MLB Trade Rumors: Yankees’ Gerrit Cole Speculation & Free Agent Yu Darvish
The MLB trade rumors involving the New York Yankees have focused on Gerrit Cole after the Giancarlo Stanton deal went through. As of right now, it appears talks have cooled regarding the Yankees making a deal for Cole. However, there seems to be some interest in bringing pitcher Yu Darvish to the lineup if the Yankees can make room and the asking price is in their favor.
As far as Cole goes, a deal feels a bit less likely right now. On Wednesday, MLB on FOX reporter Ken Rosenthal tweeted out that talks between the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees have “cooled since winter meetings.” The speculation is that the Pirates were asking a high price for Cole, and New York didn’t seem ready to get anything done.
The MLB Trade Rumors website is reporting that Rosenthal also said the Yankees are interested in MLB free agent Yu Darvish. It’s also noted that New York is waiting to see if his asking price drops a bit. That said, they’d need to free up some salary space to bring him on board, and that could mean moving Jacoby Ellsbury’s salary.
Ellsbury is owed $68 million on the remainder of his contract, which might be difficult to get teams to embrace at this point in his career. As Buster Olney mentioned in a recent ESPN article, many teams simply aren’t spending as much as they did in the past due to going into rebuild or tanking mode.
Ellsbury has been in the league for 10 years, and the 34-year-old had a mediocre season in 2017. The centerfielder hit 0.264 with seven home runs and 39 RBIs. His career numbers are 0.284 with 104 home runs and 512 RBIs.
As Olney also noted, the Yankees have been mostly watching the latest free agent market from the sidelines as they’ve been looking to stay under the luxury-tax threshold. Olney reported that New York is hoping to stay under the $197 million mark for 2018. The team re-signed CC Sabathia for one year, so it should be interesting to see what they do with regards to Yu Darvish or Gerrit Cole.
