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As the New York Yankees blew another ninth-inning lead Monday night, there might have been a fan or two who wished their favorite team had made a stronger push for Mason Miller.
Miller, the former Athletics closer with an electric 103 mph fastball, was traded to the San Diego Padres on Thursday, in a stunning blockbuster that included top shortstop prospect Leo DeVries.
The value proposition of trading a potential future star position player for a lockdown closer is one baseball minds can disagree on, but the fact is that the Yankees had the option to do the exact same thing.
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According to a report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Yankees might have had Miller themselves had they been willing to move one of their top two position player prospects before the Padres gave up DeVries.
“The Yankees were unwilling to satisfy the A’s request for a package headed by either shortstop George Lombard Jr. (No. 14 on (Keith) Law’s list) or outfielder Spencer Jones, in addition to young pitching. Instead, they acquired three other relievers, David Bednar, Jake Bird and Camilo Doval,” wrote Rosenthal.
Those other three additions might well prove more cost-effective than bringing in Miller would have been. And maybe Jones will be a star beginning next year, with Lombard joining him sometime late in the season.
But the Yankees are now 0-4 since the deadline, and every single one of the relievers they acquired has had at least one blowup outing, with Bird doing it twice after allowing a walk-off three-run home run Monday night.
Miller is out of sight, out of mind. The Yankees will have to wonder what could have been while trying to figure out their closer issues the rest of the way.
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