The Futility Infielder

In a flurry of activity as the 4 PM trading deadline approached, the Yanks pulled the trigger on three deals Thursday. The previously discussed trade with the Cincinnati Reds became two separate deals, with third baseman Aaron Boone coming to the Yanks for minor-league pitchers Brandon Claussen and Charlie Manning and cash, and reliever Gabe White (currently on the DL with a groin situation) going for a Player To Be Named Later. In the third deal, the Yanks sent third baseman Robin Ventura to the Dodgers for two minor leaguers, outfielder Bubba Crosby and pitcher Scott Proctor.

I'm thoroughly disappointed in GM Brian Cashman and the rest of the Yankee braintrust right now, not for failing to improve the team ever-so-incrementally, but for giving up such a potentially large part of their future for so little. Boone is a solid, inexpensive but replaceable player on the wrong side of 30, yet still not old enough to shave or be a free agent. He's got pop, but not much control of the strike zone; his .339 OBP would be the second-best of his career. Robin Ventura could pull that off while hitting .097. Boone is versatile in the field, able to play second or even the occasional shortstop, but it's debatable whether he's actually a better fielder than the creaky Ventura. Here's a quick comparison between the two 3Bs:

          AVG   OBP   SLG  OPS  HR  BI  SB

Boone    .273  .339  .469  808  18  65  15

Ventura  .251  .344  .392  736   9  42   0

Ventura's been suffering through a serious power outage this season, last homering on June 8 and shedding about 100 OPS points since then. It's entirely possible he's cooked, and if so, the Yanks would have needed more than Enrique Wilson and the bloated corpse of Todd Zeile at the hot corner as insurance. But it's too bad they have to replace one of their most likeable players with the less-talented son of one of the most annoying managers of the 21st century.

White has been on the Yanks' wish list for a long time, with previous talks centering around the forgotten man in their pen, Sterling Hitchcock. The 31-year-old lefty is 3-0 with a 3.93 ERA in 34.1 innings this year, but he's been on the DL since June 20 and has suffered multiple setbacks in rehab. Here's what the Cincinnati Post said on Wednesday: "Reliever Gabe White was supposed to make a rehab appearance Sunday in Louisville, but lingering soreness in his left groin from bullpen sessions Friday and Saturday prevented that appearance. The Reds haven't set a date for White's next attempt at a rehab outing." Ugh. White's great against lefties, holding them to a 631 OPS this season, but he's been getting tattooed by righties to the tune of a 905 OPS -- and he's faced righties 57% of the time this season. See what I meant about Bob Boone? On the other hand, prior to this season, White had been pretty respectable against the other side, holding them to a 717 OPS from 2000-2002, compared to 661 against righties. When he's healthy, he'll be more useful than Hitchcock, but so would an inanimate carbon rod.

The real blow here is the loss of Claussen, a 24-year-old lefty coming back from Tommy John surgery better than ever. He was previously thought to be "untouchable" in trade talks and considered a good candidate to make the Yanks next season, perhaps even as a starter. At this point there's a good case that the Yanks could have done better by trading Jeff Weaver and inserting the kid into the rotation. But that kind of creative risk-taking is anathema to the Yanks, who prefer to bury their big-name mistakes under piles of cash.

On the other hand, the prospects the Yanks have traded away in the past few years haven't really amounted to much, despite all of the hand-wringing (some of it by yours truly). D'Angelo Jiminez, Willy Mo Pena, Jackson Melian, Ted Lilly, Ed Yarnall, Jake Westbrook, Zach Day, Jason Arnold, John Ford-Griffin... none of these guys has come back to bite the Yanks in the ass, though Day got off to a great start this season for Les Expos, and Jiminez has had his moments. Maybe the Yanks do have some insight into the minor-leaguers who can help them after all? But then, why Claussen for Boone when he might have netted them a Giles or a Gonzalez? Call this an article for another day.

Meanwhile, here are Claussen's minor-league numbers, along with those of the other minor-league pitchers involved in these deals:

          W-L   IP   K/9  K/W   ERA

Claussen  4-1  80.2  7.3  3.1  2.78  (AAA Columbus and A Tampa)

Manning   2-6  77.1  6.9  1.2  5.12  (AA Trenton and A Tampa)

Proctor   5-4  56.1  8.0  3.0  2.58  (AA Las Vegas and AA Jacksonville)

Proctor is a 26-year-old righty who's spent all of this season pitching in relief after some success as a starter at Jacksonville last year (7-9, 3.51 ERA, 131 K in 133.1 innings) ands split between Jax and Vero Beach the year before (10-7, 3.08 ERA, 127 K in 140.1 innings). Manning is a 24-year old lefty who got bombed in AA as a starter and reliever (6.26 ERA in 46 IP), and has since been sent back to Tampa, where's he's been having some success. He split last season between Tampa and Norwich, going 10-6 with a 3.37 ERA and 146 K in 163 innings. Those two pitchers essentially cancel each other out, with the departed Manning's age advantage offset by the arriving Proctor's ability to pitch well in the high run environment of Las Vegas (5.25 runs per team per game).

That same high-offense environment has been pumping up the 27-year-old Crosby's stats. The lefty-hitting centerfielder was a non-prospect coming into this season (.261/.311/.394 split between AA and AAA in 2002), but he's hit .361/.410/.635 with 12 HR and 57 RBI in about 300 plate appearances in Vegas, leading the Pacific Coast League in batting average and slugging. He walks once every 11.1 ABs, and strikes out about twice for every walk, and he's got a bit of speed, stealing 8 bases this season without being caught. He's done two stints with the Dodgers, going 1-for-12 thus far. On the offensively-challenged and injury-riddled Dodgers it made sense to give him more of a shot, but since he's not the answer to the Yankees' rightfield problem (hell, he ain't even Bubba Trammell), they'll probably mothball him in AAA until September unless disaster strikes. Columbus, meet Bubba Crosby.

Four hours, two scrapped drafts, several phone calls and emails and one throbbing fist later (I punched my desk), I need some oxygen. And maybe a new chair.

• • •

The Yanks haven't been the only busy team in the AL East arms race over the past several days. The Boston Red Sox have -- if you believe the hype -- trumped the Yanks, first by adding lefty specialist Scott Sauerbeck (from the Pirates) and then reliever Scott Williamson (Reds) and starter Jeff Suppan (Pirates). The Yanks were in on discussions for Sauerbeck, and their settling for Jesse Orosco while the Sox got the goods from the Bucs was treated as heralding the Second Coming by Red Sox Nation. Take two out of three from the Yanks in Fenway, and suddenly you can't get their heads to fit through the door.

Stocked with Scotts, the Sox didn't get off scot-free in all of this. They surrendered top prospect Freddy Sanchez (AAA 2B), to the Pirates in the Suppan deal. But they didn't give up much else, a couple of minor-league pitchers. Williamson is the most important acquisition of the three; he can set up Byung-Hyun Kim, he can start, or he can close, allowing the Sox to start Kim. Or he can be part of that nebulous "closer by committee" concept the Sox tried to implement earlier in the year, with hilariously disastrous results. Aaron Gleeman has a good look at the remade Sox pen.