When the Yankees acquired Luke Voit from the Cardinals on July 29 in exchange for pitchers Giovanny Gallegos and Chasen Shreve, the deal seemed like little more than a footnote, an incremental upgrade of a contender’s organizational depth, sweetened by the inclusion of international bonus-pool money. Nonetheless, the deal has yielded the hottest hitter of any who changed teams in the weeks leading up to the July 31 trade deadline — albeit in a limited sample size — and, for the moment, a solution to the Yankees’ ongoing first-base woes.

At the time of the trade, the Yankees appeared committed to Greg Bird, an oft-injured 25-year-old lefty who had started 47 of the team’s 56 games at first base since returning from surgery to remove a bone spur in his right ankle. Bird extended that stretch to 66 starts in 78 games into late August, but by that point he had slipped into an 0-for-21 slump. With a banged-up offense feeling the absences of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, and Didi Gregorius, manager Aaron Boone suddenly turned to Voit (toined to Voit to avoid Boid and fill da void, if you’re speaking Brooklynese), who has started 11 of the team’s past 14 games. The decision has paid off.

Entering Wednesday night’s game against the A’s, Voit — a beefy, amiable lug (6-foot-3, 225 pounds, seemingly with an ever-present smile) — had homered seven times in 65 plate appearances for the Yankees, batting .322/.385/.678 for a 185 wRC+ since the trade. Five of those homers either tied the game or gave the Yankees the lead, including this eighth-inning go-ahead shot against the A’s on September 4, which marked Voit’s third straight game with a dinger:

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When the New York Yankees grew concerned about their rotation for the rest of the season, they made a pretty big move to get J.A. Happ from the Blue Jays. In Brandon Drury, they traded a young player with success at the major-league level. Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel ranked Drury the fifth-best minor leaguer traded at the deadline. The club also gave up Billy McKinney, who ended up 19th on the same list. It wasn’t an inconsequential deal.

Happ has been everything the team could’ve hoped for. He’s recorded a 3.95 FIP and 2.37 ERA since joining the Yankees. He’s been worthy roughly half a win. He looks like he’ll be an asset for a team that’s bound for some kind of postseason play. He’s also not even the top-performing pitcher his own club acquired at the deadline.

Rather it’s Lance Lynn who has put up the best park-adjusted FIP of any pitcher acquired at the trade deadline — including Cole Hamels — as the following table indicates.

Cole Hamels has been fantastic, but when you factor in both Yankee Stadium and the American League, he’s produced the better fielding-independent numbers. (With his edge in innings, Hamels’ has recorded a higher WAR.) Nor is it just against trade acquisitions that Lynn fares well. Here are the top pitchers by WAR this month.

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When Aaron Judge went down with a wrist injury at the end of July, the Yankees didn’t appear to be a club in dire straits. While there would be no replacing the American League’s 2017 WAR leader, the team would still be in decent shape, having entered the season with three talented outfielders beyond Judge in Brett Gardner, Aaron Hicks, and Giancarlo Stanton.

Things haven’t quite worked out as expected, though. Stanton has played mostly designated hitter, while Gardner has struggled offensively. The result: a possible weakness in the lineup where one wasn’t anticipated. With the Yankees’ acquisition of Andrew McCutchen, however — a deal first reported by Buster Olney — the lineup should benefit considerably.

Joel Sherman has reported that two prospects would go back to the Giants if and when the deal is confirmed, including infielder Abiatal Avelino. The 23-year-old reached Double-A in 2016, spent some time in three levels last year, and moved back and forth between the two highest minor-league levels while destroying Double-A pitching and struggling in Triple-A.

Update: Jim Bowden is reporting the other player in the deal Juan De Paula, currently a starter in Low-A, and Jon Heyman reports that the Giants and Yankees are splitting the roughly $2.5 million remaining on McCutchen’s deal. 

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A week ago at the site, Craig Edwards endeavored to find a new home for Andrew McCutchen. The outfielder had just cleared revocable waivers and, with the Giants’ season effectively over, appeared destined to finish the 2018 campaign with another club. Which club, precisely, wasn’t clear. Whatever team he joined, however, would likely both (a) possess a reasonable chance of making the postseason and (b) feature a clear weakness at a corner-outfield spot. McCutchen, in other words, would have some value to a contending club receiving less-than-ideal production from either its left or right fielder.

To identify the most probable landing spots for McCutchen, Edwards published the following graph, featuring the projected rest-of-season WAR figures for each contender’s corner-outfield positions, with the stronger entries to the left and the weaker ones to the right. Towards the middle of the graph was a mark denoted as the McCutchen Line. McCutchen would, in theory, represent an upgrade at all the posts to the right of that line.

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Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Note from Eric: Hey you, this is the last one of these for the year, as the minor-league regular season comes to a close. Thanks for reading. I’ll be taking some time off next week, charging the batteries for the offseason duties that lie ahead for Kiley and me.

D.J. Peters, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 7   FV: 45+
Line: 4-for-7, 2 HR, 2B (double header)

Notes
A comparison of DJ Peters‘ 2017 season in the Cal League and his 2018 season at Double-A gives us a good idea of what happens to on-paper production when a hitter is facing better pitching and defenses in a more stable offensive environment.

Reports of Peters’ physical abilities haven’t changed, nor is his batted-ball profile different in such a way that one would expect a downtick in production. The 2018 line is, I think, a more accurate distillation of Peters’ abilities. He belongs in a talent bucket with swing-and-miss outfielders like Franchy Cordero, Randal Grichuk, Michael A. Taylor, Bradley Zimmer, etc. These are slugging center fielders whose contact skills aren’t particularly great. Players like this are historically volatile from one season to the next but dominant if/when things click. They’re often ~1.5 WAR players who have some years in the three-win range. Sometimes they also turn into George Springer.

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As a Baby Bomber, Greg Bird is considered part of the young foundation of the Yankees’ lineup, alongside Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, Gary Sanchez, and now Miguel Andujar. In the wake of his tantalizing 46-game, 11-homer late-2015 debut, the Yankees have waited out his seemingly endless string of injuries, yet despite a clean bill of health, he’s been curiously unproductive — the majors’ worst regular in August, in fact. The 25-year-old slugger’s hold on the starting first base job might be summed up with this clip from Tuesday night’s game:

“It’s not what you want,” as Bird’s former manager Joe Girardi would say, but that dropped throw aside — it did not figure in the scoring of the Yankees’ 5-4 win over the White Sox — defense hasn’t been Bird’s primary problem. At a time when the Yankees have been without Judge, Sanchez, and Didi Gregorius due to injuries, Bird is in an 0-for-21 slide since homering in his first plate appearance against the Blue Jays on August 19, and hitting .114/.186/.228 with two homers in 86 plate appearances in August. His 10 wRC+ for the month is the lowest of 177 qualified hitters in that span. And that’s after I suggested it was fair to quibble with including him on the first-base list in my Replacement Level Killers series just prior to the July 31 deadline. Overall, he’s hitting .196/.284/.384 (80 wRC+) this year, and through 640 PA over his three-season major-league career, he’s at .213/.302/.435 for a 97 wRC+. That’s not going to cut it.

Bird’s short career has been one of extremes:

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Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Performances from 8/26

Evan White, 1B, Seattle Mariners
Level: High-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 2   FV: 45
Line: 3-for-4, 2B, 3Bho

Notes
We now have a full season of data to help us figure out whether Evan White’s weird profile is going to play. A plus-running backwards guy (bats right, throws left, a generally unfavorable combination due to the defensive limitations and platoon issues caused by both) who plays plus defense at first base, White was slugging .391 at the start of August, which is rather uninspiring for a college hitter in the Cal League. In August, however, White has 30 hits in 90 plate appearances and is slugging .763. He has made subtle changes to his lower half, drawing his front knee back toward his rear hip more than he did at Kentucky, and taking a longer stride back toward the pitcher. White is more often finishing with a flexed front leg, which has helped him go down and lift balls in the bottom part of the strike zone by adjusting his lower half instead of his hands. It’s a more athletic swing that was implemented before White’s explosive August, though he may just be getting comfortable with it now. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Bubba Thompson, CF, Texas Rangers
Level: Low-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 5   FV: 45
Line: 4-for-6, HR

Notes
Were Bubba Thompson wrapping up his season with poor numbers, I’d be excusing it based on context. A multi-sport high-school athlete who had focused solely on baseball for just one year, Thompson also had his reps limited, after he signed last summer, due to nagging lower-body issues. I expected him to hang back in extended spring training and then head to Spokane in June. Instead, after a month in extended, Thompson was pushed by Texas to a full-season affiliate as a 19-year-old. He’s hitting .295/.350/.460 with 28 extra-base hits in 323 PAz and 28 steals in 35 attempts. He’s projects as a center fielder with power.

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Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In the twenty-first installment of this series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Patrick Corbin, Zach Eflin, and Sonny Gray — on how they learned and/or developed a specific pitch.

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Patrick Corbin (D-backs) on His Slider

“My slider. When I was really young, I asked my father how to throw a breaking ball, and he showed me this grip. It’s something I’ve stuck with throughout the minor leagues and the big leagues. It’s been my best pitch, and it’s kind of neat that my father showed me the grip.

“I can’t remember exactly when it was, but probably around 10 years old, maybe the first couple of times I played catch with my father. He always used to say he loved throwing it at the left-handed batter’s hip and having him freeze, only to have the ball break over the plate. That’s something I’ve always remembered and taken with me.

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They set records for the highest win total and run differential of the post-1960 expansion era, and featured future Hall of Famers Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in full flower among what would become known as the homegrown “Core Four,” as well as a memorably diverse lineup and bench sprinkled with some sage veterans. Despite a brief scare in the AL Championship Series, they steamrolled their way to the 24th championship in franchise history and the first of three straight. The 1998 Yankees — who went 114-48, outscored the opposition by 309 runs, and won 11 out of 13 postseason games, culminating in a sweep of the Padres in the World Series — were the best team upon which I’ve ever laid eyes, and they’ll probably remain the yardstick by which I measure all others, just as the 1927 Yankees were for my grandfather’s generation. If not for the time I spent watching and attending their games, it’s quite likely I’d never have taken the career detour that led to full-time writing about baseball.

As the Yankees celebrate the 20th anniversary of that team this Saturday in the Bronx, I’ll be there for personal reasons as much as professional ones.

I’ll spare you the long version of the personal journey, as I’ve previously documented my experience growing up as a third-generation Dodgers fan and then gradually taking to the Yankees after moving to New York City. The short version is that my arrival in NYC in February 1995, at the tender age of 25, more or less coincided with the Yankees’ return to prominence after having failed to crack the postseason since 1982. I had never before lived in a city that had its own major-league team (let alone two), and my passion for baseball was only beginning to awaken from its college-era dormancy. It was fueled primarily by reading the New York Times sports page and watching ESPN and network broadcasts.

I had rooted for the Mariners in their thrilling 1995 Division Series with the Yankees, but somewhere in the next year, between my first trip to the House That Ruth Built (August 18, 1996), David Cone‘s seven no-hit innings in his return from an arm aneurysm (September 2), and Jim Leyritz’s homer off Mark Wohlers in the epic Game Four of the World Series (October 23) — all of it blanketed by the preternatural placidity of manager Joe Torre, whose ability to withstand the bluster of owner George Steinbrenner and the noise of the New York media I found nothing short of miraculous — I found myself pulling for the Yankees.

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