Breaking News: WE LIKE JAZZ!

The Yankees have agreed to a trade with the Miami Marlins to acquire INF/OF Jazz Chisholm. Details inside!

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Jeff Passan was first to confirm the deal took place.

Craig Mish was the first to indicate the deal was happening, and specified that the Yankees are sending 3 minor leaguers to the Miami Marlins in exchange for Chisholm.

Alden Gonzalez was first with the reports of a trade, and he was the first to report the whole package headed back to the Miami Marlins.

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Thoughts:

So far, we do not know the entire scope of this deal, as we are waiting on reports of which minor leaguers the Yankees traded away. As of the time of writing this, the only player known to be heading- and headlining this deal to Miami- is catcher Agustin Ramirez (source from Alden Gonzalez of ESPN).

Agustin Ramirez is a 22-year-old catcher who made it to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season. He was the Yankees 20th prospect from MLBPipeline (Ramirez' detailed scouting report can be found, here). He was the Yankees best catching prospect, but with Austin Wells performing well at the MLB level, it is clear the Yankees thought Ramirez was expendable.

When we find out the other two prospects, I'll update this article.

UPDATE: The full trade is in (see Tweet above from Alden Gonzalez).

Jared Serna is a 22-year-old middle infielder who had spent his entire season in High-A ball with the Hudson Valley Renegades. He was the Yankees 19th prospect from MLBPipeline (Serna's detailed scouting report can be found, here).

The other player, Abrahan Ramirez, is a 19-year-old shortstop who signed as IFA out of Venezula for $30,000 with the Yankees in 2022. This season he has played in the Florida Coast League. I have nothing else to report on him.

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I first wrote about Jazz Chisholm 2 weeks ago (to the date) after reading about a NY Post article (here) indicating some potential options for the Yankees in the infield. You can find my post here:

Jazz Chisholm: Future Yankee?

Though the original article from the NY Post referenced a few other trade candidates- and I talked about each of them as well- I was very clear that the move that I found more sensible for the Yankees would be to acquire Jazz Chisholm. As I stated in that article,

"Jazz Chisholm: The hype around Jazz Chisholm- including being the cover athlete for "MLB The Show (2023)"- has been too much for his production, but has been propelled by his stature. He wants to be larger than life, he acts larger than life, and he talks larger than life. Those can be good qualities, as that internal belief in oneself is something a player needs to have to survive in New York. He is hitting to a .255/.324/.419 triple-slash with a .743 OPS and a 104 OPS+ this year, with metrics that are darling on his overall offense (74th percentile) and baserunning (98th percentile). His defense is suspect, but that could be an affect of playing center field, and a return to second base (where he played when he had his best offensive season) could be beneficial. Plus, he comes with two additional years of control in 2025 and 2026 via arbitration 2 and 3. Imagine him as your lead-off hitter. (Did I mention he's 26-years-old and a left-handed hitter too?)"

You can read the rest of that article for my other thoughts.

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I would make Jazz Chisholm the lead-off hitter for the Yankees starting tonight (or tomorrow, if he's not able to land in Boston in time). His offensive production will instantly be one of the best on the team, and his speed will allow the Yankees to finally cause other teams some panic on the base-paths.

Regarding Chisholm's 2024 season (so far): His AVG would be 4th best on the Yankees (behind Judge, Soto, and Volpe), his OBP would be 4th best (behind Judge, Soto, and Wells), and his SLG would be 5th (behind Judge, Soto, Stanton, and Wells).

I'd also put Chisholm immediately at second base. This allows the Yankees to get the best out of him defensively and allows the Yankees to either move Gleyber Torres to third base or trade him away (to reacquire some minor league talent or get a bullpen arm). If Gleyber doesn't get enough talent in return, I would instead make the move to trade/release DJ LeMahieu. Long story short: If I ran the team, this would be my indication that some veteran's time with the Yankees is now quickly coming to an end.

I would expect the Yankees to instead use this time to get rid of Jahmai Jones. I do not expect either of Torres or LeMahieu will have lost their spots on this team as a consequence of this move.

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I'll leave with this: I've now correctly called one trade the Yankees have made during the trade deadline season. Now, I will ask the Yankees to make a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates for David Bednar. (The Pirates are rumored to have recently rejected a trade for the Orioles number 25 prospect for him, however that does not mean he is off the table.)

With Matt Blake on this team, and the success they have had with Clay Holmes (who should not be the closer anymore), the Yankees should offer up a better prospect and fix up another former Pirates closer to help fix this team for now and the short-term future. (Bednar has another 2 years of control, just like Chisholm.)