The LoHud Yankees Blog

This morning’s post made me curious: How many players on the Yankees 40-man roster originally came over in player-for-player trades? Unless I’m missing one, the answer is eight, both big names and small.

Alex Rodriguez
February 16, 2004
For Alfonso Soriano and Joaquin Arias

His current deal was signed as a free agent, but Rodriguez originally came to the Yankees in a massive trade before the 2004 season. Soriano has not maintained his production, and Arias never developed as expected. Rodriguez has won two MVP awards and one World Series with the Yankees, though he’s battled injuries in recent years.

Kevin Whelan
November 10, 2006
For Gary Sheffield 

The Yankees got three young pitchers when they sent Sheffield to the Tigers. Humberto Sanchez was a huge prospect at the time, but injuries took their toll and he never came close to his perceived ceiling. Anthony Claggett got a few innings with the Yankees before landing with the Pirates for a while. Then there was Whelan, a forgotten prospect until his breakout season this year with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. It was enough to earn two big league outings.

Nick Swisher
November 13, 2008
For Wilson Betemit, Jeff Marquez and Jhonny Nunez

The Yankees also got minor league reliever Kanekoa Texeira in this deal, which was an absolute coup for Brian Cashman. Capitalizing on a down year for Swisher, the Yankees gave up a utility man they didn’t need and two young pitchers who have barely pitched out of the minors for a guy who became an all-star right fielder. No question, this one was lopsided in the Yankees favor.

Curtis Granderson
December 9, 2009
For Ian Kennedy, Phil Coke and Austin Jackson

This was a three-team swap, and the Yankees gave up three young players for their center field MVP candidate. When Jackson got off to a terrific start in Detroit and Granderson struggled through his first half-season with the Yankees, this looked like a rough deal for New York. It now looks like a trade that helped all three teams, largely because Kennedy has developed into a legitimate front-of-the-rotation starter for the Diamondbacks, while Granderson has blossomed into a force for the Yankees.

Boone Logan
December 21, 2009
For Melky Cabrera, Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino

The key to this deal was supposed to Javier Vazquez, but instead the Yankees have gotten more value out of Logan, who’s been their primary left-handed reliever the past two seasons and will likely play the same role in 2012. Vazquez ultimately led to a compensation draft pick that the Yankees used on Dante Bichette Jr.

Greg Golson
January 26, 2010
For Mitch Hilligoss

Golson’s been a role player for the Yankees, an athletic center fielder capable of playing all three outfield positions and steal a bag from time to time. Hilligoss was a minor league utility infielder, and he hasn’t escaped the minors. It’s a small win for the Yankees.

Justin Maxwell
February 3, 2011
For Adam Olbrychowski

Once considered a pretty good prospect for the Nationals, Maxwell never really hit at the big league level, and the Yankees got him for a young pitcher buried in their pitching-rich system. Maxwell was considered good outfield depth, and he might have cracked the big league roster in 2011 had he not missed the second half of the season with an injury. He was hitting for power and getting on base in Triple-A.

Chris Dickerson
March 25, 2011
For Sergio Mitre

The Yankees ultimately got Mitre back, and they found Dickerson to be a useful fourth and fifth outfielder during the regular season. Because he’s a left-handed hitter, this hasn’t been the best fit for Dickerson, but he’s given the Yankees some depth as a position where the Yankees system has been fairly thin since Brett Gardner graduated to the big leagues.

Associated Press photos

My first memory of Phil Hughes comes from my first year covering the Yankees minor league system. Hughes was the biggest prospect in the organization — and one of the biggest in the game — and although he didn’t know it at the time, he was a few months from his big league debut. I remember asking Hughes to tell me the craziest thing he’d heard about himself.

He said he’d just heard a comparison to Roger Clemens, and he was laughing about it.

Hughes has always been that kind of guy. He’s laid back and quick to laugh, and he’s always been easy to deal with. He was easy to deal with when he was a massive prospect in Triple-A. He was easy to deal with when he was a Major League all-star. He was easy to deal with when things fell apart in the first half of last season.

But behind that laid back attitude, there’s always been a sense that Hughes cares about his production. I’ve seen hot-shot prospects who thought it didn’t matter when they struggled, because they thought opportunities would be infinite. Hughes has never been that way. When he struggles, you can sense his disappointment. He might do a good job of dealing with that disappointment, but the disappointment is certainly there.

You get a sense of that in Mark Feinsand’s story in today’s Daily News.

“I’m at a point where the patience is running out,” Hughes said. “I’m not a prospect anymore, and I’m not 21 years old anymore. You’re gauged on what kind of year you had, not what you’re capable of doing.”

After an up-and-down season, Hughes has committed himself to getting in better shape this offseason. He’s also started his offseason throwing program a month earlier than usual.

“I’m certainly not at the point in my career where I can come in and go through the motions, and if I give up eight runs in an outing, it’s all good because it’s spring training,” Hughes said. “For me, coming off a bad season, I’m trying to do as much as I can to make sure that I’m ready to go when spring training rolls around.”

Associated Press photo

Mariano Rivera announced today that he will have surgery on his vocal chords tomorrow.

“I don’t like surgery, but the sooner the better,” he said. 

The recovery is expected to take two weeks, including one week without speaking. 

Jorge Posada has said it might not be until February, when players are gearing up for spring training, before he’ll know whether he wants to play next season. That’s still two full months away.

Today, Posada’s agent shot down a report that Posada had contacted the Mets about playing next season.

“There is no truth to that report. None,” Seth Levinson told Ken Rosenthal.

It might be a while before we know anything about Posada’s future plans. He seems resigned to the fact he won’t be back with the Yankees. Right now he’s deciding between playing elsewhere and retiring with his entire career in pinstripes.

Last December, I looked back at the previous year of Yankees trades. There had been nine of them in a 12-month span — a little less than 12 months, actually — from Brian Bruney being shipped to the Nationals in December of 2009 to Juan Miranda being traded to the Diamondbacks in November of 2010.

In those 12 months, there were big trades for Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez, small trades for Greg Golson and a Rule 5 pick, and deadline deals for Kerry Wood and Lance Berkman.

So what kind of trades have the Yankees made in these past 12 months?

February 2, 2011
RHP Adam Olbrychowski to the Nationals for OF Justin Maxwell

March 25, 2011
RHP Sergio Mitre to the Brewers for OF Chris Dickerson

That’s it.

Unless you count the June move to purchase Mitre back from Milwaukee, the Yankees have gone eight full months without making a deal. Brian Cashman said during the GM Meetings that he’s not opposed to making trades — and he’s obviously proven that in the past — but Cashman said it’s been “easy to stand down” based on asking prices.

One interesting note from Tyler Kepner’s story in the Times earlier this week:

Cashman said he has found newer general managers to be unrealistic, asking far too much in trade talks than he is prepared to give.

No general manager, young or old, wants to be on the losing end of a trade. For now, it seems that Cashman is willing to wait for deals that make sense. Making a trade for the sake of making a trade never helped anyone, and Cashman’s been around long enough to stay calm on the trigger.

Associated Press photo