Yankees trade for Alex Verdugo already looks like a Brian Cashman win

Jon Heyman

MLB

By Jon Heyman

BOSTON – Here’s some direct, unsolicited advice for the Red Sox: Stop trading with the Yankees, guys. When you start your trading history by sending Babe Ruth to the Bronx for $100,000 and thereby offering your hated rival an all-time dynasty for a few relative pennies, you’ll never even have the ledger, in any case. way. So why even try?

The latest big (but not that big!) move between history’s biggest sporting foes now looks like a new outright winner for New York. Alex Verdugo, who lived up to the hope and exceeded the hype in pinstripes, made his former team pay big in his first game at Fenway Park.

Verdugo hit the very first pitch he saw here as a Yankee into the center field bleachers, then doubled a run to the Green Monster in left and singled in another run. His three-hit, four-RBI performance delivered a comeback and spurred the Yankees to their baseball-leading 50th victory while dropping the Red Sox to .500.

The young man with flashy diamond chains and quirky quotes always had a flair for the dramatic, even if he wasn’t exactly worth the local superstar Mookie Betts whom the Red Sox foolishly sent to Los Angeles to get him. (and a few others).

The Verdugo trade to the Yankees will never be the worst trade the Red Sox made for him, as the first one was an all-time doozy – not close to being forgivable for this sports-crazed city. It’s also not the best deal the Yankees have made in the Winter Meetings, as they landed superstar teammate Juan Soto at the same event in Nashville in December.

Although Verdugo was primarily seen as a strong left-handed bat and fine glove to fill the Yankees’ long-term hole in left field for a year, he proved almost All-Star worthy. He’s unlikely to receive an invitation to Arlington, Texas, because he shares an outfield with the two leading MVP candidates — Aaron Judge and Soto — but after a promotion, he often cleans up the team’s top lineup. league.

He has excellent hitting (.757 OPS), is fielded better, and has proven to be the team’s best scoring punch. Even as he tries to stem reports of an alleged rift with Red Sox manager Alex Cora that led to this chance exchange, he does so in colorful fashion.

“Me and him are fine. We’re good,” Verdugo said of Cora before the Yankees’ 8-1 victory. “Our families appreciate each other. Our children like each other. Off the pitch we have no problems. Several times we hit our heads. And that’s very good. Not everyone will always agree on things. But in reality, I have nothing but respect for AC.

After talking a lot, he finished by saying, “That’s all I want to say about AC. »

Agreement.

As for his baseball contract with New York, after a few days of frustration, he realized he was going to join a “great organization”, and so he acclimated himself by shaving off one of the longest beards. wilder ones that grew. He immediately revealed a baby face, and ultimately a murderous desire.

Verdugo, who made a triumphant gesture during his joyful tour of the bases after his first-inning homer off Brayan Bello, came with the best of recommendations. None other than Judge has taken a liking to his game in recent years. Aaron Boone too. Seemingly every chance Boone got, he elbowed general manager Brian Cashman.

“I felt like he would bring an element that we were missing that we could definitely use. So I was excited to get him,” Boone said. “But I think he exceeded expectations.”

Cashman made headlines for blowing up at general managers’ meetings in Scottsdale, Arizona, rather aggressively (and slightly blasphemously) defending himself and his team following what he himself described as the “disaster” of a 2023 season. Then, a month later, he wrote perhaps the best week of a long and storied career (well, it has now been memorialized in a book, j I heard).

Naturally, the rivals don’t do many deals together. The trade of Verdugo for a middle reliever and two mid-level (at best) minor leaguers was interesting but soon overshadowed by the trade of the incomparable Soto.

We’ll assume this was by far the best the Red Sox could do for the player who posted an average season in 2023, became a free agent after 2024 and (deserved or not) had a bit of a reputation for being late. The rivalry isn’t quite what it used to be, but we’ll also assume that the Red Sox still prefer to trade with others.

We’ll also assume the new Red Sox regime knows what it’s doing. Even though they’re not going to contend for the AL East this time, they’ve done a good job with the pitchers and young players, and probably made the right choice in showing restraint in free agency this time around. gases. They didn’t usually play for the biggest players, and the closest was that now-infamous Zoom call with Jordan Montgomery, who was pitiful in the desert with the Diamondbacks.

Yes, indeed, Boston’s new baseball braintrust has had a boffo winter, with one notable exception.