PHILADELPHIA — The trade deadline arrived on Tuesday with no eye-catchers from the Yankees, who threw a bunch of balls in an attempt to bolster a roster with Juan Soto only a few more months to come, but only a few of them were successful.
The biggest addition was the trade they made on Saturday for Jazz Chisholm Jr., but on Tuesday they acquired two relief pitchers (Mark Leiter Jr. from the Cubs and Eniel de los Santos from the Padres, both under team control through 2026) and traded another (Caleb Ferguson to the Astros) before a 54-game stretch in which they trail the Orioles by a half-game in the AL East.
Chisholm made an impact with two more homers in a 7-6 12-inning win on Tuesday, and the Yankees are banking on his athleticism to help fill a gap at newly created third base.
Reiter arrived before kickoff on Tuesday and pitched 10 scoreless innings in his debut.
He’s expected to be a high-leverage reliever who can pitch strikeouts and get lefties out of the game, while De Los Santos adds another strikeout threat to a relief corps that has barely struck out batters this season.
But there was still the possibility of a trade to add another hitter, a late-inning reliever (especially a left-handed pitcher) or even a starting pitcher.
The Yankees suffered a looming crisis on Tuesday when Gerrit Cole was removed from the starting lineup against the Phillies due to fatigue, but the team doesn’t seem too worried – as evidenced by their failure to add any starting pitchers before the deadline – and they hope to return the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner to the starting rotation this weekend.
Aaron Judge expressed hope Tuesday night that the Yankees will make further moves.
“We had some good guys that contributed,” Judge said after the win. “If you watched the Jazz play tonight, Mark was so focused on the game he didn’t even have time to take his airplane shoes off.”
More than anything, he’s happy to be moving forward.
“I’m glad the trade deadline is over,” Judge said. “I’m glad we have our guys together. Let’s go.”
Besides Chisholm, the Yankees’ biggest late-season additions could come from within, with Jason Dominguez, Clark Schmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Ian Hamilton, Scott Efros, Nick Burdy and Cody Poteet.
Some of the players the Yankees had expressed interest in moved elsewhere in a market where pitching costs were high: Marlins relief pitcher Tanner Scott went to the Padres, Tigers starting pitcher Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers, Rays third baseman Isaac Paredes to the Cubs, Athletics relief pitcher Lucas Erceg to the Royals, utility pitcher Tommy Edman to the Dodgers, and Angels relief pitcher Luis Garcia to the Red Sox.
Others ended up staying, including Rays corner infielder Yandy Diaz, Angels infielder Luis Rengifo, Marlins relief pitcher Andrew Nardi and Giants starting pitcher Blake Snell.
“know [the front office was] “We worked on it a lot, we talked about it a lot, we tried to be creative in some ways,” Boone said.
The Yankees could potentially trade major league players to acquire talent, including Nestor Cortes and Gleyber Torres, but ultimately only traded Ferguson, a struggling left-handed relief pitcher whom they sent to the Astros in exchange for a minor league relief pitcher and overseas signing-money-pool money.
Leiter lost promising Yankees relief pitcher Jack Neely and infield prospect Ben Cowles.
The Yankees acquired de los Santos and a minor league relief pitcher from the Padres in exchange for Triple-A outfielder Brandon Lockridge. Chisholm requested the release of prospects Agustín Ramírez, Jarrett Serna and Abrahan Ramírez, but the Yankees kept their most valuable prospects, Dominguez and Spencer Jones.
