Report: Yankees join trade talks for Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas

It has been apparent for months now that the Athletics planned on engaging in a massive fire sale this offseason, shipping out their arbitration-eligible players for younger and cheaper players with more team control. Since the lockout has ended, they’ve fulfilled the prophecy by sending Chris Bassitt to the Mets, Matt Olson to the Braves and Matt Chapman to the Blue Jays. It seems possible that Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas are going to be next in line. In recent days, the two hurlers have been connected to the White Sox and Twins, with Montas also garnering interest from the Rays. We can now add the Yankees to the list of interested parties, per Robert Murray of FanSided and Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

The Yankees have been busy since the end of the lockout, most notably landing Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt in a trade with the Twins, as well as signing Anthony Rizzo. Despite those additions to the lineup, the pitching staff remains largely unchanged.

The rotation comes with tremendous upside but also has its share of uncertainty beyond ace Gerrit Cole. Jordan Montgomery was excellent last year, but that was after two seasons mostly lost to injury and a shortened 2020 campaign. After throwing 75 1/3 MLB innings over 2018-2020, he shot up to 157 1/3 last year. Similarly, Jameson Taillon only threw 37 1/3 innings in 2019 and then missed all of 2020 before shooting up to 144 1/3 last year and undergoing ankle surgery after the season. Luis Severino only pitched 12 innings in 2019 before being shelved by various injuries and ultimately undergoing Tommy John surgery. After missing all of the 2020 campaign, he was able to return and log six MLB innings last year. Domingo German is dealing with shoulder issues and likely to begin the season on the IL. The club does have other options around, such as Nestor Cortes Jr., Michael King, Clarke Schmidt, Deivi Garcia and Luis Gil, but they all come with question marks of their own due to their limited track records.

Adding in quality arms like those of Manaea and Montas would be a fairly sensible way of providing an extra degree of certainty for the staff. Manaea pitched 179 1/3 innings last year with a 3.91 ERA, 25.7% strikeout rate and 5.4% walk rate. He’s scheduled to hit free agency at the end of the season and is projected to earn a salary of $10.2M, per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. Montas, meanwhile, tossed 187 frames with a 3.37 ERA, 26.6% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. He’s projected for a $5.2M salary and comes with an extra year of control.

Yankees fans might speculate about whether Luke Voit could be involved in such a trade now that Rizzo is in the fold. With the Athletics having just traded Olson, they could presumably slot Voit into regular first base duty in Oakland. However, Voit only has three years of club control remaining before he hits free agency, while Oakland has been using this fire sale largely to stock up on prospects or players with very limited MLB exposure. Voit and his projected $5.4M arbitration salary have more in common with the players Oakland has been trading away than those they’ve been acquiring.