SSTN Mailbag: Trevino Trade, 1B, And What's Left!

I hope all of you have had a happy, safe, and restful holiday. As I noted in last week's SSTN Mailbag, I have been going at F1 speeds in my life since September, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I've had a moment to breathe. I am in the midst of the longest period of time I've had off from my day job in at least 4 years, possibly longer, so I am enjoying it to the fullest. I'm eating too much (imbibing responsibly, but enjoyably), trying to remember what sleep is, playing with the world's most active 2-year-old, and I've even had 3 seconds to think about baseball again. In short: life is good (minus a hopefully non-surgical Achilles issue...it's there to remind me I'm not 20 anymore).

I enjoy working hard and long hours are something to which I have always been accustomed, however I do miss that I haven't been able to write more about Yankee current events. Given how busy the Yankees have been this off-season, I wish I could have been in the middle of the fray as the team has made their moves. Juan Soto choosing the Mets also blew up the most significant piece of writing I've done in some time: my off-season plan. It seems ridiculous to post it now given what's happened so far, but looking at my scribblings has been fun to look at in retrospect. I'm thinking about it a lot because, as you'll see in one of this week's responses, I actually had one move exactly right.

All of this rambling is a long way of saying that I'm back to thinking about baseball, and I have some posts ready to put in the fire over the next couple of weeks. The Yankees' busy off-season makes it really easy to write, which is good, because I needed some prompts after so much time off. Consider this week's SSTN Mailbag a good start.

As always, thanks for the great questions and keep them coming to SSTNReadermail@gmail.com. In this week's SSTN Mailbag, we'll talk about the trade that sent Jose Trevino to the Reds, first base, and what's next for the Yankees! Let's get at it:

Bill M. asks: I haven't seen a full reaction on this site to trading away Jose Trevino for a guy with a fun story, but a 4+ era. Can you tell me what you think about that move? What do the Yankees see in Cruz and who backs up Wells? Do they get a righty catcher somewhere outside the organization?

My jaw dropped when I heard about this trade, but not because it was a surprise. As those of you who read my stuff will note, I've been talking about the opportunity the Yankees had this off-season to upgrade the bullpen by trading Jose Trevino. Catching is really thin across baseball, and Trevino's skillset positions him somewhere between a high-end backup (with one critical flaw, as his arm is a wet noodle) and a low-end starter. Bad backup catchers were getting decent contracts on the free agent market, and the Yankees were wise to make a deal.

Why was this jaw-dropping, then? My off-season plan for the Yankees called for almost this exact trade. As part of my planning, I had researched a large number of potential trade targets that fit the roster and wouldn't require large outlays of cash. Here's one of my scratch pads:

The scribblings of a mad baseball scientist...after watching an absurd amount of video late at night.

About two-thirds of the way down the list above, you will note the name of Fernando Cruz. Cruz is the only player on the list where I named a bucket of trade targets: Will Warren, Jose Trevino, and Everson Pereira. In my nearly final version of the full written piece, I had settled on a trade for Fernando Cruz that included Jose Trevino and Everson Pereira. I really thought it would take two out of the three players from my bucket to get Cruz. Not only did I predict the trade, but we got it a hair cheaper than I expected. Not bad!

Jose Trevino's fit is an obvious one with the Reds. They need some veteran leadership in the locker room as they look to take the next step, and they could use a good veteran catcher around to work with their young catcher and pitching staff. I am not surprised in the slightest that the Reds had interest in Trevino, and Trevino is exactly where I would have started any conversation with the Reds.

Fernando Cruz is a fascinating pitcher. His splitter is legitimately one of the best I've ever evaluated on video. It almost knuckles out of his hand occasionally, which kills spin to a ridiculous degree. He throws it a bit more than 40% of the time, and he'd do well to bump that usage up by 10-15%, which I'm sure will happen in pinstripes. His cutter and 4-seam fastball are below-average, but I am not sure they are the right pitches to pair with the splitter. The Yankees are among the teams that are at the forefront of pitch design (though they lost Desi Druschel to the Mets this off-season, a bigger loss than most realize), and I have a hunch that the coaches in that group will manipulate Cruz's arsenal the way I would: a two-seam fastball to better hide his splitter, and tuck the cutter a bit more in the palm to give it more tilt, which will tunnel incredibly well with the world's best splitter. Cruz already has an insane strikeout rate, but I think he can be even better with some gentle tweaking. With his strikeout rate, you can live with his admittedly sky-high walk rate. I think he has a chance to blow-up into one of the best relievers in baseball with some good work on pitch design, something the Yankee staff is well-suited to help him accomplish. Oh, and by all reports, Cruz is incredibly coachable and one of the best personalities in baseball, so I'd bet on him to get the most out of any coaching.

As for the backup catcher, I see an interesting possibility forming. Trading both Carlos Narvaez and Jose Trevino this off-season signals to me that the Yankees believe very strongly in both JC Escarra and Ben Rice. Interestingly, Brian Cashman mentioned earlier this off-season that he still views Rice as a catcher first, and the organization has also noted their belief in Escarra. Both are catchers with positional versatility, which will almost certainly be useful in 2025 with an infield in flux. Paul Goldschmidt, even with a resurgence, struggles against good fastballs against right-handed pitching, something that Ben Rice does quite well from the left-side of the plate. Escarra plays a decent 3B, a position at which the Yankees seem less settled. Escarra and Rice give the Yankees options beyond catcher, and I think they intend to let those two get all the reps they can to prove that they can be the backup catcher and utility presence off the bench. I think both are capable in that role.

Michael G. asks: Did we get the right guy? With the 1b carousel seeming to end and the prices on Lowe and Naylor seeming pretty low. What would a comparable cost have been? Considering they'll all make similar money. Was goldschmidt the right guy or just the easiest choice?

On a scale of overwhelmed to underwhelmed, I'm merely whelmed by the acquisition of Goldschmidt. Yes, he's buddies with Judge and he adds a significant leadership presence to the clubhouse (there seems to be a theme here with the Yankees' acquisitions this off-season, but I digress), but there also is some legitimate optimism that Goldy figured some things out in the second half of the season. His bottom-line numbers were better, but smart people will rightly chalk that up to small sample size noise. The reason I give some credence to that improvement is that Goldschmidt's bat speed experienced a notable bump. Through June 1st, Goldschmidt's swing averaged 72.1 MPH. From June 1st onward, his swing averaged 72.7 MPH. That doesn't sound like much, but when you are already above-average in swing speed, the early statistical associations tell us that even a modest bump into more elite territory lead to significant gains in offensive performance. Maybe it was mechanical, maybe it was health, but Goldschmidt found another gear in his swing and started hitting better. If it sticks, he's better than any of the other guys we're talking about.

I really worry about how out of shape Naylor looked at the end of last season. He's an incredibly talented hitter and a better defender than DRS would have you believe, but his weight is going to catch up to him if he doesn't get it under control. I probably would have preferred Lowe for the safety his profile provides, but the Yankees really didn't have a comparable lefty reliever to give the Rangers in return. The Rangers clearly targeted a specific profile in a return for Lowe, and they got it from the Nationals.

I think I'm okay with Goldschmidt for the price, but I think that in order to maximize his performance, they need to be smart about how he's deployed. Giving Ben Rice some playing time at 1B or even letting Cody Bellinger moonlight at 1B against big fastball righties makes way too much sense given Goldy's performance against big fastballs in recent years. At any rate, the Yanks clearly improved at 1B this off-season, so I'm happy about that, at least.

Brian C.: What's next for the Yankees this offseason?

I still think we're looking at a third baseman at some point. The options everyone is talking about are awful for a host of reasons, so I wonder if the Yankees are looking at some smaller moves that could pay dividends. I also keep waiting to hear that the Yankees sign Yoan Moncada to a minor league deal with an invitation to Spring Training. Either seems likely to me. If they don't make a move like that, I'm fine with Jazz at 3B given that he'll have an off-season to train there, but the Yanks really need another infielder.

Otherwise? I'm going to keep hoping that maybe Roki Sasaki surprises everyone and chooses the Yankees this off-season. Now that would be fun.