Yankees Trade for 2 Pitchers:

In the past week, the Yankees have made 2 trades for some new arms: JT Brubaker and Jake Cousins. Let's talk about them.

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JT Brubaker:

Brubaker was a 6th round draft pick out of the University of Akron in 2015. After a few years in the minors, he made his MLB debut in 2020, starting 9 games and playing in 2 others. He spent the next two years in 2021 and 2022 as a full-time starter, collecting 24 and 28 starts in each year respectively. Last April, Brubaker underwent Tommy John surgery and was eyeing a return to the Pirates rotation sometime this summer- likely around the All-Star break.

In the two full seasons before his surgery, Brubaker was a back-end starter. Across 52 games he posted a 5.00 ERA (83 ERA+) over 268.1 innings. He was prone to give up nearly a home run per game (45 homers allowed) and his WHIP of 1.386 does him no favors. The lone bright-side of his resume is that he strikes out more than a man an inning (276 K's).

According to reports, his rehab with the Pirates was going well, but they decided to move on from him during the recovery process as their rotation is starting to get full of options. To move on, they offered him and $500,000 of international bonus pool money to the Yankees for a player to be named later.

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For the Yankees, Brubaker is nothing more than a reclamation project that is halfway to being finished. He has experience with the everyday MLB grind and has some promise, especially in terms of his CHASE% and WHIFF% (both rank in the 62nd percentile), his GB% (54th percentile), and his K% (49th percentile). However, he has not yet seen much excellence in the show, which is clearly seen in his current MLB performance.

My Take: I trust Matt Blake to know how to untap potential from pitchers. I also trust the Yankees to know how to create great relievers. I don't know if they can turn Brubaker into a great starter, but I do think he could be a great reliever if they are able to move him to that path.

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Jake Cousins:

Cousins was a 20th round draft pick out of the University of Pennsylvania by the Washington Nationals. After an injury in 2019, he was released, played some independent ball, and was picked up by the Brewers later that season. In 2021, he would make his MLB debut and nearly immediately made himself a main-stay in the Brewers bullpen. This continued in the first half of 2022, but he was shutdown after suffering a UCL injury. He refused to undergo Tommy John surgery- instead getting a platelet injection- and has since been bouncing around different organizations in Triple-A.

Before getting injured, Cousins was becoming a top-flight reliever. Across the 2021 and 2022 seasons, he pitched in 42 games for 43.1 innings while collecting a 2.70 ERA (154 ERA+). He had a bit of a walk problem (27 walks), but he limited home runs (4), and threw many strikeouts (65).

The Yankees were able to get him for nothing more than cash from the White Sox. As of writing this, the Yankees are undecided where to send him: to Arizona to join the MLB team or down to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to join the RailRiders.

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His numbers on BaseballSavant are glowing red by what he can do from 2021 and 2022, though his 2023 numbers leave a lot to be desired.

My Take: Maybe Cousins is going to be like Masahiro Tanaka and be able to avoid ever needing Tommy John surgery. Maybe not. I don't have access to his medical records. However, I do see an obvious point at which his career went from promising to searching for another chance.

I have more faith that a healthy Cousins under the work of Matt Blake will return to his prior excellence, than that of Brubaker finding untapped potential. Though, I'm more worried that Cousins won't ever be fully healthy. For now, we wait.