Brian Cashman Sees a Trade Market So Crowded It Might Paralyze Itself

The Yankees are in a good spot. Not a great spot, but good enough that Brian Cashman is already thinking about what comes next. And what comes next is a trade deadline that looks weird even by MLB standards.

Cashman told The Athletic that this year’s market is unusually clogged. Almost every team thinks they’re still in it, including teams that are underwater record-wise. That creates a problem that sounds like a good problem until you try to actually make a trade.

“I’m going to be interested to see how this deadline plays out,” Cashman said. “There are so many teams in it, even sub-.500 teams. Everybody’s in it, which creates, in theory, a paralysis. No one wants to trade from their big club. They’re all trying to add. But the sellers are few, in theory. And trying to make major-league for major-league deals is really difficult.”

He’s not wrong. If everyone wants to buy and nobody wants to sell, prices go stupid. The Yankees have been through this before. Cashman usually finds a way to get something done anyway. He just might have to overpay to do it.

One thing that could help? The sheer volume of deals we’ve seen in recent years. Cashman noted that the last several deadlines have produced a flood of transactions, even when the market logic didn’t totally hold up.

“It feels like transactions have gone through the roof,” he said.

What the Yankees Actually Need

Buster Olney at ESPN already put the Yankees on notice. He said Cashman will be aggressive before the deadline, and the shopping list is pretty predictable: a bullpen arm and maybe a right-handed bat. That’s it. The core is already there.

“Add a reliever, maybe a right-handed batter,” Olney said. “And they will get Judge and Stanton back, and they will be a factor again in October.”

That last part matters. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are both expected back from injuries. The Yankees have been banged up but still playing winning baseball. Get those two back in the lineup and add a couple of pieces, and this is a team built for a deep run.

The clubhouse is already there. The roster is close. Cashman just needs to find the right deals in a market where everybody wants the same thing. That’s the trick.

We’ll see how it shakes out. But the Yankees are going to be on the phones. A lot.