Thoughts after the Yankees trade Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson

Whatever you do, don't eat the chili, Luis. (Presswire)

Well, we won’t be able to say the Yankees were inactive at this year’s trade deadline. Following last night’s win the Yankees announced they’ve sent Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson to the Reds for a player to be named later. That comes one day after they picked up Clay Holmes from the Pirates. Here are my quick thoughts on the Cessa/Wilson trade since things could change quite a bit between now and Friday’s post.

1. Another salary dump. Gotta say, when the Yankees first traded Wilson for Cessa in 2015, I didn’t think they’d one day use Cessa to salary dump Wilson. Baseball is a flat circle. I wonder if Chad Green feels left out. Anyway, to recap the recent bullpen salary dumps:

• Yankees give up: Luis Cessa, Frank German, Adam Ottavino, Justin Wilson
• Yankees get:

The player to be named in the Ottavino trade was never actually named. Players to be named have to be named within six months and the trade went down on Jan. 25th. This past weekend was the deadline to name the player and nothing happened. That’s not too surprising. The trade was never about getting a player in return. I suspect the same is true with Cessa and Wilson.

This salary dump shaves roughly $1.3M off the luxury tax payroll, and depending who you ask, the Yankees have somewhere around $2.4M (Cot’s) to $2.9M (FanGraphs) in wiggle room under the $210M threshold. It ain’t much. Certainly not enough to make a meaningful addition at the deadline without getting really creative.

I mentioned Clint Frazier as a possible trade chip to cut payroll the other day (would save about $735,000). What about Darren O’Day? He’s done for the season with a hamstring injury, though I’m sure another team would happily take him on to get a prospect. Trading O’Day would free up another $550,000 or so. Not much, but every little bit counts at this point.

Trading Clint when his value is at its nadir and attaching a prospect to shed O’Day’s tiny little bit of money is not advisable, but that’s how the Yankees operate these days. Hell, maybe they will continue the trend and trade Clint and O’Day together, and take a player to be named in return (wink wink nudge nudge). I can’t believe we’re even talking about this. Good grief.

Clearly, this trade is about clearing room under the luxury tax threshold and nothing else. The player to be named won’t be a real prospect (if it is a player at all) and it’s not like you can have too much pitching. Wilson’s salary had become a headache and the Yankees needed to unload it, and Cessa was the casualty. Such is life with a fake salary cap.

(The trade also cleared two 40-man roster spots, though that’s not a big deal. Trey Amburgey and Greg Allen are COVID replacement players who can be removed from the 40-man without going through waivers, and guys like Chris Gittens, Ryan LaMarre, and Sal Romano can be dropped from the 40-man without much worry. The 40-man is in decent shape.)

2. Trading Cessa. Wilson’s second stint with the Yankees was terrible (17 runs and 18 innings around injuries) and he won’t be missed. Cessa was solid if underappreciated the last few years though. Since moving to the bullpen full-time in 2019, he’s pitched to a 3.64 ERA (4.34 FIP) in 141 innings across 88 appearances. As one of the last guys in the bullpen, that’s good.

In a vacuum, I don’t have a problem with trading Cessa. He’s underused* -- Cessa has pitched three times in the last 19 games and six times in the last 29 games even while the bullpen goes up in flames around him -- and is not someone who was going to dramatically alter the team’s outlook the rest of the season. Nice guy, solid pitcher, but easy to part with.

* To be clear, being underused is an Aaron Boone problem, not a Cessa problem. Cessa can only pitch when called upon.

Furthermore, Cessa is making $1.05M this year and his salary will jump into the $2M range next year, and that’s a little rich for the last or next to last guy in the bullpen. Albert Abreu will be out of minor league options next season and is ticketed for the long man role at the minimum salary. It is a modest salary, sure, but Cessa’s salary is starting to outweigh his role.

This trade reminds me of the Adam Warren trade in 2018. Warren was a good but not truly great reliever who had become marginalized, so rather than continue to carry an overqualified reliever in a low profile role, the Yankees traded him for international bonus money. Cessa was in a similar situation now, except the Yankees used him to cut payroll rather than get future assets.

That said, trading Warren because you added Zack Britton in a separate trade is much different than trading Cessa because you added Clay Holmes. Ideally a contending team -- the New York friggin’ Yankees -- would’ve made neither trade and kept both Cessa and Warren because there is no such thing as too many good relievers. This is not an ideal world though. Not close.

Cessa pitched well in a thankless role the last few years. In a vacuum, trading him is fine. What I don’t like is trading him to cut payroll at a time when a) the bullpen is a mess and the Yankees need as many reliable arms as they can get, and b) the Yankees can support a higher payroll than they're running. Cessa wasn’t part of the bullpen problem. The trade tells us the Yankees didn’t consider him part of the solution either.

3. What’s next? So this is a precursor to something else, right? I would hope so, though the fact the Yankees are so tight to the $210M luxury tax threshold with seemingly few ways to trim more payroll makes me worry this was just a “we need more wiggle room” move to make sure they actually stay under the threshold this season. I guess we’ll see.

This is how I rank the Yankees’ needs with the trade deadline two days away:

1. Outfielder, preferably a lefty hitter (there’s no help coming internally)
2. Starting pitcher (Corey Kluber and Luis Severino are at least on the mend)
3. Relief pitcher (it’s not unreasonable to expect the guys currently in the bullpen to perform better going forward)

I don’t think the Yankees are done but I also don’t think a significant move is coming. They are very obviously not going to exceed the luxury tax threshold this year, the Cessa/Wilson trade confirms it, and it’ll be tough to make meaningful additions with such little payroll room available. I think we’re going to see some minor tinkering and not much else.

4. Replacing Cessa and Wilson. The Yankees have two open 26-man roster spots to fill prior to tonight’s game. I imagine Wandy Peralta is returning to claim one. The other? Not sure. Albert Abreu, Brooks Kriske, and Nick Nelson are all still in the 10-day period and can’t be recalled. Maybe they’ll use one of those open 40-man spots on a temporary callup (Adam Warren?)?

Assuming Peralta returns tonight, the bullpen will look like this:

• Closer: LHP Aroldis Chapman
• Setup: LHP Zack Britton, RHP Chad Green, RHP Jonathan Loaisiga
• Middle: RHP Clay Holmes, LHP Lucas Luetge, LHP Wandy Peralta
• Long: RHP Sal Romano (Nestor Cortes is starting tonight, so he's in the rotation)

That’s eight relievers, so the Yankees don’t have to call up another pitcher. They could call up a position player and get back to a four-man bench. Estevan Florial can’t come up because of the 10-day rule and neither Trey Amburgey nor Chris Gittens is eligible to come off the injured list yet. Non-40-man options in Triple-A include Andrew Velasquez and I guess Kyle Holder?

The Yankees could always make another trade today, though getting that player to Tampa in time for the game will be tough. I suppose they could make a trade and play with a 25-man roster for one night, but eh. Playing with a full roster is not too much to ask. Assuming Peralta comes back tonight, I’m curious to see how the Yankees fill the 26th roster spot. There’s no obvious move.

(Send your requests for Tuesday's random Yankee series and questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)