Out With the Old and in With the New (Utility Infielder) in the Bronx

The Yankees had a busy deadline season. Whether trading for Ryan McMahon, patching smaller holes, or adding top relievers, they were in the news seemingly every day for adding to the 2025 club. As the deadline approached, they looked at their roster and decided that merely adding wasn’t enough. Thus, they finessed a roster reshuffle Thursday afternoon, acquiring utility infielder José Caballero from the Rays and trading utility infielder Oswald Peraza to the Angels.

Let’s start with Caballero. A plus-fielding, slap-hitting nuisance (complimentary), he has been a perfectly serviceable utility infielder in two-plus years of big league play. He has below-average raw power and a patient approach at the plate, which can result in some ugly strikeout numbers when pitchers challenge him early in the zone and he takes. Though he’s good at elevating the ball, it’s rarely with much authority, and he never quite worked out the Isaac Paredes trick of turning mediocre raw power into pulled homers. He was still a league-average contributor overall, though, because the rest of his game is excellent.

No matter which metrics you subscribe to, Caballero is a plus defender across the infield. He started playing the outfield this year and took to it quickly. He’s a pretty good bunter, if you’re into that; if you need someone to come off of the bench in a late-and-close situation and advance the runners, he’s your guy.

Oh, and he’s an excellent baserunner, ranking top 15 in the majors in baserunning runs despite reaching base far fewer times than the rest of that cohort. And despite not having recorded enough plate appearances to qualify for the various rate stat leaderboards — meaning you’ll have to lower the playing time threshold to find him — he is tied with Oneil Cruz for the major league lead in stolen bases, with 34. Caballero’s prowess on the basepaths is perhaps his most appealing skill for his new club. As was the case last season, the Yankees are absolutely terrible on the bases; in fact, their -4.4 BsR is the worst among playoff contenders.

Though Caballero is under team control through the 2029 season, I don’t think that’s the real driving force behind this acquisition. He’s just a well-rounded option who can fill in everywhere right now, something that the Yankees thought they already had in Peraza. But uh, about that.

This season has been nothing less than a nightmare for Peraza. He’s out of options and thus has been with the big league club all year. He was supposed to mostly ride the bench, but he ended up starting 41 games as various infielders got hurt and, later, after the Yankees released DJ LeMahieu. Overall, Peraza is slashing a desultory .152/.212/.241 in 170 plate appearances, which works out to a wRC+ of 26 — a completely unplayable batting line. Like Caballero, Peraza is a competent defender at the three toughest infield spots, but it hasn’t been enough to make up for the wet noodle he’s swinging offensively. He’s been 0.6 wins below replacement level this year, bringing his career total down to -0.3 WAR. In other words, Caballero is almost directly replacing a replacement-level player. Hey, look, that’s how WAR got its start.

That’s the obvious reason the Yankees made the Caballero trade: It makes the 2025 team better. But they didn’t get to do it for free, of course. The Rays are acquiring Everson Pereira and a player to be named later in the deal. Pereira fits the high-risk slugger archetype: plus power numbers despite a scary contact profile. His swinging strike rates in Triple-A are right around 20%; no one in the majors this year comes up empty that frequently.

After a cup of coffee in 2023, Pereira was repeating Triple-A in 2024 when he blew out his elbow and needed internal brace surgery. He’s returned to the field with no lingering effects from the injury, but he’s still striking out a ton. He profiles as a fourth outfielder, capable of handling center in an emergency and probably above average in a corner. The Rays love guys like this, particularly if they can play a few outfield spots and platoon with someone, but I’d file Pereira firmly into the post-hype sleeper bucket. He slots in at 34th on the Rays list, though he’ll need to hit the major league roster before too long, as this is his last option year.

On the other side of the ledger, the Yankees got back Wilberson De Pena and international pool money from the Angels in exchange for Peraza. De Pena signed with Los Angeles during the January 2024 international period and is currently repeating the DSL, where the early returns on his power are encouraging. He’s posting a huge hard-hit rate in limited action at the moment. Eric Longenhagen notes that De Pena’s 90th-percentile EV of 104 mph jumps off the page; he was at 99 mph in 2024, for comparison. Also per Longenhagen, De Pena takes big hacks and has a high finish, a la Miguel Andujar, driving both the power and some swing-and-miss. De Pena is an 18-year-old with an 82 wRC+ in the DSL, so the error bands on his future performance are wide, to say the least. He’s going onto the Yankees list as a 40 FV, squarely in wait-and-see territory.

The international pool money is a nice kicker on the deal, though the exact amount hasn’t been reported yet. Regardless, Peraza didn’t fit on the Yankees roster anymore. Even before they acquired Caballero, Peraza looked like a DFA candidate to me. Now that they have a better utility guy, they had even less need for him. But the Angels are squarely in their annual throw-stuff-at-the-wall-and-hope-it-sticks phase of the season, below .500 and on the extreme fringes of the playoff race. They’ve been cycling through so-so position players all year long and are in need of stable infield defense. Their roster is better equipped to carry Peraza into next year and see if the form that once made him a Top 100 prospect is still in there somewhere.

The player to be named later could change the value of this package of trades, but assuming it’s a minor name, I like this swap for the Yankees quite a bit. They’re in a tight race for the AL East, and every win matters; hemorrhaging offense with Peraza in the lineup was absolutely hurting them, and Caballero is a big upgrade. It didn’t cost them a ton either; Pereira was boxed out by the good outfielders on the big league roster. Meanwhile, De Pena is far from a sure thing, but a lot of farm system building is about getting a ton of speculative options and hoping that some of them click. Doing that while making the 2025 squad better? Seems great to me.