominance. Also, the game has changed a lot these last five years. Teams lean on their bullpens much more heavily now than they did in 2012. For example, relievers threw 34.0% of all innings back in 2012. Last season it was 36.7%. It doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but that number is only trending up.

February 22nd 2012: Yankees Sign David Aardsma

11:21am: The Yankees have signed 30-year-old right-hander David Aardsma, the team announced. It’s a Major League deal worth $500K that includes a club option for 2013. The deal includes $500K in incentives and the 2012 option is worth $500K, Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times tweets. Aardsma underwent Tommy John surgery last July and won’t be ready to contribute until midway through the 2012 campaign.

I, like many others, was irrationally excited about the Aardsma signing. He had a few nice years with the Mariners, then blew out his elbow. The Yankees picked him up and rehabbed him, and were rewarded with one whole inning in 2012. And he gave up a homer to J.P. Arencibia in that one inning too. It was worth a shot, but it didn’t work out. Aardsma has bounced around the last few years and is currently unsigned.

February 27th, 2012: Yankees Sign Eric Chavez

Eric Chavez is returning to the Yankees for 2012, officially signing a one-year, $900K deal with incentives.  Chavez, 35, will reprise his role as a backup corner infielder and DH for the Yanks. The left-handed hitter posted a .263/.320/.356 line with two homers in 175 plate appearances in the Bronx in 2011, his first season in New York after spending 13 in Oakland.

Chavez’s second season with the Yankees was far better than the first. He hit .263/.320/.356 (80 wRC+) with two homers in 2011, which obviously isn’t great. Chavez then managed a .281/.348/.496 (126 wRC+) line with 16 homers in 313 plate appearances in 2012. Hell yeah. He played a fair amount of third base too while Alex Rodriguez nursed various injuries. Chavez played two years with the Diamondbacks after that before joining the Yankees as a scout. Billy Eppler poached him and now Chavez is an assistant general manager with the Angels.

February 27th, 2012: AL East Notes: Johnson, Pettitte, Blue Jays

Andy Pettitte visited Yankees camp and told reporters, including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, that he doesn’t plan on making a comeback. Pettitte said he’s “loving life” away from the ballpark and enjoying time with his family.

Good times. Good times. Pettitte un-retired 18 days after this report. He said he got the itch to continue playing after coming to Spring Training as an instructor, and the rest is history. That was pretty cool. I remember Joe and I were recording an episode of the RAB podcast (RIP) when news of the Pettitte signing broke, and we were both just kinda speechless. I’m pretty sure we scrapped that podcast all together so we could write about Andy’s return. That was fun.

It’s a new month and a new year, so our MLBTR Archives series now jumps into 2012. I’m not going to lie, these MLBTR Archives posts can get pretty tedious at times, but this one was a lot of fun. January 2012 was a busy month for the Yankees, both in terms of rumors and actual transactions. Putting this post together was a blast.

Prior to January, the Yankees hadn’t done much during the 2011-12 offseason. They signed CC Sabathia to an extension and re-signed Freddy Garcia, and that’s about it. They still needed to address the rotation because, on New Years Day 2012, the starting staff was Sabathia, Garcia, A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes, and Ivan Nova in whatever order. Egads. Time to jump back in time to January 2012. Come with me, won’t you?

January 3rd, 2012: Boras Seeks Five Years For Edwin Jackson

8:16pm: At the beginning of the offseason, the asking price for Jackson was in the Lackey/Burnett range ($82.5MM), tweets ESPN.com’s Buster Olney.  The Yankees haven’t had talks with Boras about Jackson, tweets Jack Curry of the YES Network. No talks are expected unless his asking price drops.

Jackson was a stathead favorite back then and he’d just had the best season of his career in 2011, pitching to a 3.79 ERA (3.55 FIP) in 199.2 innings for the White Sox and Cardinals. He was only 28 at the time too, so many saw him as a guy who was about to have the best stretch of his career. And on top of that, Jackson was a Type-B free agent, meaning he didn’t cost a draft pick. Sign him up, right?

The Yankees passed even though more than a few wanted them to go after Jackson given their questionable rotation. The Nationals were able to pick him up on a cheap one-year contract, which was telling. Jackson had Michael Pineda Syndrome in that he was way more hittable than his power stuff would lead you believe. He had a solid season for Washington in 2012 (4.03 ERA and 3.85 FIP) before signing a four-year contract with the Cubs and completely falling apart (5.33 ERA and 4.29 FIP from 2013-16). Sometimes the “he has great stuff and just needs learn how to pitch” guys never learn how to, you know, pitch.

January 5th, 2012: Yankees Fail To Reach Deal With Hiroyuki Nakajima

The Yankees and Hiroyuki Nakajima have failed to reach an agreement on a contract, the team announced. New York won the negotiating rights to the infielder with a bid around $2MM last month.

It was a surprise when the Yankees won the negotiating rights to Nakajima, who Brian Cashman said they viewed as a utility man. They offered him a small contract and wanted six years of team control, as if he were a typical rookie and not an overseas veteran. Nakajima went back to Japan for another year, signed a two-year deal with the Athletics the following offseason, and never got out of Triple-A. He hit .290/.346/.439 for the Orix Buffaloes in 2016.

January 5th, 2012: Quick Hits: Manny, Braves, Oliver, Tejada

The Yankees never inquired on lefty reliever Darren Oliver before he signed with the Blue Jays, reports MLBTR’s Ben Nicholson-Smith (on Twitter).

Oliver was 41 at the time of this rumor and he had carved out a very nice second phase of his career as a reliever. From 2008-11, his age 37-40 seasons, Oliver had a 2.62 ERA (3.11 FIP) in 242 appearances and 257.2 innings. The Yankees needed a lefty reliever and Oliver had been as good as anyone the last few seasons, but still, the guy was 41, and his strikeout rate dropped from 26.6% in 2010 to 20.5% in 2011. There were some other red flags too. The Blue Jays gave Oliver a one-year deal worth $4M and he went out and threw 56.2 innings with a 2.06 ERA (2.95 FIP) and a 23.5% strikeout rate in 2012. Go figure. Old players: not always bad!

January 7th, 2012: Jorge Posada To Announce Retirement

Jorge Posada will announce his retirement within the next two weeks, a source tells Sweeny Murti of WFAN (via Twitter).  Previously, it was reported that Posada wanted to continue playing in 2012 if he could find the right situation.

Aw man. On one hand, it was sad to see Posada retire. He’s one of my all-time favorite players. Switch-hitting catchers with power are my jam. On the other hand, it was also something of a relief to hear Posada was calling it a career. He was pretty bad in 2011 (92 wRC+) and the Yankees were ready to hand the DH reins over to Jesus Montero, so there was no room for Posada on the roster. It would have been weird seeing him finish out his career as a DH with the Rays or something like that. Here’s his retirement press conference:

As of this writing, Posada has appeared on only 4.5% of the publicly available Hall of Fame ballots according to Ryan Thibodaux’s tracker. He’s already been mathematically eliminated from receiving the 75% needed for induction into Cooperstown, so Posada won’t get into the Hall of Fame this year, not that I expected it to happen. Jorge does need some help — 15 more votes, to be precise — to receive the 5% necessary to remain on the ballot another year. Man, Posada falling off the ballot after one year would be a serious bummer.

January 7th, 2012: Yankees Notes: Posada, Rivera, Nakajima, Chavez

Speaking of members of the Core Four, closer Mariano Rivera has said he might know by Spring Training whether he intends to keep pitching when his contract expires after this year, but won’t say which way he’s leaning, writes Marc Carig of The Star-Ledger.  The 42-year-old posted a 1.91 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 1.2 BB/9 last season.

Rivera later admitted he was planning to retire following the 2012 season, but he decided to stick around another year after tearing his ACL in May and missing the rest of the season. Mo could probably show up to Spring Training this year, throw ten tune-up innings, then give the Yankees about 60 innings with a sub-3.00 ERA, right? He was a machine. Rivera could roll out of bed in December and paint the corners.

January 11th, 2012: Minor Moves: Powell, Mattingly, Hu, Phillips, Herrera

The Yankees signed Preston Mattingly to a minor league deal, tweets Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus. The 24-year-old former first rounder posted a .232/.281/.354 line in the lower minors last year. He is the son of current Dodgers manager and former Yankees star Don Mattingly. 

Geez, I forgot the Yankees signed Mattingly’s kid. Preston never did actually play in the organization. The Yankees released him at the end of Spring Training and he’s been out of baseball since. The Dodgers drafted Mattingly with the 31st overall pick in the 2006 draft and he hit .232/.276/.336 (69 wRC+) in over 1,700 minor league plate appearances. Never made it out of Single-A. Preston went to college after his baseball career ended and played on the Lamar University basketball team.

January 13th, 2012: Stark On Yankees, Red Sox, Reds, Garza

The Yankees won’t be under the luxury tax threshold in 2012 or 2013, but they hope to spend less than $189MM in 2014, Stark writes. However, the CBA isn’t the only reason the Yankees are spending more cautiously. “I think this is what the Yankees were going to do, regardless,” one of Stark’s sources said.

Five years later, the Yankees are still trying to get under the luxury tax threshold, and they won’t be able to do it until at least 2018. This was the first report of the austerity plan. The first time we got wind of Hal Steinbrenner’s plan to cut payroll and throw away the team’s market advantage. Nowadays the Collective Bargaining Agreement ensures the Yankees or any other big market team has no way to flex their financial muscle without being taxed or penalized heavily. Parity: it’s just a fancy word for widespread mediocrity.

January 13th, 2012: Mariners, Yankees Swap Pineda For Montero

The Mariners needed hitting, the Yankees needed pitching.  The two teams addressed each other’s needs in a blockbuster trade of young stars, as right-handers Michael Pineda and Jose Campos will go to the Bronx in exchange for catcher/DH Jesus Montero and righty Hector Noesi.  Both teams confirmed the trade this afternoon.

January 13th, 2012: Yankees Sign Hiroki Kuroda

The Yankees have signed Hiroki Kuroda to a one-year contract, the team announced.  Jack Curry of the YES Network first reported the agreement (Twitter link).  The deal will pay Kuroda $10MM, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney.  Kuroda is represented by the Octagon agency.

I’m going to lump these two moves together because they kinda felt like one big move. The time stamps of the RAB posts (Pineda trade, Kuroda signing) tell me the deals happened 54 minutes apart. The dust hadn’t come close to settling following the Pineda trade when news of the Kuroda signing broke. What a day that was, huh?

The Pineda trade was a classic out-of-nowhere Brian Cashman move. There was talk Montero could be traded for a pitcher all winter and pretty much no one wanted that to happen. He came up in September 2011 and raked, and everyone was looking forward to seeing him as the full-time DH in 2012. Montero’s name was certainly out there as a trade candidate though.

Pineda? There were no rumors about him, and certainly nothing connecting him to the Yankees. Pineda had just wrapped up an excellent rookie season and it seemed like the Mariners were ready to pair him with Felix Hernandez for the next half-decade. Instead, they cashed him in as a trade chip to get the big middle of the order bat they’d been lacking for years. That was the thinking behind the trade, anyway.

As for Kuroda, the Yankees had been linked to him for weeks, dating back to the 2011 trade deadline. I wanted the Yankees to sign him so bad. So, so bad. Kuroda was not the kinda guy to chase top dollar though. He wanted the best fit for his family and a chance to win, which is why he insisted on no-trade clauses wherever he played. The Yankees convinced him to come to New York and he was a damn good Yankee.

Both these deals were reported on January 13th, but it wasn’t until January 23rd than the Pineda trade became official and January 26th that the Kuroda trade was official. If I’m remembering correctly, the Pineda trade was held up because Montero had some visa issues and wasn’t able to get to Seattle to take his physical right away. Kuroda was home in Japan at the time and in no real rush to fly all the way to New York for his physical.

But man, was that a wild day or what? There was a lot of angst about the pitching staff that offseason. The Yankees missed out on Cliff Lee the previous year and made it through the 2011 season thanks to Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. We were all anticipating a rotation overhaul during the 2011-12 offseason and it just wasn’t happening, then BAM, Pineda and Kuroda were Yankees in the span of 54 minutes. What a time to be alive.

January 13th, 2012: Yankees Looking For Hitting, Carlos Pena On “Radar”

Now that the Yankees have addressed their pitching issues with two major transactions, the club is looking to add some offense, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com.  Carlos Pena is “now on their radar,” and Heyman says the Bronx Bombers could be looking at other hitters as well.

With Montero gone and Posada retired, the Yankees suddenly had an opening at DH, and my goodness, they were connected to pretty much every veteran bat in the final few weeks of the 2011-12 offseason. The Yankees liked Pena for a long time — he spent time with Triple-A Columbus in 2006 and they claimed him on trade waivers in August 2011 — and always seemed to be linked to him, but it never did come together. He wound up back with the Rays in 2012 and hit .197/.330/.354 (98 wRC+) with 19 homers in exactly 600 plate appearances. Bullet dodged, I’d say.

January 13th, 2012: Analysis And Background Of The Montero/Pineda Deal

The Yankees initially tried to acquire Felix Hernandez from the Mariners, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (via Twitter) and were willing to offer a package that included Montero, Betances, Banuelos and more.

“If they were going to trade Montero, why didn’t they ask for Felix instead of Pineda???” was a fairly common RAB comment back in January 2012. As if the Yankees didn’t try that. Hernandez was coming off his worst season in several years at time — “worst season” is a relative term here because Felix was still awesome in 2011 — but he was signed for another three years and he was still only 25. Crazy. Hernandez was the face of the franchise and the Mariners weren’t going to give him up. The Yankees asked, Seattle said no, so they moved on to the next best thing.

January 15th, 2012: AL East Notes: Yankees, Pineda, Red Sox, Rays

GM Brian Cashman tells Jim Bowden of MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM that the Yankees will have made a mistake if Pineda never develops into a #1 starter (Twitter link).

Well, Pineda hasn’t develop into a No. 1 starter, but it’s still hard to consider the trade a mistake given what we know now. Montero was a total bust for the Mariners and it sure seems like the Yankees sold as high as possible. Sure, there was an opportunity cost to trading Montero — who else could they have gotten for him besides Pineda? — but we’ll never know what other deals were out there. Neither the Yankees nor the Mariners got what they wanted out of that trade. Seattle ended up way worse off though.

January 15th, 2012: Yankees Have Spoken To Johnny Damon

With Jesus Montero headed to the Mariners, the Yankees have spoken to Johnny Damon about the possibility of returning to New York as a DH according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (all Twitter links). He says they don’t have much money left to spend on a hitter, adding that there’s a “very small chance” they would consider Jorge Posada since he has yet to make his retirement official.

Like I said, the Yankees talked to every available veteran bat following the Montero trade. Damon was 38 at the time and coming off a good season with the Rays, during which he hit .261/.326/.418 (108 wRC+) with 16 homers in 647 plate appearances as their full-time DH. Talks with the Yankees about a reunion never got off the ground though. Damon ended up signing with the Indians in mid-April and hit .222/.281/.329 (70 wRC++) with four homers in 224 plate appearances before being released in August. He hasn’t played since. Another bullet dodged.

January 16th, 2012: Yankees, Hideki Matsui Have Been In Contact

There has been some contact between Hideki Matsui and the Yankees this offseason, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets. The Yankees, who have also been in touch with Johnny Damon, appear to have just $1-2MM to spend on a DH. That would likely be enough to sign the 37-year-old Matsui, who’s coming off a disappointing season in Oakland.  

Another veteran bat, another old friend. Matsui was 37 at the time and he authored a .251/.321/.375 (93 wRC+) batting line with 12 homers in 585 plate appearances for the Athletics in 2011. I have zero recollection of Matsui with Oakland, but it happened. Look:

Friggin’ wild, man. As with Damon, reunion talks with Matsui never did advance — it didn’t go over too well when the Yankees passed on both — and he wound up with the Rays, where he hit .147/.214/.221 (20 wRC+) with two homers in 103 plate appearances before being released in August. He hasn’t played since. Yet another bullet dodged.

Bringing Damon or especially Matsui back sure would have been cool from a nostalgic point of view, but it was pretty clear neither had much to offer at that point of their careers. Both guys left town a hero rather than stick around long enough to see themselves become the villain.

January 16th, 2012: Quick Hits: Orioles, Cespedes, Dodgers

ESPN.com’s Buster Olney suggests the Yankees could use their DH spot to see what Jorge Vazquez can do at the big league level or to give Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter partial days off (all Twitter links). The 29-year-old Vazquez posted a .262/.314/.516 line with 32 homers at Triple-A in 2011.

Jorge Vazquez! Oh man, good times. Vazquez was a guy the Yankees plucked out of Mexico in December 2008, and he put up some big numbers in the minors, including a .262/.314/.516 (121 wRC+) batting line with 32 homers in 500 plate appearances with Triple-A Scranton in 2011. I remember the man they call El Chato hitting a home run clear over the batter’s eye in dead center field in Spring Training 2011.

Of course, Vazquez was an older guy (29 at the time of this rumor) with zero defensive value and no plan at the plate whatsoever. Everyone oohed and aahed at the homers but ignored his 33.2% strikeout rate and 6.0% walk rate in 2011. The Yankees never seriously considered Vazquez for the DH position — how was he supposed to give A-Rod and Jeter partial days off anyway? — and in fact they released him following Spring Training 2012. Folks were Mad Online about that.

Vazquez is still active, you know. Or at least he was last season. He hit .319/.403/.513 (146 wRC+) with six homers in 139 plate appearances for a team in the Mexican League last summer. Vazquez has been playing in Mexico ever since being released by the Yankees. He hit a walk-off homer to win the Caribbean Series last February:

Vaya con Dios, El Chato.

January 17th, 2012: Quick Hits: White Sox, Guerrero, Gonzalez, Hart

The representatives for Vladimir Guerrero and Raul Ibanez contacted the Yankees about their DH opening, Newsday’s Ken Davidoff tweets.

Every agent with a veteran free agent bat called the Yankees after the Montero trade, it seems. The Yankees ended up signing Ibanez to replace Montero, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

As for Vlad, he actually never played again. He hit .290/.317/.416 (96 wRC+) with 13 homers in 590 plate appearances as a 36-year-old for the Orioles in 2011, and that was it. No one signed him following that season and his career ended. Guerrero is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. Bullet dodged? Hard to say since Vlad didn’t play in 2012. That no team bothered to sign him tells you he was considered a liability at this point of his career, not as asset.

January 18th, 2012: Gerardo Concepcion Close To Free Agency

18-year-old Cuban lefty Gerardo Concepcion has established residency in Mexico, agent Jaime Torres told Enrique Rojas of ESPNDeportesLosAngeles.com.  He should be able to declare free agency and negotiate with Major League teams very soon.  The Yankees, Rangers, Cubs, White Sox, and Phillies are among the interested clubs, Rojas tweets.

I totally forgot about this dude. Concepcion was the Next Big Thing out of Cuba and those stupid Yankees didn’t sign him because they never sign Cuban players. The Cubs gave him a five-year deal worth $7M, and he showed up to camp in 2012 with a mid-80s fastball and iffy secondary pitches. Concepcion had a 5.50 ERA (4.74 FIP) with 16.4% strikeouts and 12.9% walks in 178.1 minor league innings from 2012-15. Egads.

Last year the now 24-year-old Concepcion found some success as a reliever, pitching to a 5.13 ERA (4.78 FIP) with 19.7% strikeouts and 10.6% walks in 59.2 innings split between Double-A and Triple-A. He even made his MLB debut in June, allowing one run in 2.1 innings. The Cubs non-tendered him after the season and re-signed him to a minor league deal. Meh. Maybe Concepcion will figure it out as a reliever. Can’t say the Yankees missed out here.

January 20th, 2012: Stark On Tigers, Pineda, Dodgers, Rockies, Angels

There are also two “conspiracy theories” floating around regarding the deal.  One school of thought has people wondering if Pineda’s fading velocity down the stretch trigged the M’s to trade him.  There are also clubs wondering if the Yankees had concerns about Montero’s mental make-up.

The concerns about Montero’s makeup were nothing new. We’d heard about his #badattitude for years. Makeup and work ethic issues led to Montero’s failure as a baseball player as much as anything.

Pineda’s velocity drop at the end of the 2011 season was a big red flag and the reason many weren’t fond of the trade, especially since we were all still in “Montero is the next Miguel Cabrera!” mode at the time. Here is Pineda’s game-by-game velocity in 2011, via Brooks Baseball:

That drop in his final start was the big concern, but Pineda’s velocity had been fading for weeks. He was over his previous career high in innings — he finished 2011 with 171 total innings, up from 139.1 the year before — and the Mariners did give him extra days off down the stretch in 2011.

The velocity loss could have been due to fatigue, or the irregular work. That was the hope. Then Pineda blew out his labrum in Spring Training 2012 and missed two full seasons. Womp effin’ womp.

January 26th, 2012: Yankees Designate Kevin Whelan For Assignment

The Yankees designated right-hander Kevin Whelan for assignment to create 40-man roster space for Hiroki Kuroda, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets. The 28-year-old debuted with the Yankees in 2011, appearing in two games.

Geez, Whelan stuck around a long-time, huh? The Yankees got him in the Gary Sheffield trade with the Tigers following the 2006 season. He spent the next four and a half seasons toiling in the minors before making his MLB debut in June 2011, when he allowed one run in 1.2 innings. He walked five and struck out one. Whelan cleared waivers and spent the 2012 season in Triple-A Scranton before becoming a minor league free agent. He bounced from team to team for a few years and got back to the show briefly with the Tigers in 2014. He’s been out of baseball since 2015. Relief prospects, man. They’ll break your heart.

January 27th, 2012: Yankees Interested In Raul Ibanez

The Yankees have interest in Raul Ibanez, Kevin Kernan of the New York Post reports. Ibanez has drawn interest from a number of clubs, including the Mets and Tigers, in recent weeks. We heard ten days ago that ACES had contacted the Yankees about Ibanez, but this is the first concrete indication that the interest is mutual.

Ibanez was a less than inspiring choice for DH. He was 39 and had just hit .245/.289/.419 (90 wRC+) with 20 homers in 575 plate appearances for the Phillies. Add in his terrible defense and you had a -1.9 fWAR and -2.0 bWAR player. The Yankees eventually signed Ibanez and he looked washed up in Spring Training. It was bad. Fast forward six months, and the dude was a postseason hero. Something something can’t predict baseball.

January 30th, 2012: Yankees In Serious Talks With Bill Hall

The Yankees are in serious talks with utility man Bill Hall, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.  Rosenthal thinks Hall could reprise a 2010 Red Sox-type role, and notes that the 32-year-old works out in the offseason with Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long.  No deal is imminent and Hall is still considering a couple of teams, tweets Andy Martino of the New York Daily News.

The Yankees were never not connected to Bill Hall. Everyone offseason they were trying to sign him and every trade deadline they were trying to acquire him. By this point Hall was well past his prime even though he was only 32. He hit .211/.261/.314 (57 wRC+) for the Astros and Giants in 2011, and no level of defense and versatility could make up for that. The Yankees did eventually sign Hall to a minor league deal, but he didn’t make it out of Spring Training. The last time he topped a 90 wRC+ was 2006.

January 30th, 2012: Minor Moves: Delcarmen, Tolbert, Gonzalez

The Yankees signed Manny Delcarmen to a minor league contract, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets. The right-hander, who last pitched in the Major Leagues in 2010, owns a 3.97 ERA with 7.7 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9 in 292 2/3 innings over the course of six MLB seasons.

Really thought Manny Delcarmen would be a successful closer for an NL team, you guys. Delcarmen, who was only 29 at the time, had a 4.74 ERA (5.04 FIP) from 2009-10 before spending 2011 in Triple-A with the Mariners and Rangers. The Yankees gave him that minor league contract and he spent the season with Triple-A Scranton, where he had a 4.42 ERA (4.23 FIP) in 57 innings. Delcarmen hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2010, though he did make two relief appearances in the Mexican League last summer, so he’s still giving it a go.

January 31st, 2012: Yankees Hire Jim Hendry

11:57am: The Yankees have hired former Cubs GM Jim Hendry as a special assistant, ESPNChicago.com’s Bruce Levine reports. The Cubs dismissed Hendry in August, before hiring Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer.

The Cubs fired Hendry in late-July, but he agreed to stay on a few extra weeks to help the team sign their draft picks while the front office was in flux. Hendry had spent 17 seasons with the Cubs and was their GM from 2002-11, during which time he built some great teams (97 wins in 2008) and some terrible teams (66 wins in 2006). Tom Ricketts, who bought the Cubs in late-2009, decided it was time for a new voice. I’m guessing he doesn’t regret that decision.

Anyway, the Yankees hired Hendry as a special assistant and he’s still with the team as one of Cashman’s top lieutenants. He handled contract talks with Scott Boras about James Kaprielian two years ago. I’m sure he had a hand in the Starlin Castro trade as well. Hendry’s work as Cubs GM made him an easy punching bag, but he’s long had a reputation for being a great scout and talent evaluator. His current role suits him well. Hendry’s better off as an advisor than as the guy calling the shots.

December is a wonderful month for baseball rumors. It’s also a terrible month for baseball rumors. The first half of December is usually insane, thanks largely to the annual Winter Meetings. Then, around the holidays, things die down completely and it’s total silence for, like, two weeks. So it’s a big rush of rumors and then … nothing.

Our MLBTR Archive series now takes us to December 2011. The Yankees signed CC Sabathia to an extension back in October, before he could use his opt-out, but they still needed to add pitching. They managed to win 97 games with a rotation held together by Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia in 2011, and no one wanted to bank on them doing it again in 2012. Let’s dive into the December 2011 rumors.

December 1st, 2011: AL East Notes: Valentine, Wilson, Howell, Johnson

The Yankees turned down a request by C.J. Wilson‘s agent for a visit to Yankee Stadium, reports ESPN New York’s Andrew Marchand.  That’s not a good sign for Wilson’s chances of signing with the Bombers, which Marchand believes are “less than five percent.”

At the time, I thought Wilson was a really nice fit for the Yankees. Lefties who can miss bats and get ground balls tend to mix well with Yankee Stadium. There were some silly off-the-field concerns with Wilson — he was pretty active on social media and folks thought that wouldn’t go over well in New York — but mostly the Yankees didn’t want to commit huge dollars to another pitcher after extending Sabathia. Declining a visit to the ballpark though? Geez. I guess the Yankees didn’t want Wilson and his agent to use them to drive up their price.

December 2nd, 2011: Heyman On Braves, Wilson, Reyes, Astros, Minaya

The Yankees have looked at free agent left-hander Mike Gonzalez.

There was a time, between Mike Stanton and Boone Logan, in which the Yankees were completely unable to find a reliable lefty reliever. Whenever a southpaw popped up around the league and had a modicum of success, he was instantly connected to the Yankees in trade talks. Damaso Marte? Gotta have him. Scott Downs? Get him too. Brian Fuentes? Eddie Guardado? B.J. Ryan? Bring ’em all to me.

Mike Gonzalez was that guy for me. He was phenomenal for the Pirates from 2004-06 (2.08 ERA and 2.58 FIP) before landing in Atlanta in 2007 (1.59 ERA and 3.12 FIP). Gonzalez had some ups and downs from 2008-11, and by time free agency rolled around following the 2011 season, he was coming off a year with a 4.39 ERA (4.11 FIP). The Brewers signed him that offseason, he pitched to a 4.68 ERA (4.87 FIP) in 2012, and that was it. Never pitched in MLB again. Gonzalez was my white whale for a few years. I wanted him in pinstripes so bad. Alas.

December 3rd, 2011: Six Teams Pursuing Luis Ayala

There are six teams in on free agent reliever Luis Ayala, tweets Jim Bowden of ESPN XM radio, including the Mets, Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, Angels and Red Sox.

The Yankees did a nice job finding Ayala during the 2010-11 offseason. The former Expos setup man had missed a few years with injury, and he was trying to get himself noticed in winter ball that offseason, which is when the Yankees saw him. They gave Ayala a minor league deal and he rewarded them with a 2.09 ERA (4.19 FIP) in 56 middle relief innings. Not too shabby, eh?

After that 2011 season, I remember saying the Yankees should let Ayala walk because he was 34 with a history of arm problems, and I prefer to let guys like that go a year too early rather than a year too late. It was a year too early. The Orioles signed Ayala to a one-year contract and he threw 75 innings of 2.64 ERA (3.67 FIP) ball in 2012. Womp womp. Middle relief wasn’t the problem with the 2012 Yankees anyway.

Ayala broke down following his first season with the Orioles and hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2013. He is still active though, believe it or not. He had a 3.56 ERA in 43 innings for a pair of Mexican League teams in 2016.

December 5th, 2011: White Sox Have Big Demands For Danks, Floyd

The White Sox are asking for big returns for starters John Danks and Gavin Floyd, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post.  The Yankees like Danks, tweets SI’s Jon Heyman, but they’re unwilling to meet Chicago’s request of top prospects Manny Banuelos and Jesus Montero.  In fact, Heyman says the Yankees wouldn’t trade either for Danks.

At the time, Danks was only one year from free agency, so trading Banuelos or Montero for him would have been nuts. He was good (3.77 ERA and 3.89 FIP from 2008-11) but you can’t trade one of the best prospects in baseball (at the time) for one year of a guy like Danks. The White Sox didn’t trade Danks and instead signed him to a five-year extension worth $65M later in December.

Danks pre-extension: 4.03 ERA (112 ERA+) and 4.14 FIP in 917.2 innings
Danks since extension: 4.92 ERA (81 ERA+) and 4.83 FIP in 585.2 innings

He blew out his shoulder capsule nine starts into the 2012 season, year one of that five-year contract, and hasn’t been the same since. Pitchers, man.

December 6th, 2011: AL West Rumors: Bailey, Jackson, Gonzalez, Rangers

The Athletics are looking for young, high-upside outfielders in any Gio Gonzalez trade, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The Yankees may have to consider a three-team deal if they want to acquire the lefty, since they don’t have any outfielders in the high minors that fit that bill.

The Yankees had some high upside outfield prospects at the time — Mason Williams, Ravel Santana, and Slade Heathcott were all among their top ten prospects at the time, according to Baseball America — but they were all in the very low minors. Not the kind of guys who could headline a package for a good young pitcher like Gio.

Of course, the A’s wound up getting no outfielders in the Gonzalez trade later that offseason. They received a catcher (Derek Norris) and three pitchers (A.J. Cole, Tommy Milone, Brad Peacock) from the Nationals, so maybe the Yankees didn’t need outfielders to get it done. Seems like the Athletics determined they weren’t going to get the outfielders they wanted, so they took what they considered the best possible package. And as is often the case with the A’s nowadays, that package was more quantity than quality.

December 6th, 2011: Nationals Center Field Rumors

The Yankees shot down the Nationals’ attempts to trade for Brett Gardner, according to Pete Kerzel of MASNSports.com.

The Nats were just starting to rise to prominence at that time. They went 69-93 in 2010 but had some good young players. Then, in 2011, they made the jump to 80-81. It looked like they were ready to take another step forward in 2012 — and they did, they went 98-64 that year — but they needed a new center fielder. Rick Ankiel was their primary center fielder in 2011 and he stunk. Great story, below-average player.

Gardner, who was only 27 at the time and three years from free agency, hit .259/.345/.369 (97 wRC+) in 2011 while playing his usually strong defense. It’s not a shock the Nationals walked him. The Yankees wouldn’t budge and Washington never did acquire a center fielder that offseason. They started the 2012 season with Ankiel in center field before deciding to make a change in April, when they called up a young prospect named Bryce Harper. Worked out well, I’d say.

December 7th, 2011: Cashman: “I Think It’s Going To Be Hard To Add”

Yankees GM Brian Cashman told Jack Curry of the YES Network that he’s not optimistic about making a trade or signing a free agent (Twitter link). Said Cashman, “I think its going to be hard to add.”

Didn’t Cashman say pretty much the same thing at the Winter Meetings last week? Well, no, not exactly now that I look back through the archives, but close enough. From Wednesday’s Winter Meeting open thread:

11:00am: Cashman reiterated he doesn’t expect to land a starter at the Winter Meetings. “I don’t anticipate it. It’s a tough market and the price tags are extremely high. We could play on a lot of things because we have a lot of prospects people desire and we desire them, too. I would say it’s less likely for us to acquire a starter,” said the GM. [King]

Close enough. Every offseason Cashman seems to say he doesn’t expect to do something. He said it last offseason. It’s just one of those things GMs say. The Yankees did end up doing something during the 2011-12 offseason, but not until later in the winter. This was the Michael Pineda trade/Hiroki Kuroda signing offseason.

December 7th, 2011: Yankees Willing To Assume $8MM In Burnett Trade

The Yankees will listen to offers for starter A.J. Burnett, reports George A. King III of the New York Post, and they’re willing to assume $8MM of the $33MM owed to him for 2012-13. 

The Yankees wound up eating $20M of the $33M left on Burnett’s contract. Eating only $8M of that contract was a pipe dream given how poorly Burnett pitched from 2010-11. Still, saving $13M is better than nothing. If not for the 2009 World Series, the Burnett signing would have gone done as one of the team’s worst in recent history. No doubt about it. Flags fly forever though.

December 8th, 2011: Overnight Links: Wise, Gonzalez, Fielder, Rule 5

The Yankees are discussing a minor league deal with outfielder Dewayne Wise, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (on Twitter).

The Yankees did eventually sign Wise to a minor league deal. He started the year in Triple-A Scranton, and, not so fun fact: he was the guy the team called up when Mariano Rivera blew out his ACL on the Kauffman Stadium warning track. The Yankees were carrying eight relievers at the time and Nick Swisher was banged up, which is why they called up Wise and not another arm.

Anyway, the thing I remember most about Wise’s tenure with the Yankees was his non-catch in the stands along the left field foul line:

Ah yes, the good ol’ pre-instant replay days, when umpires could be lazy as hell and teams had no recourse. At least now there’s some more accountability.

Wise went 16-for-31 (.262) with three homers in only 63 plate appearances with the Yankees in 2012. He got called up when Rivera got hurt and released when the Yankees traded for Ichiro Suzuki. His short stint in pinstripes was bookended by two future Hall of Famers.

December 8th, 2011: Angels Want Pujols And Wilson

ESPN’s Buster Olney says that the Yankees are not the mystery team that’s trying to set up a Pujols deal (Twitter link). That makes sense, given that Mark Teixeira has a full no-trade clause in his contract.

There was a “the Yankees are the mystery team on Albert Pujols!” conspiracy theory going around five years that never really made sense. The Yankees did have an opening at DH, so they could have stuck Pujols there, but why would you spend so much on a DH? Especially when there was a very good chance Alex Rodriguez — or even Teixeira — would need to finish his contract at DH? The Yankees signing Pujols was a fun idea that never made a lick of sense.

By the way, checked out that MLBTR headline. “Angels Want Pujols And Wilson.” Well, they got them. The Halos have paid those two a combined $175M over the last five years for +17.4 fWAR and +19.9 bWAR. They still owe Pujols another $140M over the next five years too. Goodness.

December 8th, 2011: 2011 Rule 5 Draft Results

5. Royals take Cesar Cabral from Red Sox; traded to Yankees for cash.
29. Yankees take Brad Meyers from Nationals.

The Yankees haven’t made a Rule 5 Draft pick since taking Meyers from the Nats. He hurt his shoulder during an offseason workout soon after the Rule 5 Draft and didn’t pitch at all in 2012. The Yankees eventually returned him to Washington. Meyers spent the 2013-14 seasons with the Nationals and an an independent league. He hasn’t pitched at all since 2014.

Cabral, on the other hand, very nearly made the Yankees out of Spring Training in 2012. He broke his elbow at the end of March though, and missed the entire season. That opened the door for Clay Rapada to make the Opening Day roster. The Yankees kept Cabral on the 40-man roster during the 2012-13 offseason, rehabbed him, and once he got healthy, they were able to outright him to Triple-A and keep him in the organization. The Red Sox, his original team, didn’t take him back.

As a September call-up in 2013, Cabral struck out six of the nine left-handed batters he faced, and seemed to be putting himself in position for a 2014 bullpen job. It never came together. The Yankees released Cabral after his infamous three hit batsmen appearance against the Rays in April 2014. Cabral did get back to the show with the Orioles in 2015, and he spent the entire 2016 season in their farm system. He’s still only 27, and since he’s left-handed, I’m guessing he’ll be able to hang around for a few more years.

December 8th, 2011: AL East Notes: Eyre, Jeroloman, Golson, Miller, Rays

The Yankees are close to signing former Indians prospect Adam Miller to a minor league deal, tweets Sherman. Miller ranked among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects for five straight years from 2005 to 2009.

I was irrationally excited about the Miller signing. He was once a top pitching prospect — Miller topped out at No. 16 on Baseball America’s top 100 list in 2004 — whose career was derailed by injuries. Not shoulder or elbow injuries though. Miller had all sorts of ligament and tendon problems in his right middle finger that required surgery and other treatment. His finger now hooks at the end because he can’t fully extend it:

Miller was unable to grip the ball properly with the hook and he lost the hellacious breaking ball that once made him one of the game’s top pitching prospects. He had a 4.96 ERA (4.15 FIP) in 49 innings between Double-A and Triple-A with the Yankees in 2012. Miller was still active as recently as 2015, though it doesn’t appear he pitched anywhere this past season. Sucks. Poor guy spent all those years as a top prospect and was never called up to the big leagues. He didn’t get that affordable health care for life.

December 9th, 2011: Yankees Haven’t Made Offer To Hiroki Kuroda

9:59am: While no offer has been made, the Yankees indeed “like Kuroda very much,” according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). 

8:13am: The Yankees have offered Hiroki Kuroda a one-year contract worth approximately $12MM in U.S. dollars, reports Japanese news outlet Sponichi (passed on by Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues).

This was the first time we heard the Yankees connected to Kuroda that offseason. I was a huge fan and wrote a bunch about trying to get him in the previous months. I was hoping the Yankees could swing a trade to get him at the 2011 trade deadline, but alas, Kuroda said he was unwilling to waive his no-trade clause and leave his family.

Anyway, the Yankees shot down that Sponichi report — I rarely pass along those overseas reports I have to run through Google Translate now because I got burned by this Kuroda rumor — but did eventually sign Kuroda later in the offseason. He got $10M, not $12M. That one worked out well, I’d say.

December 9th, 2011: Minor Moves: Bianchi, Threets, Gallagher, Atilano

The Yankees have designated Colin Curtis for assignment, tweets MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch.  The move creates space on New York’s 40-man roster for Freddy Garcia, whose signing was made official today.  Curtis, a fourth-round draft pick in 2006, has 64 Major League plate appearances to his name.

Colin Curtis! He was part of New York’s great 2006 draft class, which produced ten big leaguers, including seven with staying power: Ian Kennedy (first round), Joba Chamberlain (supplemental first), Zach McAllister (third), Colin Curtis (fourth), George Kontos (fifth), Dellin Betances (eighth), Mark Melancon (ninth), Daniel McCutchen (13th), David Robertson (17th), and Kevin Russo (20th). Nearly +60 bWAR worth of players right here.

Anyway, Curtis had a few stints with the Yankees in 2010. He hit his only career home run as a replacement for Brett Gardner, who was ejected in the middle of an at-bat for arguing balls and strikes. Curtis came off the bench and socked a dinger.

About a week later Curtis had a hand in that insane comeback against the Dodgers, when the Yankees broke Jonathan Broxton. This game. Curtis actually drove in the game-tying run with a ground ball. A shoulder injury sidelined him during the entire 2011 season, so he was never called up that year. Curtis split 2012 between Triple-A Scranton and an independent league, and he hasn’t played since.

December 10th, 2011: Yankees Win Rights To Hiroyuki Nakajima

11:34am: The Yankees won the bid for about $2MM, tweets Jon Heyman.  Noting Nakajima’s preference to play for a West Coast team, Rosenthal wonders if he’ll be willing to be a utility player for the Yankees.

Oh man, I forgot about Hiroyuki Nakajima. He was 29 at the time and coming off a season in which he hit .297/.354/.433 with 16 home runs and 21 steals for the Seibu Lions. It was a surprise when the Yankees won his negotiating rights with a $2M bid. Most expected him to fetch more.

Contract talks did not go well. The Yankees saw Nakajima as a utility infielder and wanted to pay him accordingly. Also, they wanted six full years of control through pre-arbitration and arbitration, like most players. Nakajima’s camp balked and there was some talk of a sign-and-trade, but that never happened. He returned to Seibu for another year, hit .311/.382/.451 in 2012, then signed a two-year deal worth $6.5M with the Athletics as a true free agent during the 2012-13 offseason.

In his two seasons with the A’s, Nakajima never made it out of Triple-A, and hit .267/.326/.356 in 175 minor league games during that two-year deal. Seems the Yankees were right about him being nothing more than a utility guy. Nakajima returned to Japan after his contract with the A’s expired. He hit .290/.346/.439 with eight homers for the Orix Buffaloes in 2016.

I remember folks saying the contentious negotiations with Nakajima would hurt the Yankees in the future because no Japanese player would want to sign with them. L-O-L. As if this was the first contract negotiation to turn ugly. They’re the Yankees. No agent in their right mind would allow their client to rule the Yankees out as a potential landing spot because the club’s pockets are so deep.

December 14th, 2011: Bidding Period For Yu Darvish Ends

The Yankees’ bid is modest, according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). Indications are the winning bid is “sky high.”

Eventually word got out the Yankees bid somewhere close to $20M. The Rangers bid $51.7M, which reportedly blew everyone else out of the water. They had the high bid by a mile. The Yankees supposedly had some concerns about Darvish and New York, which I thought was kinda silly. The guy was a rock star in Japan. He was used to the attention. And, of course, he’s shown he can thoroughly dominate MLB hitters these last few years. Me thinks the Yankees would like a do over on Darvish. Their evaluation was off the mark.

December 22nd, 2011: Indians, Others Have Inquired On Nick Swisher

The Indians are one of several clubs that has called the Yankees about Nick Swisher, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Cleveland GM Chris Antonetti, a finalist for free agent Carlos Beltran, is also considering trades to improve his club’s offense. 

The Yankees never did trade Swisher that offseason and it wouldn’t have made sense anyway. The Yankees were still a legitimate contender at the time and he was one of their most productive players. It’s not like the team had a young right fielder waiting in the wings.

The Swisher acquisition goes down as one of the best moves of the Cashman era. Here’s the timeline:

• November 13th, 2008: Yankees acquire Swisher and Kanekoa Texeira from the White Sox for Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez, and Jhonny Nunez.
• 2009-12: Swisher hits .268/.367/.483 (128 wRC+) and averages 26 homers and 150 games played per season. The Yankees paid him $31.6M for +14.6 fWAR and +11.5 bWAR.
• 2013: Swisher declined the qualifying offer and the Yankees used the compensation draft pick to select Aaron Judge.

All transactions should work out that well.

December 23rd, 2011: AL East Links: Red Sox, Blue Jays, Jones Beltran

The Yankees considered pursuing Carlos Beltran earlier this offseason according to Bob Klapisch of The Bergen Record (on Twitter), but ultimately decided against it because of his balky knees.

The Yankees during the 2011-12 offseason: We can’t sign Beltran because his knees are too risky.

The Yankees during the 2013-14 offseason: Okay fine here’s a three-year contract.

The Beltran signing worked out about as well as the Yankees could have hoped considering his knees were still a concern and he was about to turn 37. Too bad they only played one postseason game during his three years in pinstripes, though that’s not Beltran’s fault.

December 28th, 2011: Yankees To Sign Hideki Okajima

The Yankees agreed to a minor league deal with reliever Hideki Okajima, tweets David Waldstein of the New York Times.  Earlier, Sports Hochi in Japan reported talks between the two parties were in the final stages and a deal could be reached shortly after the new year (as translated by NPB Tracker’s Patrick Newman).

The token ex-Red Sox signing of the offseason. Okajima never actually played with the Yankees though. He failed his physical in Spring Training and was released. Okajima spent the 2012 season in Japan, tried one last time to make MLB work with the Athletics in 2013, then returned to Japan for the 2014-15 seasons. He’s retired now.

December 28th, 2011: Yankees Notes: A-Rod, Nakajima, Chavez, Andruw

Third baseman Alex Rodriguez recently traveled to Germany for an experimental therapy called Orthokine on his right knee, reported Mike Puma of the New York Post.  Orthokine is similar to Platelet Rich Plasma therapy, which reliever Takashi Saito had done several years ago.  The procedure, which was recommended by Kobe Bryant, came with the blessing of the Yankees and the commissioner’s office.  Puma explains, “Orthokine involves taking blood from the patient’s arm and spinning it in a centrifuge, a machine used in laboratories to spin objects around a fixed axis. The serum is then injected into the affected area.”  Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters the procedure was done on Rodriguez’s left shoulder as well.  For more on the topic, check out this article from Teri Thompson and Christian Red of the New York Daily News.

Oh man, A-Rod’s experimental knee procedure was a Very Big Deal at the time, even though the Yankees and MLB both approved the treatment. A-Rod haters were convinced he was doing something against the rules. They said it was some kind of German super-PED. The internet tells me the difference between PRP and Orthokine involves the cells being isolated. PRP isolates red blood cells. Orthokine isolates white blood cells to produce a natural anti-inflammatory. The Yankees and MLB gave Rodriguez the okay, but it didn’t matter, there were many folks convinced it was somehow illegal.

December 30th, 2011: Olney’s Latest: Yankees, Ethier, Angels, Blue Jays

The Yankees have “quietly checked around” on possible right field alternatives to Nick Swisher as they prepare for his possible free agent departure after next season.

I was a big Nate Schierholtz guy. He was my idea for a long-term right fielder post-Swisher. Schierholtz hit .278/.326/.430 (112 wRC+) with nine homers in 362 plate appearances with the Giants in 2011, but there was some bad blood between him and the team over playing time, so they put him on the trade block. He was only 27 at the time and had three years of control left, so I figured he could help the Yankees as a part-time outfielder/part-time DH in 2012 before taking over in right field in 2013. Didn’t happen. Schierholtz bounce around a bit, hit 21 homers with a 109 wRC+ for the 2013 Cubs, and has spent time in Japan too. The Tigers stashed him in Triple-A all of this past season.

December 30th, 2011: Yankees Agree To Sign Andruw Jones

The Yankees and Andruw Jones have agreed to a one-year deal with a $2MM base salary and $1.4MM in incentives, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (Twitter links). The deal is pending a physical. The Yankees have a full 40-man roster and will need to clear a spot once the signing becomes official.

Jones was awesome for the Yankees in 2011, hitting .247/.356/.495 (132 wRC+) with 13 homers in 222 plate appearances. That includes a .286/.384/.540 (152 wRC+) batting line against lefties. For some reason, I’ll always remember Andruw drawing a 14-pitch walk with one out to start the Yankees’ go-ahead rally in the seventh inning of this game, Jesus Montero’s debut:

Andruw’s second season in pinstripes didn’t go nearly as well as the first. He hit .197/.294/.408 (89 wRC+) overall and .202/.294/.411 (88 wRC+) against lefties. Jones never played in MLB after that 2012 season. He went to Japan for a few years and will make his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot next year. I’m pretty sure I’d vote for him. Andruw was arguably the greatest defensive outfielder in history, and he hit over 400 homers. Borderline for sure considering he was done as an everyday player at 30, but I think I’d vote for him.