July 7th, 2026: Lagrange, Schlittler, Caballero, Rodón, Beck, Doval, Bullpen Trade Targets, All-Stars
I still have no idea what happened to the formatting in the email for Friday’s post. It’s fine on Patreon’s site and it’s fine on the back end. If it happens again with this post, I apologize, and I advise you to head to the RAB Patreon homepage. It should be okay there. I’m hopeful Friday was a one-time glitch. If not, then I’ll figure it out. Thanks for reading and your support and sticking with me all these years. Here is today’s post as the Summer Swoon rages on.
1. Lagrange has capsule strain. For all intents and purposes, Carlos Lagrange’s season is over. He has a capsule strain in his shoulder and is a no-throw for six weeks, the Yankees announced. Six weeks takes him to mid-August. Figure another 4-6 weeks to build up from there, and you’re in mid-to-late September. At that point you’re getting him ready to maybe pitch in the Arizona Fall League, not the postseason bullpen.
“I think it’s impossible to answer that for sure,” Aaron Boone told Gary Phillips when asked if the move to the bullpen may have caused the injury. “We were pretty disciplined and methodical with how we took him into that role. I feel like we were careful with it, but you never know for certain.”
Don’t drive yourself nuts thinking about what may or may not have caused the injury. Pitchers get hurt. It’s what they do, and it’s especially true with the extremely hard-throwers like Lagrange. This is why I wanted the Yankees to put him in the bullpen. You don’t know how many of those 103 mph bullets you’re going to get. Give him a chance to help the MLB team. He didn’t hold up long enough to do so. Alas.
I don’t think the Yankees were counting on Lagrange to solve the bullpen problem. They slow-played him so much that it was clear this was a “let’s see if he can help us” thing and not a “we need him to help us” thing. They’ll trade for bullpen help and that was always the plan. If Lagrange was able to come up and also help, great! I never got the sense that was Plan A though. Get well soon, Carlos. See you in 2027.
2. Weekend thoughts. Cam Schlittler and José Caballero won the game of 2 vs. 9 on Monday. Schlittler did the ace thing and put a struggling team on his back: 8 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 8 K on 101 pitches (video). His velocity was up a tick too, particularly in the early innings, and no, he didn’t throw more curveballs. Only six all night. It was April Schlittler. Just ramming fastballs down Tampa’s throat. Here are his whiffs (yes, all four-seamers):
“They want to say there’s fucking regression because I have one bad outing,” Schlittler told Greg Joyce. “It was personal to go out there and have a dominant start and put this team in the right position.”
Caballero had a three-run homer and a solo homer (video) for his second career two-homer game, both as a member of the Yankees and both against the Rays. Just leave him at short. I’m not even a huge Caballero fan (he's fine), but stick with it. It worked Monday, it worked earlier in the year. The lineup the Yankees used Monday is their best possible lineup given the available personnel, I think. Stick with it this week, please and thank you.
Monday’s win improved the Yankees to, uh, 4-12 in their last 16 games. In those 16 games the Yankees have struck out 8, 10, 12, 13, 13, 10, 7, 6, 12, 13, 11, 12, 4, 9, 11, and 17 times. It is next to impossible to sustain a rally when you strike out that much. We saw it last night. You have to hit the ball out of the park to win games while striking out that much, and, Monday aside, the Yankees haven’t hit many homers lately.
Over the weekend the Twins won their first series at Yankee Stadium since 2014 and boy, losing a series to the Twins in the Bronx is how you know the Summer Swoon is serious. For real though, the ugly 4-12 stretch overlapped with Tampa’s nine-game winning streak, yet the Yankees are only four games back in the loss column with 72 to play. It’s a long season and there’s still a long way to go.
For sure, the Yankees have to start playing better and prevent the Summer Swoon from going on much longer. Monday was a great start to an important series against the Rays. Now do that again three more times. Here are a few thoughts on the last few games.
Rodón injury, Beck spot starts
Carlos Rodón has been a reliable source of 5-6 inning/1-3 run starts since making his season debut two months ago. Not dominant, but a winnable game almost every time out. Now he's back on the injured list with what he called “heavy inflammation” in his elbow. His UCL is intact, but Rodón’s shut down, and it’s not clear when he will resume throwing. Aaron Boone said it could be as soon as this week. I’ll believe it when I see it.
“Throughout the week, it hasn’t been agreeing with me,” Rodón told Bill Ladson about his elbow. “The recovery has not been so great over the last few weeks. Still, I got out there to pitch, which was great, but this week it caught up. It was not giving in to throwing.”
Brendan Beck started Saturday because the Yankees didn’t have another option. Elmer Rodríguez threw 93 pitches in Scranton on Thursday and wasn’t available. They could have used Thursday’s off-day to move everyone up a day, but then you’re a) taking that extra day of rest away from the regular starters, and b) just moving the No. 5 starter’s spot back a few days, not actually solving the problem.
(I’m not sure using Thursday’s off-day to move everyone up a day was even an option. Ryan Weathers might have thrown his between-starts bullpen before Rodón reported his elbow issue, in which case moving him up wasn’t doable.)
I was gonna say the Yankees should have given Beck a lefty opener given the lefty heavy top of the Twins lineup, but what difference would it have made? It only would have delayed the inevitable. Beck got blasted by lefties and righties alike: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 3 K, 3 HR on 87 pitches. How he managed to get 17 (!) swings and misses (eighth most by a Yankees starter this year!), I will never understand.
Beck was sent down after Saturday’s game and the Yankees will carry a nine-man bullpen for another few days. Rodríguez’s 15-day waiting period expires Thursday, which, conveniently, is when the Yankees need their No. 5 starter next. Nothing has been announced, but it’s safe to assume ER(C) will come up Thursday. Here is the rotation depth chart at the moment:
1. RHP Cam Schlittler2. LHP Max Fried (out with elbow bone bruise)3. RHP Gerrit Cole4. LHP Carlos Rodón (out with elbow inflammation)5. RHP Will Warren6. LHP Ryan Weathers7. RHP Luis Gil (out with shoulder inflammation)8. RHP Elmer Rodríguez9. RHP Brendan Beck
If they want to go this way, the All-Star break and scheduled off-days allow the Yankees to use their No. 5 starter only three times between now and the end of the month. That would mean no extra rest for Schlittler and Weathers, who are barreling toward career high workloads, as well as Cole in his first year with his new UCL. I don’t know if the Yankees will do that, but they can if they want.
Rodríguez could go back down after Thursday’s start so the Yankees can carry an extra reliever for a few days on both sides of the All-Star break. It wouldn’t be a bad idea given all the recent short starts and how much the bullpen has been used. The 15-day waiting period means Rodríguez couldn’t come up to start the first time the Yankees need their No. 5 after the All-Star break, but Beck could. We’ll see.
The Yankees are pushing the limit of their depth on every part of the roster. Fried and Rodón are weeks away, so Rodríguez is in the rotation, and he didn’t exactly scream MLB ready in his previous showings. Anthony Volpe has been hitting fifth lately because the Yankees don’t have another righty bat to break up the string of lefties. The injuries keep mounting. It ain’t great.
It’s time to DFA Doval
There is simply no place on the Yankees for this version of Camilo Doval, who has retired only seven of the last 19 batters he’s faced. The Yankees can’t use him in high leverage. They can’t use him to keep a game close when they’re down a few runs. They can’t use him to soak up multiple innings in a blowout. He is a one-inning reliever who can only be used in lopsided games. It’s a very narrow lane.
“In my career as a pitcher, I’ve never felt this good (physically),” Doval told Dan Martin over the weekend. “I’m not getting the results I expect out of myself. Sometimes it’s out of your control. You execute pitches and then you don’t get the results you want.”
To be fair to Doval, there have been some errors behind him and some grounders have snuck through, for sure, but he’s unusable against lefties (.388/.425/.627 and .445 wOBA) and every little thing snowballs into a big inning. One bad thing happens and it’s an instant meltdown. The guy sits 100-102 mph on the regular, and it still gets smacked around. It really is incredible he gets hit like he does.
My unofficial math says Doval reached five years of service time this past Friday, which gives him the right to refuse a demotion to the minors. Those guys almost always do too. Doval has an option left, but, for all intents and purposes, he’s out of options. There’s no sending him to the minors now. You can either keep trying to make this work (even though it’s only getting worse) or just take the L and DFA him.
It’s time to DFA him then. It’s the lowest hanging fruit but the Yankees have to do something. They have to show a pulse, show that this isn’t okay, and show they’re taking steps to make the team better. Doval has gotten worse as the season progressed, not better, and this isn’t Devin Williams with a long track record of dominance to fall back on. Doval’s part of the problem at the point, not the solution. It’s clear as day.
(Doval has trade value. If Jayden Murray and David Peterson can get traded for actual players, Doval can too. A DFA gets him off the team and gives the Yankees seven days to make a trade. So, do it.)
Miscellany
Gerrit Cole said he talked Boone into staying in after the 53-minute rain delay Friday. He pitched well after back-to-back clunkers: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR on 88 pitches (video). Cole has thrown 90, 89, 89, and 88 pitches in his last four starts. Seems like 90-ish pitches is where the Yankees are keeping him in Year 1 with the new UCL … Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon returned Friday and hey, Grisham saw seven pitches and hit a home run in his first at-bat back (video). It was the best at-bat by a Yankee in about three weeks, and I’m only half-joking … Ben Rice hit his 25th homer Monday (video). He is the first Yankee other than Aaron Judge with 25 homers in the team's first 90 games since who? The Grandyman. Curtis Granderson had 25 homers through 90 games in 2012 … Paul Goldschmidt is in an 0-for-26 skid. He’s walked once and hit three balls out of the infield during that stretch. His contact quality has gone in the tank:
Goldschmidt has started two of the last five games after starting 34 of the previous 36 games. The Yankees have pulled back on his playing time. Hopefully less is more going forward … Tim Hill has been ineffective for well over a month and continues to see his ground ball rate dip: 83.8% in April, 61.1% in May, 48.3% in June/July. For a guy who’s whole thing is ground balls, a sub-50 GB% is a problem. How long is the leash? I wouldn’t wait around forever hoping a 36-year-old soft-tossing sidearmer can find it again … With an assist to Anthony Volpe’s tag, Austin Wells threw Byron Buxton out trying to steal second base Sunday (video). It was the first time Buxton got caught stealing since May 1st, 2024. He’d been 37-for-37 since then, including 7-for-7 this year. In other news, Wells is 3-for-34 (.089) with 12 strikeouts and no walks since coming off the injured list. He’s down to .151/.246/.229 (35 wRC+) on the season. Why bother sending him to Triple-A for a reset? The Yankees clearly know what they’re doing with young hitters. Their track record is unimpeachable … And finally, Boone pulled Ryan Yarbrough after 1.2 innings and 35 pitches Saturday, and wound up having to use Brent Headrick for the second straight day in a game the Yankees trailed 11-4. I know Camilo Doval threw 27 pitches in his inning and you don’t want to risk injury, but sometimes you just have to make a guy wear it. The Yankees got away with it because they didn't need Headrick on Sunday or Monday, but still. (They could’ve put a position player in to pitch if Doval gave up another run to make it an eight-run deficit.)
Injury updates and roster news
Max Fried (elbow) threw two innings and 36 pitches in his second live BP on Sunday. He said his elbow feels “completely normal.” Fried will throw another live BP later this week, and if that goes well, he could start a rehab assignment next week … Nothing new on Aaron Judge (rib) or Giancarlo Stanton (calf). Stanton has been hitting in the cage but isn’t running yet. Judge still wasn’t doing much of anything as of last week. Neither is close to returning. This is the offense for the foreseeable future … Jazz Chisholm Jr. (toe) exited Sunday’s game with what the Yankees called discomfort. This is a long-term issue for him. Jazz ran into the wall on May 13th, 2023, while playing center field for the Marlins (video), and since then the toe flares up on him occasionally. It’s similar to the toe injury Judge suffered when he ran through the Dodger Stadium wall. X-rays came back negative and Chisholm was in the lineup Monday, so it seems all is good … Spencer Jones, not Jasson Domínguez or Anthony Volpe, was sent down to open a roster spot when the various injured list guys returned over the weekend. Jones was better in his second MLB stint than his first, but only in the surface stats. The under-the-hood numbers weren’t meaningfully better:
For a guy whose whole thing is loud contact when he makes contact, we didn’t see much loud contact in the air. Jones was platooned and given favorable matchups too. Most of his hits were looping liners or ground balls through the infield. We’ll see Jones in the big leagues again this year. I’m sure of it. The only question is whether that’s with the Yankees or another team after the trade deadline … Just to recap all the roster moves, here’s what went down since Friday’s post:
Friday: Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon activated, Oswaldo Cabrera optioned, Carlos Rodón to the IL
Saturday: Spencer Jones optioned, Brendan Beck called up
Sunday: Beck optioned, Angel Chivilli called up
Chivilli will presumably go down Thursday and Elmer Rodríguez will come up to join the rotation. If the Yankees send ER(C) down after that game so they can carry a ninth reliever for a few days on both sides of the All-Star break, Kervin Castro is the only 40-man roster pitcher eligible to be recalled. Yovanny Cruz and Yerry De Los Santos were both sent down recently and are in their 15-day waiting periods … Clarke Schmidt (elbow) could face hitters in live BP for the first time this week. I thought he was supposed to do it last week, but I guess I misheard. No word on whether the Yankees will build Schmidt up to start, or speed things up and bring back as a reliever … And finally, the Yankees released Triple-A catcher Payton Henry last Thursday. The timing suggests he used a July 1st opt out. Henry, 29, hit .224/.318/.329 (75 wRC+) with the RailRiders. Scranton’s catching tandem is J.C. Escarra and minor league Rule 5 Draft pick Abrahan Gutierrez at the moment.
Up next
The rest of the series in Tampa. Winning head-to-head games is the easiest way to make up ground and the Yankees have only so many games with the Rays remaining. The next three games aren't must-wins, but they are really-would-be-nice-to-wins. Here’s what’s coming up between now and Friday’s post:
Tuesday at Rays: RHP Will Warren vs. TBA (6:30pm ET on YES, TBS)
Wednesday at Rays: RHP Gerrit Cole vs. LHP Shane McClanahan (6:30pm ET on Amazon)
Thursday at Rays: TBA vs. RHP Drew Rasmussen (1pm ET on YES)
Lefty Ian Seymour will either start or pitch behind an opener Tuesday. The Yankees have so many lefties bunched at the top of the lineup that I bet the Rays just start Seymour. When they’ve given him an opener, it was righty Casey Legumina, and it doesn’t make much sense to use a righty opener against the top of this lineup.
3. Scouting the Trade Market: More relievers. Although pretty much every part of the team is falling apart, the Yankees still figure to prioritize the bullpen at the trade deadline. Two of last deadline’s three bullpen additions (Jake Bird and Camilo Doval) haven’t worked out, plus Tim Hill might be losing his battle with Father Time. As good as he’s been, I don’t like the idea of a load-bearing Paul Blackburn.
Entering play Monday the bullpen ranked 15th in strikeout rate (22.5%) and 28th in average fastball velocity (93.4 mph). The Yankees build their entire pitching staff, not just the bullpen, around ground balls and suppressing hard contact, which is great, but sometimes you need a strikeout and sometimes you need someone to throw a fastball by a hitter. The Yankees don't have that option in their bullpen right now.
The Yankees picked up 10 relievers at the last five trade deadlines and nine of the 10 came with at least one additional year of team control. The only rental, Keynan Middleton in 2023, was a low cost pickup. When the Yankees trade prospects for a reliever, they want to keep the guy beyond the current season. With that in mind, I looked at some controllable relievers the Yankees could target a few weeks ago.
Here now is another batch of potential reliever trade targets, most of them controllable, though I’m gonna branch out a bit and touch on a few rentals. I don’t think rentals are off the table even though the Yankees prefer guys they can keep around. I just think the price has to be too good to pass up for the rental. Anyway, here are a few more relievers who may or may not make sense for the Yankees.
RHP Huascar Brazobán, Mets
2026 stats: 3.00 ERA (3.61 FIP), 23.1 K%, 11.2 BB%, 54.1 GB% in 42 IP
The skinny: The Mets have several relievers they could move at the deadline, including old pal Luke Weaver and rental lefties A.J. Minter and Brooks Raley. Depending on their level of concern with Hill (seriously, where are the ground balls?), Minter or Raley could make sense for the Yankees. Minter has a shiny ERA (0.60), though his fastball is down about 3 mph since last year's lat injury. Raley’s fine as a matchup guy.
Weaver is owed $11M next season and a) the Yankees haven’t paid a reliever that much since the Zack Britton/Aroldis Chapman days, and b) I have a hard time seeing the Yankees taking on an $11M reliever without knowing the next CBA. Plus Weaver took a 24-inning scoreless streak into Monday's game. You would be buying as high as you can possibly buy. Does that sound like the Yankees?
Anyway, the Yankees love sinkers and changeups/splitters, and Brazobán throws his upper-90s sinker and low-90s changeup at almost a 50/50 split. The sinker gets grounders, the changeup gets whiffs and grounders. He is a versatile reliever. The Mets have used Brazobán as an opener, as a matchup guy, as a setup guy, for multiple innings, you name it and he has experience doing it. That's a plus. Doing it is not as easy as it may seem.
Brazobán, 36, was a very late bloomer. He made his MLB debut at 32 and didn’t stick in the big leagues for good until he was 33. So, even though his 37th birthday is 3.5 months away, he will remain under team control through 2029. But unless you’re talking about the truly elite, the Jhoan Durans and Mason Millers, long-term control for relievers is a myth. If you get anything beyond, like, 1-2 good years, it's a bonus.
Fernando Cruz was 35 and had four years of control when the Yankees traded for him. No one cares how old you are as long as you can get outs. Age is not a dealbreaker. Brazobán has the ground ball and exit velocity suppression skills the Yankees love …
2022-26 Average EV Allowed (min. 200 innings)1. Huascar Brazobán: 84.5 mph2. Tyler Rogers: 84.8 mph3. Ryan Yarbrough: 85.4 mph4. Brent Suter: 85.5 mph5. Phil Maton: 85.7 mph
… and he’s a changeup guy. They love their changeups and splitters. Maybe a little too much, but that’s a conversation for another time. Brazobán is up the Yankees’ alley and I can definitely see them showing interest these next few weeks. The Mets are so bad that it would be nonsensical to make a soon-to-be 37-year-old reliever off-limits at the deadline. I won’t say it's likely, but this one feels like it's in the realm of possible.
(The Mets strike me as a candidate to take Doval in a trade, even if only as a salary offset. They’re not playing for anything. They can use the rest of the season to see if they can get Doval on track, and if yes, they can keep him in 2027. If not, they can non-tender him.)
RHP Ryan Fernandez, Cardinals
2026 stats: 1.35 ERA (2.66 FIP), 35.7 K%, 12.5 BB%, 44.8 GB% in 13.1 IP
The skinny: The sense is that, even though the Cardinals went into Monday in the third Wild Card spot, POBO Chaim Bloom won’t deviate from the long-term plan. Rental lefty JoJo Romero is a near lock to get traded at the deadline. Dustin May and Lars Nootbaar figure to move as well. I mentioned hard-throwing (and controllable) righty Riley O’Brien as a possible trade target back in May, though he has trending down the last few weeks.
Fernandez, 28, missed the start of the season with a back issue. He’s a slider-first guy. It’s an upper-80s pitch that has run whiff rates in the 40% range whenever he’s been in the big leagues. Fernandez gets good rise on his mid-90s four-seamer. When it’s at the top of the zone, he has success. When he leaves it middle or down, it gets hit.
The Cardinals helped Fernandez pick up a changeup last year and it’s been very good (44.9% whiffs) when he uses it, which is infrequently. I say it again: The Yankees have a thing for changeups and have shown they can level them up (Weaver, Carlos Rodón, etc.). If they do the same with Fernandez, then suddenly you have a three-pitch reliever with mid-90s gas and two quality secondaries. That’ll play.
St. Louis plucked Fernandez from the Red Sox in the December 2023 Rule 5 Draft and usually teams will hide Rule 5 picks in low leverage spots. Fernandez pitched well enough in 2024 (3.51 ERA and 3.35 FIP) to be an actually useful piece. Back problems hampered him this year and last. He’ll remain under team control through 2030 and has two options left too, which is nice for roster flexibility.
LHP Sam Moll, Reds
2026 stats: 3.93 ERA (4.45 FIP), 24.1 K%, 12.3 BB%, 53.3% in 36.2 IP
The skinny: Moll, 34, is an extreme east/west pitcher with a ton of horizontal movement on his sinker, sweeper, and changeup. He’s also at the bottom of the league in extension, meaning he releases the ball further from the plate than anyone else in the game. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Outlier traits like Moll’s extension create unusual looks for hitters. That said, he’s a lefty specialist:
2025-26 vs. LHB: .186/.285/.336 (.280 wOBA), 32.3 K%, 9.0 BB%, 46.3 GB%
2025-26 vs. RHB: .258/.385/.449 (.362 wOBA), 16.4 K%, 16.4 BB%, 48.6 GB%
Moll has one additional year of control remaining and I think the Yankees will only show interest if they’re concerned about Hill and think they need another left-on-left weapon, and don't want to pay much to get it. There’s nothing really sexy here. The Reds are in free fall (worst record in baseball since May 1st) and I’m sure Moll will be available at the deadline, ergo he’s a potential target.
LHP Adrian Morejon, Padres
2026 stats: 3.52 ERA (2.46 FIP), 28.6 K%, 5.8 BB%, 63.1 GB% in 46 IP
The skinny: Because they have baseball’s lowest scoring offense, the Padres have operated with zero margin of error all season, and now the pitching is crumbling. San Diego snapped an eight-game losing streak Sunday and they entered play Monday four games back of a postseason spot. Their rotation was weak to start with and now they have five starters on the injured list. They’re in real, real trouble.
I’m not sure it’s in POBO A.J. Preller’s DNA to sell, but he has to be realistic, and if the Padres continue to crash, trading Morejon for a young player(s) who can help the team long-term has to be a consideration. Morejon, 27, is a rental and on the short list of the game’s best relievers. He’s a lefty who lives at 100 mph and gets whiffs and grounders with four pitches (four-seamer, sinker, slider, changeup).
The last few years the Padres have used Robert Suarez/Mason Miller to close and Morejon, who I traded for way back in the 2021-22 Offseason Plan, as their Moment of Truth reliever. He faces the other team’s best hitters regardless of inning. The Yankees can (and should) use him the exact same way. Morejon would instantly become their best reliever, so use him against the other team’s best hitters.
Trade for Morejon at the deadline and the added bonus is you get to know him (and vice versa) ahead of a potential free agent pursuit. You get to see how he fits in the clubhouse, how he absorbs the information the coaching staff throws at him, etc. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and that’s valuable information too. You’d rather know that before diving into a free agent bidding war in the offseason.
The best recent trade deadline reference point for an elite rental reliever is Aroldis Chapman in 2023. He was great with the Royals (2.45 ERA, 1.69 FIP, 43.4 K%) and they sent him to the Rangers for a team top 20 prospect (Cole Ragans) and a rookie ball lottery ticket (Roni Cabrera). Kansas City hit huge on Ragans, but, at the time of the trade, he was an up/down guy with a scary arm injury history. He was not seen as a great trade chip.
I assume starting pitching is at the top of their shopping list but the Padres really need everything. I wonder if they’d take a quantity over quality approach with Morejon and try to address as many needs as possible. Get 2-3 good near-MLB-ready pieces rather than one great prospect, that kinda thing. That’s more or less how the Yankees got Doval and David Bednar last summer. I’d be all for a quantity over quality trade for Morejon.
If the Padres make Miller available, of course the Yankees should pursue him, though my guess is they don’t have the pieces to win that bidding war. Jason Adam, another rental, just went on the injured list with a shoulder strain. Jeremiah Estrada, who is controllable through 2029, has been out for a month with a knee injury and has only just recently started throwing. Yuki Matsui? Old pal Wandy Peralta? They’re just bodies, not needle-movers.
The third Wild Card is very forgiving. I think the Padres would have to continue crashing for Preller to sell at the deadline, even just his rentals like Adam and Morejon. As long as they’re within shouting distance of a Wild Card spot (within five games, maybe?), I think the Padres will look to add at the deadline, not subtract. Morejon will become a very real option if San Diego continues to slide, and the Yankees should be all-in even though he's only a rental.
RHP Juan Morillo, Diamondbacks
2026 stats: 2.62 ERA (2.67 FIP), 30.5 K%, 9.2 BB%, 52.4 GB% in 34.1 IP
The skinny: The D’Backs have three of the best players in baseball (Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte, Geraldo Perdomo), an excellent catcher (Gabriel Moreno), and pretty much nothing else. The lineup is thin behind the top four, the rotation behind Eduardo Rodriguez is flat out bad*, and the bullpen is mostly populated with relievers who were good four years ago (Jonathan Loáisiga, Paul Sewald, Ryan Thompson, etc.).
* Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly have combined to throw 178.2 innings with a 6.04 ERA (5.67 FIP and 7.00 xERA). They eat up close to 25% of the team’s payroll. Yeesh.
Despite all that, Arizona is hanging around the Wild Card race. That could mean they will look to add at the deadline, not subtract, but this team has a history of buying and selling at the deadline. Most notably, they shipped out Zack Greinke at the 2019 deadline, then brought in Gallen and Mike Leake to prop up the rotation. (If I have to go back to 2019 for an example, maybe they don’t buy and sell much?)
Morillo, 27, has been Arizona’s best reliever this season. He throws very hard (topped out at 100.6 mph), his slider and changeup both miss bats, and he’s great at limiting hard contact. This is pretty much everything you want in a reliever:
Morillo came into the season with all six years of team control remaining. The D’Backs have no reason to trade him unless they’re blown away, and do you really want to blow a team away for a reliever? Arizona badly needs pitching. I wonder if something like Elmer Rodríguez for Morillo would get their attention. Does that make sense for the Yankees? I dunno.
* * *
The trade deadline shopping list is growing. It’s become abundantly clear the Yankees need to add a bat and can’t simply wait around for Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton to return. Depending on Max Fried’s and Carlos Rodón’s recoveries these next few weeks, they might need a starter too. Bullpen help is a must-have though. That hasn’t changed. The question is not will the Yankees add a reliever, but how many.
4. 2026 draft prospect: Georgia Tech 2B Jarren Advincula. The 2026 MLB Draft will take place the weekend before the All-Star break and the Yankees hold the No. 35 pick. As I do every year, I’ll preview prospects the Yankees are said to have interest in, players who fit the team’s M.O., and players I like for whatever reason. Here are the draft prospects I’ve already covered.
Advincula, 21, slashed .434/.503/.629 (150 wRC+) with twice as many walks (10.0%) as strikeouts (5.5%) this spring and was only the third best hitter on a powerhouse Georgia Tech team behind projected top 10 picks Vahn Lackey and Drew Burress. The Yellow Jackets hit .356/.467/.639 as a team and averaged 10.9 runs per game this year. Sheesh. Here’s where Advincula sits in the most recent draft rankings:
Baseball America (subs. req’d): No. 33
ESPN: Outside top 85
FanGraphs: No. 28
Keith Law (subs. req’d): No. 62
MLB Pipeline: No. 48
Advincula also checked the Cape Cod League box emphatically: .380/.442/.439 in two summers against top competition with wood bats. He won the circuit’s Outstanding Pro Prospect Award last season. Here’s video and here is a chunk of Baseball America’s scouting report (subs. req’d):
Advincula has some of the better pure contact skills in the college class … Advincula has an average frame at 6-foot-2, 195 pounds, but he employs an ultra-crouched setup and a slash-and-dash approach. His offensive game is built around making contact, and he has excelled at doing that for three years, with a 7.6% career strikeout rate, 89% overall contact rate and 93% in-zone contact rate. Like many elite contact hitters, Advincula has an aggressive approach and expands the zone often because he can get away with it. He makes it work in college with a quick, direct lefthanded swing that leads to lots of groundball contact. He has well below-average raw power and isn’t likely to hit double-digit home runs in pro ball without a dramatic shift in his offensive approach. Advincula is an above-average runner, but he can turn in plus or better home-to-first times because of how quickly he gets out of the box. He’s also a solid second baseman who could be average or a tick above defensively, but his arm is below-average.
The fact Advincula is a second base only guy puts a lot of pressure on his bat and specifically his hit tool, because there’s not much power here. Whichever team drafts him will do so believing they can unlock not necessarily more homers, but more doubles and extra-base hit ability in general. The last few drafts, the Yankees have prioritized bat-to-ball ability with their top picks, though Advincula may even be too extreme for them.
5. Rapid fire thoughts. As expected, the Yankees have four All-Stars: Cody Bellinger, Aaron Judge, Ben Rice, and Cam Schlittler. Vlad Guerrero Jr. was voted in as the starter but will skip the game with a back issue. Nick Kurtz, not Rice, will start in his place. Apparently the top vote-getter in the player voting is the replacement, not the fan voting. My bad. (Kurtz should start over Rice anyway.) Bellinger will start in place of Judge, per Ron Blum. Here are the rosters. A bunch of pitchers will be added as injury/workload replacements over the next week or so, though I’m not sure the Yankees have any candidates to join the roster. David Bednar might be their best chance because saves talk come All-Star Game selection time … And finally, here’s a cool thing: Megan Bell, one of the Yankees ball girls, is on the ballot for the All-Star Game ball crew. Here's her story. Today’s the last day to vote to send her to the All-Star Game.
(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for if/when it returns.)