The New York Yankees are having an incredible start to their season. Unfortunately for them, the Boston Red Sox are having a slightly better season thus far. As winning the AL East is definitely preferable to the Wild Card game, expect the Yankees to make a trade between now and the deadline.
New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman is not one to shy away from trades. As shown last season, if he believes the Yankees have a chance to improve through a trade, he will take a risk.
Even though 2017 was supposed to be a rebuilding season for the Yankees, Cashman realized the potential of the Baby Bombers.
He made the decision to move some promising prospects for players that could help out right away. The Yankees have a deep farm system and a very young, talented team, so many of their prospects are expendable. Some of those expendable prospects were used last year to acquire five win-now players.
On July 19, 2017, the Yankees acquired Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle from the Chicago White Sox for Blake Rutherford, Ian Clarkin, Tito Polo, and Tyler Clippard.
The Yankees acquired Jaime Garcia from the Minnesota Twins for Zack Littell and Dietrich Enns on July 30, 2017.
On July 31, 2017, the Yankees acquired Sonny Gray from the Oakland Athletics for Dustin Fowler, Jorge Mateo, and James Kaprielian.
These three trades were key in helping the Yankees secure a Wild Card spot. The trades also played a large role in the Yankees advancing all the way to game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
Following the results of the 2017, the Yankees decided to make a few more moves to gear up for the 2018 season. This included adding the 2017 National League Most Valuable Player, Giancarlo Stanton, and the versatile Brandon Drury over the offseason.
The Yankees traded Starlin Castro, Jorge Guzman, and Jose Devers to the Miami Marlins for Giancarlo Stanton and cash.
In a three-team trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays, the Yankees sent out Nick Solak and Taylor Widener to acquire Brandon Drury.
Although the Yankees are normally thought of as a free spending team with a big budget, they have a cap on what they will spend this season.
The Yankees are aiming to reset their luxury tax penalties by keeping their payroll under $197 million. Even after all of the Yankees acquisitions, they were able to stay under this amount.
A key trade with the Padres over the offseason helped the Yankees dump salary. In that trade, Cashman was able to move Chase Headley, and his $13 million contract, alongside Bryan Mitchell for Jabari Blash.
This gave the Yankees flexibility some much-needed flexibility to be able to add Stanton, re-sign C.C. Sabathia, sign Neil Walker, and also still have money available to add to the team at the trade deadline.
According to Spotrac’s salary and payroll tracker, the Yankees currently own a $178,249,384 payroll. This leaves roughly $18,750,616 left for the Yankees to add to their current team.
As the Yankees are in a win-now position, they will definitely be looking at the trade market for opportunities to increase their odds of advancing to the World Series.
The following are five trade scenarios that could make the New York Yankees even better than they are right now: