During his first offseason leading the Giants, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi aggressively remade the back half of the 40-man roster. Among that spate of transactions was the unheralded acquisition of outfielder Mike Yastrzemski in a spring-training swap with the Orioles.
In March 2019, San Francisco picked up Yastrzemski in exchange for right-hander Tyler Herb. Then 28 years old, Yastrzemski was a former 14th-round pick who had yet to play a major-league game. Regarding any fanfare surrounding Mike Yastrzemski's acquisition, it had much more to do with his relation to Carl Yastrzemski than to his play.
The deal now looks like a masterstroke. Over his first 636 MLB plate appearances, Yastrzemski has put up a fantastic .281/.357/.535 slash (135 wRC+) and hit 31 home runs. He has been worth about five wins above replacement over the equivalent of one full season. The left-handed hitter earned an eighth-place finish in NL MVP voting this past season thanks to a .297/.400/.568 line.
Herb, on the other hand, didn’t reach the majors during his two years in the Baltimore organization. The 28-year-old elected minor-league free agency earlier this month, per Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America.
Even if Yastrzemski takes a bit of a step back from his star-level production, he at least looks like an above-average regular. His late-career breakout is another reminder that even the lowest-profile transactions have some chance of being impactful.
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