Yankees' trades at GM meetings highlight team's plan to get younger
Minnesota Twins outfielder Aaron Hicks is on deck in a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers on Sept. 15, 2015. Credit: AP / Jim Mone
In recapping what had been a busy Wednesday at the general managers' meetings, Brian Cashman offered a telling line.
"I wasn't going to trade John Ryan Murphy," the Yankees GM said, "for an old guy."
Cashman swapped the 24-year-old catcher for outfielder Aaron Hicks, a 26-year-old switch hitter the Yankees consider good enough to be an everyday player.
The trade, of course, served dual purposes. It addressed a need -- reserve outfielder -- and also provided Cashman the flexibility to include leftfielder Brett Gardner in the kind of mega-deal that likely would be required in order to land a front end-of-the-rotation starter or, perhaps, a second baseman.
But the deal accomplished something else, as Cashman alluded to -- the slow but steady continuation of making an aging roster younger. It was set in motion several years ago but started to become a reality last winter when the club traded for Didi Gregorius (24 at the time of the deal) and Nathan Eovaldi (also 24).
There remains plenty of age on the Yankees -- Alex Rodriguez will be 41 next July, Carlos Beltran turns 39 in April, Mark Teixeira turns 36 in April and CC Sabathia will be 36 in July -- but youth is dotting the roster in ways it wasn't just a few years ago.
Luis Severino, 21, called up last August, very well could be the ace of next year's rotation, which also is likely to include Masahiro Tanaka (27), Michael Pineda (27 in January) and Eovaldi (26 in February). First-base prospect Greg Bird, 23, debuted last season and more than held his own, showing himself to be an option should Teixeira get hurt again in 2016. Top outfield prospect Aaron Judge, 23, is on the cusp of breaking through to the big leagues.
Additionally, the Murphy trade gives touted prospect Gary Sanchez, currently tearing up the Arizona Fall League, a chance to seize the backup catching job this spring.
"I think Gary Sanchez can play in the big leagues this year, whether he will or not we'll have to wait and see," Cashman said. "I think it can go either way. We'll wait and see how the rest of the winter transpires. I don't have to make any commitment to it right now. If Gary Sanchez was our backup catcher in 2016, I'd be fine with that. If it was somebody else and Gary had more time to develop, I'd be fine with that, too."
One opposing team scout who has seen Sanchez play in the AFL, where the catcher leads everyone with seven homers, said the 22-year-old has made "significant" strides defensively.
Cashman departed these meetings -- which he once only half-jokingly years ago called "a necessary evil" because of the relative lack of activity that typically occurs at them -- late Wednesday night having completed two deals and plenty of other potential ones simmering.
"They're fluid, we have a number of things going on still," said Cashman, who also made a minor deal Wednesday, sending utility man Jose Pirela to the Padres for 20-year-old minor-league righthanded starter Ron Herrera. "We're just going through the normal exercise that happens every winter."
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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