New York Yankees Were Briefly Included in Mason Miller Talks

At this year’s MLB Trade Deadline, the Athletics ended up sending former All Star closer Mason Miller and left-hander JP Sears to the San Diego Padres in exchange for the No. 3 prospect in all of baseball, Leo De Vries and a slew of pitching prospects.  

According to a report from Ken Rosenthal, that was not a price tag the New York Yankees were willing to meet for the A’s closer. 

He writes, "The Yankees were unwilling to satisfy the A’s request for a package headed by either shortstop George Lombard Jr. (No. 14 on Law’s list) or outfielder Spencer Jones, in addition to young pitching. Instead, they acquired three other relievers, David Bednar, Jake Bird and Camilo Doval."

While it makes sense to not want to trade Lombard, given that he's the team's top-ranked prospect, MLB Pipeline has Spencer Jones listed as the fourth overall prospect in New York's system. The A's ended up with the No. 3 overall prospect in baseball. Maybe they just didn't want Miller unless it was an obviously lopsided deal in their favor.

Given that the two big recent deadline deals that the A's have made haven't exactly worked out for New York (Sonny Gray in 2017 and Frankie Montas + Lou Trivino in 2021), perhaps it should be expected that the Yankees would be a little apprehensive adding guys that are in green and gold around this time of year. The two teams not making a deal did mess up their deadline deal every four years trend, however.

That said, the Gray deal didn't necessarily work out for the A's either. James Kaprielian was solid for the A's during a couple of rebuilding seasons, but Dustin Fowler and Jorge Mateo never found their footing in Oakland.

The Montas deal has worked out a bit better for the A's, however. Heck, one of the pieces in that trade was used in the Miller deal (Sears) with San Diego. The A's also received Ken Waldichuk and Luis Medina, both of whom have missed the entire 2025 campaign after receiving Tommy John surgery.

Cooper Bowman was also part of that one, and he was taken in the Rule 5 Draft by the Cincinnati Reds this offseason, but returned before the season began. He has yet to debut.

Jones may have been a nice building block piece for the A's, only because he's a little closer to the big leagues, but A's fans are plenty happy with De Vries as the centerpiece of the Mason Miller deal. They'll just have to wait a little longer to watch his debut.

The Yankees did a good job of pivoting to acquire players that were more in the price range they were comfortable with. While Miller can touch 104, he's also having a down season by his own lofty standards, thanks to a tough month of May that saw him put up a 10.38 ERA in nine appearances and took his ERA from 1.50 to 5.49.

He held a 3.27 ERA in June, giving up four total runs, and from June 20 until last night he didn't allow an earned run to cross the plate. That said, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. saw a steady diet of fastballs in the bottom of the eighth inning, and after fouling a few off, he took a 103.9 mile per hour heater of the wall in left to tie the game up at 5-5.

The Padres ended up posting a five-spot in the top of the 11th inning to secure the win.