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Jeff Passan of ESPN let all hell break loose on Yankees‘ twitter with his report that Mason Miller is definitely available on the trade market.
He assigned Miller a 40% chance of being dealt this summer, and with reports swirling that the Yankees are all-in on pursuing the star closer, it raises the question of whether it’s realistic or not.
What the Padres are looking for, whether they can make that trade without George Lombard Jr. being involved, and if the club can make that deal while adding on offense are all massive questions here, but let me simplify this for you:
If you can acquire the best closer on Planet Earth by a country mile you should definitely do so, and the Yankees should do everything within reason to try and acquire him.
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Mason Miller Presents a Season-Altering Scenario For the Yankees
Over the last four weeks, it would be easy to look at the bullpen and offense and deduce that the Yankees shouldn’t expend a bunch of resources on Mason Miller, but I think there’s a ton of recency bias in that.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t changed my evaluation of this bullpen from May-June where I affectionately referred to them as the “Blowpen”, a take that has aged as well as my take that Jake Bird would be a solution for this bullpen.
I think this is an above-average bullpen, but I do not think they’re as good as their league-best 3.09 ERA would suggest and plenty of data points would back that up as well.
They have the second-largest gap between their ERA and FIP and the fourth-largest gap between their FIP and xFIP, meaning that there’s likely some regression around the corner if their process does not improve.
I wouldn’t rule out that improvement in process, guys like Brent Headrick and Paul Blackburn have experienced big improvements in their FIP and xFIP over the last few weeks, but they should still try for Mason Miller.
Miller has the fourth-highest Win Probability Added in the sport, meaning his impact on winning a game exceeds almost every player in baseball this season.
He’s always pitching in high-leverage and is able to preseve a lead or tie in that spot between 98-99% of the time because nobody can hit him.
Putting him in the game with a lead in the ninth inning is akin to drawing the five pieces of Exodia in a Yu-Gi-Oh! duel, he’s a win condition and those are highly valuable in the postseason.
It’s important that we emphasize how good he is because the San Diego Padres will value him like the megastar that he is, which brings about two questions.
The first question is whether the Yankees can get Mason Miller without trading George Lombard Jr. as I would be stunned to find out that Brian Cashman is going to put him on the table in these talks.
If AJ Preller refuses to even have the conversation without Lombard, then this entire fantasy unravels and they should start pestering him about Adrian Morejon.
If the Yankees can make this trade without having to deal their consensus no. 1 prospect, then the next question becomes whether they can make this deal and then land some other pieces as well.
You cannot ignore the offense, especially the catcher position where the team is getting a league-worst offensive output in most important statistics.
My preference would be for the Yankees to get a second bat at the deadline who can move around the diamond, so that will strain their resource pool further.
Only Brian Cashman and his closest confidants will truly know what the Yankees can or cannot trade away this summer, but I’d assume that he doesn’t want to immediately have the worst farm system in baseball.
What could help them is their surplus of cheap MLB players who are often underrated by the pressure of a demanding fanbase and never-ending media cycle which might help them complete this deal or other ones.
What My Trade Deadline With Mason Miller Would Look Like
The first trade would be for Mason Miller, where I’d have the Yankees offering Dax Kilby, Carlos Lagrange, Will Warren, and Jack Cebert to San Diego.
AJ Preller gets two top 100 prospects, a starter who would probably become their no. 2 starter right now (yes it’s that bad for them), and a Double-A starter who would slot into their top 10-15 range.
I think the back-of-the-napkin math would work out from a trade value standpoint, but I could also understand AJ Preller rejecting this deal as well because I don’t know what the Padres’ internal evaluations are for these players.
For the sake of discussion let’s greenlight this deal; how can the Yankees make further improvements to their roster to improve an offense that’s slumped as of late?
The Minnesota Twins are an interesting trade partner here for the New York Yankees because they match up well in terms of MLB needs and surpluses.
Ryan Jeffers is a good get if the Yankees could land him because he’s an excellent hitter with good bat-to-ball abilities and tons of power, if the Twins slip in this series against the Guardians we could see them sell off the rental catcher.
In this deal, I’d offer RHP Ben Hess and SS Anthony Volpe, giving the Twins a top 5-6 prospect in the Yankees’ system alongside a Major League option for their infield.
Their current starting shortstop is Ryan Kriedler, who has a career 48 wRC+ and .251 OBP across 145 MLB games in his career, so they would likely feel good about having a 2.5-3.0 WAR shortstop with two years of control after 2026.
I would see if Spencer Jones and a prospect like Allen Facundo could get the Reds to trade someone like Spencer Steer who profiles as a solid utilityman that hits best against LHP.
When they get Aaron Judge back they’ll be a shoe-in to rank as a top 3-5 offense in the sport and if they add some additional bats like Jeffers and Steer they could get closer to where the Dodgers are right now.
Your farm system would be bad after this but I think this draft class has a chance to be good-enough for them to rebound and become a 15th-20th ranked system once again.
If you want to avoid trading for Mason Miller because you want Tarik Skubal instead that’s fine, if you want to avoid trading for him so that they could get Hunter Goodman instead of Ryan Jeffers…I think you’re overthinking this.
Not only is Jeffers just as good if not better, but you don’t turn down a chance to get a generational talent so that you can maybe get a marginal improvement on offense over another potential option.
Luis Arraez is not more important to winning baseball games than Mason Miller either if that’s where your brain was going (don’t lie to me I know it was) even if I think he’s better than some of my fellow data lovers.
I cannot guarantee that the San Diego Padres will like the New York Yankees’ offers for Mason Miller enough to make a deal but if they are you should treat it like a miracle from the heavens and make that trade.
Not that I’m reporting anything new here, but the sense I’m getting is that the Yankees might treat this like a gift from the heavens too if they’re able to add Miller.
Do what you will with that information and start mocking up your offers for Mason Miller, because Brian Cashman might be doing that in the next week or so.
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