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- The Yankees, Rays and Diamondbacks made a three-way trade on Monday, and two of the teams came out looking good in the aftermath. New York sent out prospect Nick Solack to Tampa Bay — a top-ten prospect in the system who was blocked at second base — and in return they got Brandon Drury from Arizona. Drury is a guy who can play both second and third base, filling an important hole for the Yankees. He’s not a great player or anything, but he’s a solid option to start the year and can turn into a nice bench piece if New York’s prospects develop as planned. Arizona, meanwhile, grabbed Steven Souza from the Rays. I’m not sure I buy Souza’s breakout from last year, but he’s clearly an upgrade for that team who had been planning to start Yasmany Tomas just a few days ago. Drury isn’t a major loss for them as they had a bunch of infield depth, and they also gave up reliever Anthony Banda. Finally, Tampa Bay got Solak, Banda and some marginal savings. This is, frankly, an embarrassing trade for a team that is taking a page out of the Marlins book in trading away veterans and not really getting much in return. What’s happening in Florida is not good for baseball, and here’s a nice little Twitter thread that goes against the narrative of the lack of revenue for the Rays.
- So, that rule change limiting the number of mound visits that we talked about yesterday? Yeah, it didn’t take long for the backlash to come for that one. Both Martin Maldonado and Willson Contreras have said that they are not going to follow this rule and are willing to pay fines because of it. Always good when players immediately acknowledge that they will ignore new rules right when they’re announced!