interesting. Earlier in the off-season, there was a lot of talk of Verdugo for Gleyber.
Also, with that much pitching going for Verdugo, I wonder if there's an impact on Soto to the Yankees? The ask from SD was for a lot of pitching. OTOH, if they want an OF back, I could see Verdugo going to SD along with fewer pitchers. I can't imagine the Sox being happy with that scenario, Breslow giving Cashman ammo.
Keith Law, in the Atlantic, thinks that the Yankees must intend to trade away Verdugo in a larger package...or else it is a foolish deal. He doubts the Padres would want Verdugo, so he could not be part of a deal for Soto.
It’s possible that the Yankees acquired him to spin him onward in another trade. But, if we assume for the moment that they intend to keep him, the one argument I might see is that they think he’ll benefit from the short porch in Yankee Stadium’s right field. In 2023, he didn’t pull the ball that often, hitting more doubles to the opposite field than he did homers and doubles to his pull side, and he’s never been very pull-conscious, although in 2022 he did hit a bunch of doubles to right and right-center that could have been homers in the Bronx. It’s thin gruel as a rationale for acquiring him, and if there’s another team out there interested in him at his expected salary, I’m not entirely sure why. He’s a part-time player who’s about to make full-time money, and the Padres — who could potentially match-up with the Yankees in a Juan Soto deal — don’t need players like that while they try to trim their major-league payroll.
Weissert has 31 1/3 innings of major-league experience. (Jay Biggerstaff / USA Today)
The Red Sox get three arms back — well, technically six, but only three of them throw the baseball — and none is likely to be more than a middle reliever. Right-hander Greg Weissert has been in the majors a little the last two years, with more success in 2023, sinking the fastball enough to generate some groundballs (a 50 percent rate in the majors in 20 innings) and getting some whiffs up top with the four-seamer. The Yankees gave him a sweeper that has been ineffective, so he doesn’t have an average secondary pitch, which limits him to middle-innings work.
Right-hander Richard Fitts had success in Double A this year, but he’s 91-96 mph without much life and has a below-average slider and changeup. He does throw a ton of strikes and commands the fastball reasonably well, so his results were above his pure stuff. I see the 22 homers allowed in 152 2/3 innings as a harbinger of more hard contact as he moves up the ladder. Right-hander Nicholas Judice was the Yankees’ eighth-round pick in 2023, a senior reliever at Louisiana-Monroe who’s mostly 91-93 mph with some ride to the four-seamer, a fringy slider, and a 40 changeup. He’s an org guy at this point, with a big vulnerability to left-handed batters. This is organizational pitching depth at best, and the main value to Boston comes from shedding Verdugo’s salary and his feeble bat against lefties.
