New York Yankees

The New York Yankees have reportedly begun to survey the trade market for potential outfield upgrades amid the continued struggles of Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported Thursday the Yanks' top targets, the Washington Nationals' Juan Soto and Pittsburgh Pirates' Bryan Reynolds, are unlikely to move before the Aug. 2 MLB trade deadline, which has led the club to explore secondary options, including:

• Andrew Benintendi (Kansas City Royals)
• Anthony Santander (Baltimore Orioles)
  
• Ian Happ (Chicago Cubs)
• David Peralta (Arizona Diamondbacks)
• Robbie Grossman (Detroit Tigers)
  

Gallo possesses prolific power, as evidenced by his back-to-back seasons with at least 40 home runs for the Texas Rangers in 2017 and 2018. He also tallied 38 homers in 2021, which he split between the Rangers and the Yanks.

The 28-year-old slugger has provided a little pop this year with nine homers in 63 games, but his other numbers are borderline dreadful. He's compiled a .165 batting average and .606 OPS while striking out 85 times in 217 plate appearances (39.2 percent, the highest of any player with 200 PA).

"He's got to keep grinding through it," New York manager Aaron Boone told reporters Thursday after Gallo's hitless streak extended to 26 at-bats in a 2-1 loss to the Houston Astros. "It's certainly been a challenge."

It's been much the same story for Hicks, who's retained a consistent spot in the starting lineup despite a .622 OPS with three home runs and seven stolen bases in 67 games.

Their lackluster numbers so far haven't held back the Yankees, who own MLB's best record by seven games (56-21) and have scored the league's most runs (384).

Yet, if the Yanks are going to chase down a World Series title, they're eventually going to need more production from the bottom of their order. Catchers Jose Trevino and Kyle Higashioka and shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa have also struggled at the plate.

A player like Soto, whose stock remains sky-high despite underwhelming numbers in 2022, or Reynolds would make the Yanks the undisputed championship favorite.

Without that type of blockbuster, the most intriguing name on the list of trade candidates is Happ, who's tied for 10th in WAR (2.1) among outfielders so far this season, per FanGraphs.

The 2015 first-round pick of the Cubs has posted a .382 on-base percentage so far in 2022, a solid jump from his already strong .344 career OBP. That's exactly the type of player New York could use in the bottom half of its lineup.

It's unclear whether Chicago will move Happ, 27, before this year's deadline since he's still under team control via arbitration for 2023, per Spotrac.

All told, with the Yankees casting a wide net for outfield targets, they're a strong bet to make at least one trade to bolster that portion of the roster in the coming weeks.

New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. have been named All-Star starters as the top vote-getters in their respective leagues, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday.

Each league's top vote-getter is now automatically an ASG starter.#AllRise for @TheJudge44, his 4th ASG nod. pic.twitter.com/SUjxEgxmH5

— MLB (@MLB) June 30, 2022

.@ronaldacunajr24 gets the nod.

The NL’s leading vote-getter is heading to the ASG for the 3rd time. pic.twitter.com/e1mb3XQbFB

— MLB (@MLB) June 30, 2022

The rest of the finalists for the starting positions were also announced:

The AL finalists. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/9iMBRIOX63

— MLB (@MLB) June 30, 2022

The NL field is almost set. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/RWJ00Jqf8w

— MLB (@MLB) June 30, 2022

Judge, 30, has been ripping the cover off the ball this season, hitting .290 with an MLB-leading 29 homers and 62 runs. The four-time All-Star also has 59 RBI and a 1.001 OPS, and the Yankees have raced to a 56-20 record, a whopping 13 games ahead of the Boston Red Sox in the AL East.

"When I walk up to the plate, there’s no fear," Judge told reporters this week. "It makes it fun every single night."

AARON JUDGE WALKOFF THREE RUN HR 🤯 @brwalkoff

(via @MLB)pic.twitter.com/YHIfzY4eEr

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 26, 2022

He's wrong, of course. There's definitely fear, it's just coming from the pitcher facing him, as Judge mounts a serious challenge to reach the 60-homer plateau this season. Only five players in MLB history have reached it: Barry Bonds (73), Mark McGwire (twice: 70 and 65), Sammy Sosa (three times: 66, 64 and 63), Roger Maris (61) and Babe Ruth (60).

So Judge would enter hallowed territory if he becomes the sixth. His career high is 52 dingers in 2017.

Acuna, 24, missed the beginning of the season as he recovered from an ACL tear but has hit .281 with seven homers, 18 RBI, 28 runs and a .828 OPS in 43 games. It will be Acuna's third All-Star appearance.

The Braves have surged in June, jumping to a 44-32 record, just three game behind the New York Mets in the NL East. Acuna's return from injury has certainly been a major factor.

It turns out the team with the best record in baseball can get a base hit.

After the Houston Astros held the New York Yankees without a hit during Saturday's matchup, starting pitcher Jose Urquidy took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of Sunday's game. That ended when Giancarlo Stanton launched a home run to put the Bronx Bombers on the board:

Big G 💪 pic.twitter.com/E6fgLapgaX

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) June 26, 2022

Elias Sports (h/t Action Network) noted the Yankees' stretch of 16.1 consecutive innings without a hit tied the longest streak in the expansion era.

Saturday's no-hitter wasn't a one-man show for the Astros.

Starter Cristian Javier struck out 13 and allowed a single walk while throwing 115 pitches, Hector Neris worked around two walks in a hitless eighth inning, and Ryan Pressly closed the door with two strikeouts and a save in the ninth.

Houston won the game 3-0 and improved to 5-1 in its last six contests. Sunday marked an opportunity to take three of four from the Yankees, and Stanton's solo homer cut the Astros' lead to 3-1.

While the Astros are a legitimate World Series contender and deserve plenty of credit for their pitching in the series in New York, it is still shocking to see the Yankees struggle so much at the dish.

After all, they entered Sunday's game with a 52-20 record, which was good enough for the best mark in the league and an 11-game lead over the Boston Red Sox in the American League East race.

There is no shortage of star power in the lineup either with players such as Stanton, Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson, Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu anchoring the offense.

Yet the Astros did what so few teams have done this season and figured out an effective way to approach the star-studded lineup for multiple games in a row.

The New York Yankees reportedly "have talked" about a trade for Cincinnati Reds starter Luis Castillo, according to Peter Gammons of The Athletic.

The Yankees seemingly need little help with an MLB-best 52-20 record entering Sunday, but they still plan to target starting pitching ahead of the Aug. 2 trade deadline. Gammons predicted general manager Brian Cashman will "make a run at" Castillo and Oakland Athletics pitcher Frankie Montas.

The Reds, Athletics, Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs have reportedly been scouting the Yankees organization, looking for potential matches in trades. Cincinnati has specifically looked at right-hander Will Warren, per Gammons, while Luis Gil is also on "ask lists."

Castillo would especially be an interesting addition for the Yankees as one of the top players on the trade market.

The one-time All-Star has a 3.71 ERA and 1.137 WHIP through nine starts, adding 49 strikeouts with 18 walks. He's on pace for a fourth straight year with an ERA under four.

Despite his production, the Reds are in last place with a 24-47 record, making them likely sellers at the deadline. Even though Castillo is under team control through the 2023 season, a trade now would give Cincinnati a chance to add better prospects and hasten the rebuild.

The Yankees don't necessarily need a starting pitcher with arguably the deepest rotation in the league already.

New York is tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best ERA in the majors at 2.94, producing 31 quality starts in 72 games. Of the five regular starters, Luis Severino has the worst ERA at 3.38 while pitchers like Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes have simply dominated on the mount.

The Yankees are still ready to strengthen the roster even more as they hope to get over the top toward a title. The organization has reached the playoffs in each of the last five years, but it hasn't gotten to the World Series since 2009.

It's clear the team is prepared to go all in for a championship in 2022.

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has played like someone in line for a massive contract this offseason, but for now he is "happy" to just avoid arbitration.

Judge and the Yankees agreed to a one-year, $19 million contract on Friday and avoided the arbitration hearing that was scheduled for that day. As a result, he is set to become a free agent after the 2022 campaign.

"I was happy we were able to agree on a number and settle this thing and not have to go into court there," Judge said, per ESPN. "If I would have went in that room, I probably would have missed the game tonight, and that didn't really sit too well with me. I valued playing this game tonight with my teammates, trying to battle it out."

The center fielder suited up for Friday's 3-1 loss to the Houston Astros and went 0-for-4 with a strikeout.

It was a rare poor performance during what has been an outstanding season for Judge, who is slashing .299/.374/.648 with 27 home runs and 53 RBI in 69 games. The Yankees are also 11.5 games ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East with Major League Baseball's best record at 52-19.

Contract discussions with Judge were a primary storyline for New York ahead of the season, and his performance in 2022 has likely only increased his value.

The $19 million lands between the $21 million the three-time All-Star asked for and the $17 million the team offered in March.

As for a long-term deal?

"That's for when the season's done," Judge said.

ESPN noted general manager Brian Cashman previously said the club offered an eight-year contract worth between $230.5 million to $234.5 million, while the player's side asked for a nine-year deal that surpassed the average annual salary of Mike Trout's contract and ended up at $319.6 million.

Judge is 30 years old, but he appears to be in the middle of his prime and on his way to challenging for an MVP award to add to a resume that includes three All-Star selections and two Silver Sluggers.

New York is also positioned to realistically win its first World Series since 2009 in large part because of Judge's presence in the middle of its lineup.

How valuable that presence is will once again be up for discussion this offseason even if the two sides avoided arbitration for the rest of the 2022 season.

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is the most prolific long-ball hitter in MLB at the moment, but he doesn't plan on showcasing his talents in this year's Home Run Derby.

"Nope. No need, I already did it once," Judge told Peter Botte of the New York Post on Thursday. "I’m all good with that."

Judge had won the Home Run Derby as a rookie in 2017, launching 47 total moonshots to become the fourth Yankee ever to win the event. But his performance during the competition had an adverse effect on his play for the remainder of the season, as he batted .185 in August and was slowed by a shoulder injury that required arthroscopic surgery that offseason.

This season, Judge leads the majors with 25 home runs and is on a 162-game pace of 65, per Botte, which would surpass Roger Maris' franchise record of 61. He is the early front-runner for American League MVP, as he also leads MLB in runs (53), slugging percentage (.683) and OPS (1.067). Behind Judge's scorching start, the Yankees have the best record in the league at 46-16.

The 30-year-old Judge is set to become a free agent this year after turning down the Yankees' seven-year, $213.5 million contract offer during the offseason. He will also be the subject of an arbitration hearing next Wednesday to determine his salary for 2022. Judge is seeking $21 million while the Yankees are countering at $17 million, but those numbers were submitted prior to the start of the season.

"We haven’t heard nothing. I’m preparing for us to go to court, that’s the plan," Judge said when asked about the possibility of settling before the hearing. "That’s what you prepare for, that’s why you have a team [of agents] for, to get you ready for that. We’re looking forward to it. All we gotta do is get ready for the hearing, and if they come to us, they come to us. We’ll see what happens."

The beauty of baseball is that you never know when an alleged has-been is suddenly going to become the hottest hitter on the best team in Major League Baseball.

Isn't that right, Matt Carpenter?

It wasn't even a month ago that the Texas Rangers released the 36-year-old Carpenter from a minor league deal that had him playing for Triple-A Round Rock. Though the decision was mutual, it still resembled yet another low point for the three-time All-Star after he was one of MLB's worst hitters in his last two seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals.

When the Yankees picked up Carpenter on May 26, it certainly wasn't out of desperation. They were already 31-13. They were just having a bit of trouble getting production from the left side of the plate, so the decision to add the veteran's left-handed stick had a palpable "What the heck?" quality to it.

Three weeks later, the guy just can't stop hitting home runs.

With six home runs through 10 games with the Yankees, Carpenter needs just one more to match his total for the last 180 games he played with the Cardinals.

"I've played the game long enough to know what it feels like and looks like when I'm right," Carpenter said after launching two homers and driving in seven in an 18-4 blowout of the Chicago Cubs on Sunday. "This is certainly that."

All this hot hitting isn't going to waste. Whereas the Cardinals went 19-25 in games in which Carpenter started in 2021, the Yankees have won all but one of the seven games he's started for them this season.

Is it premature to call Carpenter a candidate for the American League Comeback Player of the Year? Probably. But after everything he went through to get to this point, there's a place for him in that conversation if he can keep this up.

---

Rumors of Matt Carpenter's Demise...

The Cardinals could have had Carpenter back for 2022 if they had picked up his $12 million option, but they instead chose to pay his $2 million buyout and make him a free agent. As he told Dan Martin of the New York Post, it was a case of the "front office people" in St. Louis having determined that he was "losing ability."

Honestly, who can blame them?

Carpenter was 26 when he played his first full season for the Cardinals in 2012, and he quickly minted his stardom with an All-Star nod and a fourth-place finish in the National League MVP voting in 2013. Another All-Star selection followed in 2014, and then he really took off as one of baseball's elite hitters in 2015.

From then through 2018, the TCU alum hit at .260/.376/.497 with a 134 OPS+ and 108 home runs. He was one of 15 hitters to break the latter two thresholds, and he even outhomered four past and future MVPs: Joey Votto, Kris Bryant, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.

Then came the start of Carpenter's decline in 2019, and it got so ugly throughout the year that there was pressure on former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt to move the then-33-year-old to the bench. He resisted that year, but another down year for Carpenter in 2020 and the club's trade for Nolan Arenado in Feb. 2021 finally forced the veteran to the pine.

Far from reinvigorating Carpenter's career, the move to part-time duty seemed to put the lid on the coffin. Though he hit three home runs in April, zero more followed in the 197 plate appearances he took throughout the rest of the season. In the No Homers Club for that span was just him and Magneuris Sierra, who also has zero home runs for his entire MLB career.

It was painful to watch Carpenter flame out so spectacularly in St. Louis, and there was no solace to be found in either his surface-level numbers or underlying metrics.

He hit just .203/.325/.346 with an 83 OPS+ between 2019 and 2021, notably with the three highest strikeout rates of his career. And while he did salvage a decent hard-hit rate (42 percent) and exit velocity (90 mph) in '21, his .412 expected slugging percentage for 2019-21 was still well south of the .524 mark he put up between 2015-18.

But while all this sure made it look like Carpenter was finished, what he's proving now is that it was merely that version of him that was finished.

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...Were Greatly Exaggerated

As far as what's changed about Carpenter since last season came to a close, it's gotta be the mustache, right?

We can't be certain about that, yet it seems like a perfectly reasonable answer to say, "Well, that and the changes he's made to his swing."

Even as far back as Feb. 2021, Carpenter was speaking openly about wanting to "get my bat speed back to where I feel like it should be." Though that mission clearly failed, his search for a fix for what ailed him not only continued throughout the 2021-22 offseason but expanded.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was on the story in February, writing that Carpenter took some cues from Votto—namely, to train for modern power pitching by taking swings against a pitching machine set at "maximum velocity and maximum spin"—and also took strides to become more mechanically efficient. He even switched to a new bat.

Even before the Yankees scooped Carpenter off the scrapheap, there were signs that all his time and effort to remake his swing had been worth it. As he had a .991 OPS and six homers in 21 games at Round Rock, it wasn't for lack of production that he didn't get a shot with the Rangers. They just didn't have playing time for him.

Now that Carpenter is in the majors, the specific benefits of his new swing are all out in the open. Just for starters, his gains in bat speed are plainly evident in how he's cut his whiff rate against fastballs in half:

The decline in Carpenter's strikeout rate is also noticeable. He's gone from whiffing in 30.9 percent of his plate appearances in 2021 to a much more manageable 23.3 percent in 2022.

Otherwise, Carpenter simply had to get back to being a pull-power hitter. Of the 155 home runs he hit between 2012 and 2021, 98 were to right field. He hit nearly half as many (50) to center and just seven to left field.

Carpenter made the most of his right-field power alley between 2015 and 2018, wherein 24.6 percent of his batted balls were line drives or fly balls to his pull side. That figure dipped to 21.1 percent between 2019 and 2021, and he also exhibited a drastic lack of thump in the latter year. Even when he did pull balls in the air, they went a career-low 261 feet on average.

Small sample size and all, but these issues are long gone in 2022.

With the Yankees, pulled line drives and fly balls account for a whopping 41.2 percent of Carpenter's batted balls. And as for their average distance, well, take a look:

As much as it stands out that Carpenter has hit five of his six homers at Yankee Stadium, don't chalk it up to the short porch in right field. He's truly crushing the ball.

Ultimately, it's all there in his expected slugging percentage. At .782, he ranks ahead of even Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani since May 26.

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A Great Team Now Has a Good Problem to Have

Though the Yankees hardly needed a good luck charm, Carpenter has been one for them anyway. They were 31-13 before he arrived and 13-3 since he did.

At 44-16 overall, the Yankees aren't off to the best start in their history. It's pretty close, though, as only the 1998, 1953, 1939 and 1928 clubs started better. All four of them went on to win the World Series.

This is not to say the Yankees are devoid of problems, however, and one of them concerns Carpenter. Even as hot as he's been, his day-to-day role on the team remains unclear.

Though he has made three appearances as a pinch-hitter, it's as a starter that he has all eight of his hits—including, naturally, all six of his home runs. Yet he's not a better defensive option than Josh Donaldson at third base, Gleyber Torres at second base or Anthony Rizzo at first base, and there are even complications with playing him at designated hitter.

If Carpenter is in at DH, the Yankees are left with three outfield spots to distribute to four players: Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks. Benching Gallo or Hicks would have been addition by subtraction earlier in the year, but not now since both have a 145 wRC+ in June.

Rather than stress about this, though, it seems that Yankees manager Aaron Boone realizes he's in an enviable position of having no wrong buttons to push. In MLB.com's Bryan Hoch's words, his notions for Carpenter include a "continued role at designated hitter, off the bench and occasionally in the field, which is just fine."

Really all Boone has to worry about is not letting Carpenter go cold. The way he's swinging it, that's only going to happen if he denies him at-bats entirely.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

Catch Matt Carpenter and the New York Yankees vs. the Tampa Bay Rays on TBS tonight at 7 PM ET. MLB on TBS Leadoff with Pedro Martinez, Jimmy Rollins & Lauren Shehadi kicks off coverage at 6:30.

Major League Baseball has upheld the one-game suspension levied against New York Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson after an appeal that took place Thursday, according to Ronald Blum of the Associated Press.

The fine attached was cut in half from $10,000 to $5,000, however.

The initial suspension came as a result of what the league called "inappropriate comments" directed at Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson.

During the May 21 game between the teams, Donaldson called Anderson "Jackie," referring to Jackie Robinson. That led to the benches clearing:

Grandal and Donaldson exchanged words at home plate, benches cleared, TA had to be restrained 😳 pic.twitter.com/3OgsVivV7U

— White Sox on CHSN (@CHSN_WhiteSox) May 21, 2022

Donaldson apologized afterward, calling it a "misunderstanding."

He said it was a reference to Anderson telling Sports Illustrated in a 2019 interview that he felt like Jackie Robinson as a pioneer in the sport.

Anderson called the comment "disrespectful" and agreed with White Sox manager Tony La Russa that it was racist.

Anderson told reporters that Donaldson had also referred to him as "Jackie" in 2019.

"I told him we never have to talk again," Anderson said.

MLB noted the "context of their prior interactions" factored into the suspension.

Donaldson is in his first year with the Yankees, hitting .235 with a .335 on-base percentage and five home runs in 45 games. DJ LeMahieu has started 25 games at third base this season and could easily fill in while Donaldson serves his suspension, while utility man Marwin Gonzalez is another option for the Yankees.