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Yankees Notes: Rodón, Fried, Chisholm Jr.

With less than a month to go before the trade deadline, the Yankees are thought to be prioritizing a right-handed hitting catcher and high-leverage relief arms in talks with other clubs. In contrast, the rotation has been a strength all season, as the group anchored by Cam Schlittler is a Top-10 unit by ERA (3.54), strikeout rate (24.2%), and fWAR (8.7).

Health will be the biggest X factor for the rotation going forward. That’s especially true in light of Carlos Rodón landing on the injured list on Friday, as well as Max Fried‘s continued absence for a left elbow bone bruise. Rodón went down for left elbow inflammation, and initially, the team didn’t offer a clear timeline for his return. Now, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, it’s believed that Rodón is four to six weeks away from returning to a big league mound.

The 33-year-old lefty underwent surgery back in October to remove loose bodies from his elbow, which led him to open the season on the injured list. Rodón was activated on May 10th and has since posted a 3.30 ERA while averaging just over five innings per start. He’s walking hitters at a 13.4% rate that’s uncharacteristically high, but he’s also done well at keeping the ball in the yard. Rodón has allowed just three homers in 46 1/3 innings (0.58 HR/9), a marked improvement over last year’s 1.01 HR/9 rate, which was already his best in three seasons with the Yankees.

The overall output makes Rodón a key piece of New York’s ideal playoff rotation along with Schlittler, Fried, and Gerrit Cole. Now, Rodón may not return until the middle of August, so the team might feel a greater urgency to add a starter at the deadline. Between Rodón’s injury history and those of the Yankees’ would-be depth pieces, such as Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt, it could be wise to add to the rotation rather than assume better health over the stretch run or impact performances from their minor league options. While the latter is not impossible, as Schlittler proved last year, it’s unlikely that Elmer Rodríguez and others will become impact pieces in time for this year’s postseason.

While Rodón is likely to miss the rest of July, his rotation mate in Fried is closer to returning. As relayed by Bill Ladson of MLB.com, Fried followed up a bullpen session on Friday by throwing live batting practice this morning. He threw 36 pitches in total, mixing in his four-seamer, slider, and cutter. According to manager Aaron Boone, Fried will throw another live session later in the week and could begin a rehab assignment shortly afterward.

That increases the likelihood of Fried returning before the end of July. With Ryan Weathers having a 5.81 ERA over his last six starts and Will Warren being solid but hardly dominating, a healthy Fried will be its own upgrade to the rotation. The lefty posted a 3.21 ERA in 10 starts before going down for the bone bruise.

He’s also worked to hone his delivery while on the IL, with Ladson writing that Fried is trying to “be a little more balanced and just be more on time” after feeling his mechanics were off early in the season. Improved health and mechanics could help Fried maintain his early-season performance over the stretch run while hedging against the injury risks in Rodón and Weathers. The latter is only 6 1/3 innings away from passing his career high for one season (94 2/3 innings in 2021).

Turning to the offense, Ladson writes that second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr.‘s exit from today’s game was due to a leg injury. Facing Twins starter Joe Ryan, Chisholm flew out to right field and appeared to limp while running to first base. Amed Rosario entered for Chisholm in the top of the sixth, playing third base, while José Caballero slid over to second.

Chisholm struggled to a 74 wRC+ through the end of April but has a 110 wRC+ since May 1st. Statcast continues to take a favorable view of his work at second base, giving him 8 Outs Above Average and an 83rd-percentile Fielding Run Value. With Aaron Judge on the shelf, Chisholm’s 2.2 fWAR makes him the Yankees’ third-most valuable position player behind Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger. He is a free agent after the season, so both player and team will hope that Chisholm’s leg injury is not serious and that he continues to perform well in the second half.

Photo courtesy of Paul Rutherford, Imagn Images

Yankees’ Carlos Lagrange Shut Down For Six Weeks Due To Capsular Sprain

Yankees pitching prospect Carlos Lagrange was placed on the Triple-A injured list on Thursday, and the club provided more details on the right-hander’s status in a media release yesterday.  Lagrange is dealing with a capsular sprain in his throwing shoulder and will be shut down for “approximately” the next six weeks.  Between this shutdown period and a standard throwing ramp-up and rehab, it would seem like Lagrange will be sidelined from any game action until late August at the absolute earliest.

The recovery process could be aided by the fact that Lagrange has been used as a reliever for the last month, so he’ll need less time to fully build up his arm strength.  If all goes well with Lagrange’s rehab, he could still emerge as a candidate for the big league bullpen in September, and into the postseason.  Still, the news obviously isn’t good for Lagrange, and the nature of the shoulder sprain and the length of his shutdown period creates the possibility that he might have already thrown his last pitch of the 2026 season.

The 23-year-old Lagrange was an international signing for the Yankees in 2022, and he moved into a spot on several preseason top-100 prospect rankings on the heels of a solid 2025 campaign at both the high-A and Double-A levels.  Starting the 2026 campaign at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Lagrange has a 4.55 ERA, 29.5% strikeout rate, and 11.7% walk rate over 63 1/3 innings, working as a starter for the first 11 of his 18 outings.

Moving Lagrange to the bullpen was viewed as a temporary assignment with an eye towards calling Lagrange up to the Yankees in a relief capacity, manager Aaron Boone said at the time of the role change.  Lagrange has a four-pitch arsenal highlighted by a plus slider and a fastball that has touched the triple digits, which makes for plenty of intrigue as a high-octane relief weapon.  Some evaluators have speculated that Lagrange might end up as a reliever over the long term anyway if he can’t improve his control, yet naturally the Yankees don’t want to close the door on his starting potential this early in his career.

Using Lagrange as a reliever also might have ticked off one box for the Yankees in their search for bullpen improvements, but that plan will now have to be abandoned since Lagrange will be sidelined well beyond the trade deadline.  It has been widely speculated that New York will look for at least one higher-leverage relief pitcher, though the Yankees enter today’s action with the second-best bullpen ERA in baseball.  The pen is relatively lacking in strikeout power, however, and Lagrange would’ve been particularly helpful in that department.

Yankees Place Carlos Rodón On IL With Elbow Inflammation

The Yankees announced a series of roster moves today. Infielder Ryan McMahon and outfielder Trent Grisham have each been reinstated from the ten-day injured list. In corresponding moves, infielder/outfielder Oswaldo Cabrera has been optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and left-hander Carlos Rodón has been placed on the 15-day injured list with elbow inflammation, retroactive to June 30th. That temporarily gives the Yankees 14 position players and 12 pitchers, though they will probably call up a fresh at some point to go back to a standard 13-13 split.

Rodón last pitched for the Yankees on Sunday and there was no indication that anything was amiss. He tossed 96 pitches over five innings. His velocity was in line with expectations. It’s possible that an issue cropped up after that outing or during a between-starts bullpen session.

At this point, it’s unclear how serious this injury is or how much time Rodón is expected to miss. It’s possible it’s fairly minor and the Yankees are just being cautious, giving Rodón a breather with the All-Star break coming up.

But it’s worth noting Rodón’s track record, as his career has been peppered with injuries. From 2017 to 2020, he missed a lot of time and didn’t top 20 starts in any of those seasons, due to a variety of ailments. He was mostly healthy in 2021 and 2022, which led the Yankees to give him a six-year, $162MM deal going into 2023.

A forearm strain limited him to 14 starts in his first season in the Bronx, though he was healthy in 2024 and 2025. His elbow was an issue coming into this year. He underwent surgery in October of 2025 to remove loose bodies from that elbow. He began this season on the 15-day IL but was back on May 10th. Since then, he has been performing quite well, with a 3.30 earned run average in nine starts. But now, he’s back on the shelf with an elbow issue once again.

Rodón was scheduled to start tomorrow’s game, so the Yankees will have to figure out how to handle their rotation. They have Gerrit Cole, Ryan Weathers, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren in four spots. Guys like Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn are in the bullpen and having starting experience but they’re not stretched out. Neither has topped three innings in an outing this year and it’s been a few weeks since either of them went more than two. Max Fried and Clarke Schmidt are also on the IL but aren’t close to returning.

Carlos Lagrange won’t be an option, as he just landed on the minor league injured list with a shoulder injury, per Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. Even if he were healthy, the Yanks moved him to a relief role a few weeks ago. Luis Gil was shut down in May with a shoulder issue and hasn’t made an official appearance since. Elmer Rodríguez has been in the big leagues a few times this year but he just started in Triple-A yesterday, so he won’t be available for a few days. Brendan Beck is on the 40-man and last started on Saturday, so perhaps he would be an option for a spot start.

The Yankees should still have a pretty strong rotation even without Rodón and, as mentioned, the All-Star break is coming up. That will give them a chance to rest and reset for the second half. Still, the club surely doesn’t want another issue to deal with as they look to avoid another summer swoon. Fans have grown frustrated in recent years as the club often jumps out to a hot start and them slumps in the warmer months.

This year’s trouble seemingly kicked off with the Aaron Judge injury a month ago. The club went 12-14 in June and has been particularly cold lately, as they are currently mired in a seven-game losing streak. They are still in playoff position but the unease in the fanbase is growing. Yet another injury won’t help, even if it proves to be a minor one.

It’s also possible this injury impacts the club’s deadline approach. The rotation hasn’t been considered a major target area. They already had five solid options, with Fried and Schmidt potentially returning in the second half. If Rodón’s injury is serious, then perhaps that thinking will change.

Photo courtesy of Paul Rutherford, Imagn Images

Yankees Injury Notes: Judge, Grisham, McMahon

The Yankees were blown out by the Tigers tonight, dropping their sixth consecutive game in the process. The ugliest stretch of their season has dropped New York 2.5 games back of a red hot Tampa Bay team in the AL East.

It leaves the Yanks with a 12-14 record since Aaron Judge’s most recent appearance. The three-time MVP was shut down for a 4-6 week period before he’d go for reevaluation after being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right rib on June 4. They’ll hit the four-week point on Thursday, but it seems it’ll be the longer end of that timeline.

Manager Aaron Boone said this afternoon that Judge is still unable to do baseball activities and likely “a couple weeks” away from new imaging (link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). The Yankees haven’t provided many specifics on Judge’s timeline, which will become clearer once he’s ready for a second round of testing.

The Yankees are just 20th in scoring this month. Tonight was their 11th straight game scoring four or fewer runs. The entire lineup has gone cold, so the issues go beyond Judge’s absence. Jasson Domínguez’s performance in right field has been one of the problems, though, as he’s hitting .222/.263/.400 through 25 games.

Giancarlo StantonTrent Grisham and Ryan McMahon are also all out of action at the moment. Stanton has been down since late April with a nagging calf injury. McMahon went on the shelf last week with an eye infection, while Grisham has been sidelined since June 13 by a right hamstring strain. McMahon and Grisham will both head to Double-A Somerset tomorrow for a rehab game. They’ll probably need just one tune-up before returning to the MLB lineup for the start of a weekend series against Minnesota on Friday.

Spencer Jones has stepped into the primary center field role with Grisham out. The rookie could slide over to right field if the Yankees want to keep him in the lineup while scaling back on Domínguez’s playing time. Jones is a lefty bat, while Domínguez is a switch-hitter who has generally been better from the left side in his career. José Caballero will probably see more outfield work again once McMahon returns as the third baseman versus righty pitching.

Trade Deadline Outlook: New York Yankees

MLBTR’s team-by-team trade deadline preview series is back for a second year. The Trade Deadline Outlook series, exclusive for Front Office subscribers, launched last year. This year’s edition kicks off with an obvious buyer. Over the next month or so, each team will get an entry, broadly starting with the most obvious buyers and sellers. The more borderline teams will be kept for later so that their plans can become more clear.

The Yankees are atop the American League, holding a 2.5 game cushion over the Rays in the division. They’ve gone 12-8 this month despite losing Aaron Judge and probably have the best roster in the AL. They’re clear deadline buyers and have a few needs to address by August 3.

Record: 48-31 (99.6% playoff odds, per FanGraphs)

Buy Mode

Potential needs: Catcher, high-leverage relief, utility infield

The Yankees have gotten above-average production out of seven lineup spots this season. The lone exceptions are third base and catcher. Their outfield is as good as any team’s, while their first base duo of Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt has been fantastic. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has turned things around after a slow start, and they’re presumably fine at shortstop with Anthony Volpe.

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AL East Notes: Wells, Kremer, Kiner-Falefa, Grove

The Yankees reinstated catcher Austin Wells from the 10-day IL ahead of Sunday’s game against the Reds. Wells went 0-for-2 in his return to the lineup. He missed two weeks while dealing with cervical headaches.

Wells has struggled mightily at the plate this season. He’d posted a 53 wRC+ through 47 games heading into Sunday. His strikeout rate has risen to a career-worst 26.6%. After a career-high 21 home runs last season, Wells has hit just four in 169 plate appearances.

The Yankees optioned J.C. Escarra back to the minors with Wells back, but there will be more shuffling at the position in the coming days. Manager Aaron Boone told reporters before today’s game that Ali Sanchez is headed to the paternity list soon (h/t Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). Escarra will take Sanchez’s spot while he’s away from the team.

The Yankees rank 28th in OPS at the catcher position. The lack of production from the group has New York in the market for a backstop, preferably one who hits right-handed. Ryan Jeffers of the Twins has been frequently mentioned in the conversation. He’s been excellent this season (163 wRC+), but he’s currently sidelined with a fractured hamate bone.

The Yankees also called up right-hander Elmer Rodriguez to start on Sunday. He took righty Jake Bird‘s spot on the roster. It was just a spot start for Rodriguez, who allowed three earned runs over four innings and took the loss. New York optioned him right back to Triple-A after the game. Using Rodriguez today allowed the Yankees to give their rotation an extra day of rest. The club doesn’t have an off-day until July 2.

Here are a few other items from around the AL East…

  • The Orioles sent a pair of starters on rehab assignments today. Right-hander Dean Kremer joined the Triple-A squad, and lefty Cade Povich headed to Double-A (h/t Roch Kubatko of MASN). Kremer has been sidelined for nearly two months with a quad strain. He was surprisingly optioned to the minors to start the season, then went down with injury after just two big league starts. Povich hit the IL with elbow inflammation in early May. He’s pitched in four games across two stints with the Orioles this year. Kremer and Povich will likely need several starts to ramp up, but they could push for rotation spots once healthy.
  • The Red Sox placed infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa on the 10-day IL with left forearm inflammation on Saturday. He’s headed for more tests later this week to make sure he isn’t dealing with a fracture. “There’s some things with that, like on the bone, where you got to … get a more clear picture,” interim manager Chad Tracy said, relayed by Tim Healey of the Boston Globe. “At this point [they don’t believe there is a fracture], but that’s what the CT scan will be for.”
  • Fellow versatile infielder Romy Gonzalez could’ve been a candidate to replace Kiner-Falefa, but he was pulled from a Double-A game on Friday with hip tightness, per Healey. Gonzalez is working his way back from offseason shoulder surgery. Tracy said the club hopes Gonzalez can resume his rehab assignment on Tuesday.
  • The Rays reinstated right-hander Michael Grove from the 60-day IL on Sunday. He was optioned to Triple-A. Grove missed all of 2025 after right shoulder surgery. The former Dodger joined the Rays in mid-April. He’s made eight appearances in the minors with Tampa Bay, posting a 2.84 ERA with a 32% strikeout rate over 12 2/3 innings.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images

Peter Strzelecki Opts Out Of Deal With Yankees

Right-hander Peter Strzelecki has opted out of his minor league deal with the Yankees, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The righty is now a free agent and can be pursued by any team.

Strzelecki, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Yankees on May 23rd. Though that was almost a month ago, he has only made Triple-A six appearances since then, logging 4 2/3 innings. He allowed four earned runs in that tiny sample but struck out nine of the 22 batters he faced, a 40.9% rate, while only issuing one walk. He averaged around 92 miles per hour with his four-seamer and sinker, a normal range for him, while also throwing a slider and changeup.

That wasn’t enough for the Yankees to give him a roster spot, so he’ll test the open market. His major league track record consists of 83 2/3 innings with the Brewers, Diamondbacks and Guardians from 2022 to 2024. He posted a 3.44 earned run average in that time along with a 24% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 35.8% ground ball rate.

He spent 2025 in the minors with the Pirates and Rays but struggled, putting up a combined 9.41 ERA. He signed a minor league deal with the Brewers coming into 2026 and was briefly added to that club’s roster in May, though he was designated for assignment the next day without appearing in a game.

His minor league numbers this year don’t look great at first blush but things appear nicer under the hood. Between the systems of the Brewers and Yankees, he has logged 24 1/3 innings with a 4.81 ERA but his 28.2% strikeout rate, 4.9% walk rate and 45.3% ground ball rate are all strong figures. The ERA would be better if not for a .333 batting average on balls in play and 61.2% strand rate. Strzelecki will see if any other club is enticed by those numbers. If he eventually gets a roster spot somewhere, he is out of options.

Photo courtesy of Michael McLoone, Imagn Images

Yankees Hoping To Add Right-Handed-Hitting Catcher

The Yankees have gotten a disappointing season out of catcher Austin Wells so far, and his struggles have the team interested in bringing in some catching help. Chris Kirschner of The Athletic reports that the Yanks would prefer to add a right-handed bat behind the plate and specifically lists Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers as a potential target. Jeffers knows Yankees director of catching Tanner Swanson quite well from Swanson’s days as the Twins’ catching coordinator from 2017-19.

Jeffers got out to a monster start this season — .295/.408/.541, seven homers, equal walk and strikeout rates (15.6%) — but suffered a fractured hamate last month that required surgery. He’ll be sidelined into July.

The arrows on Jeffers are all trending up this season, but he’s quietly been one of the game’s best-hitting catchers dating back to 2023. Over his past 1411 major league plate appearances, Jeffers touts a .258/.346/.445 batting line (121 wRC+). The former second-rounder out of UNC Wilmington ranks eighth among qualified catchers in batting average, sixth in on-base percentage and sixth in slugging percentage in that time. Jeffers swatted a career-high 21 homers back in 2024 and was on pace to trounce that mark this season.

Despite the Swanson/Jeffers connection, it should be noted that Jeffers is just one of several options GM Brian Cashman & Co. could consider. It’s not even a foregone conclusion that Jeffers will be moved.  The Twins have been expected to function as sellers all season and likely still will, but they’re at 36-40 after four straight wins and currently sit just 1.5 games back in the wide-open AL Wild Card hunt. Jeffers is an impending free agent and arguably their most likely trade chip if they do sell, but between their recent play and the 29-year-old catcher’s current injury, a deal in the near future seems quite unlikely. He’s making $6.7MM this season, and the Yankees would have to pay a 110% tax on the remainder of that contract due to their luxury-tax status.

Whether Jeffers or someone else, some form of catching upgrade would be prudent for the Yankees, whose backstops have combined for an awful .181/.271/.270 slash this season. The resulting 53 wRC+ indicates that Yankees catchers have been 47% worse than average at the plate, ranking them ahead of only the White Sox (who’ve been without starter Kyle Teel all season due to injury) and the Phillies.

Wells, currently on the injured list due to recurring cervical headaches, has been the primary culprit. After slashing .224/.294/.423 from 2023-25, he’s faceplanted with a .166/.278/.255 slash and career-worst 26.6% strikeout rate in 169 plate appearances this season. It’s plenty feasible that the ongoing neck/headache issues have dampened his production, but Wells’ struggles — and those of backups J.C. Escarra and Ali Sanchez — have been so pronounced that they leave the Yankees with little choice but to pursue an upgrade.

If not Jeffers, there are other righty-swinging backstops who’ll likely be available. Minnesota could conceivably make switch-hitting catcher Victor Caratini, whom they signed to a two-year $14MM deal this winter, available if they sell. The Red Sox are open to moving Connor Wong, though trade talks between the two parties are always complicated by their archrival status. Switch-hitting A’s backup Jonah Heim is a free agent at season’s end and would surely be available if they end up selling off some short-term pieces (though they’re currently in both the AL West and Wild Card races). The Rangers could be amenable to parting with old friend Kyle Higashioka (also an impending free agent), and the Rockies could have one of the more intriguing controllable trade chips on the market if they make slugging catcher Hunter Goodman (arb-eligible through 2029) available to other teams.

Seth Brown Opts Out Of Yankees Deal

The Yankees have released veteran first baseman/outfielder Seth Brown, per the transaction log at MiLB.com. He’d been playing with their Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. MLBTR has learned that Brown had an opt-out in his contract, which he triggered. The team granted Brown his release rather than add him to the 40-man roster.

The 33-year-old Brown signed a minor league contract with the Yankees in January. He had a rough showing during spring training and didn’t make the club but has turned in a roughly average .235/.327/.436 slash with nine homers in 208 Triple-A plate appearances. Brown has walked in just over 11% of his plate appearances but has also fanned in just under one-third of his trips to the batter’s box. Part of that stems from not being strictly platooned; the lefty-swinging Brown has hit just .189/.286/.270 with 22 punchouts in 42 plate appearances versus southpaws (52.4%). He’s hitting .247/.337/.466 with a high but more palatable 28% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching.

Brown is a veteran of seven major league seasons — all coming with the A’s. He’s a career .226/.292/.419 hitter who has twice topped 20 homers in a season. From 2021-22, Brown popped 45 homers in 862 plate appearances with the Athletics, despite playing his home games in Oakland’s cavernous coliseum. He’s never hit lefties well (.147/.236/.275) but is a career .234/.301/.441 hitter (108 wRC+) against right-handed pitching.

Defensively, Brown has at least 1000 major league innings at first base and in each outfield corner. He’s logged 187 innings in center field, but the majority of that work came back in 2022. Interested parties are going to view him primarily as a first base/corner outfield/designated hitter depth option who’d presumably see the bulk of his action against right-handed pitching if he were summoned back to the big leagues. Speculatively speaking, both the Padres and Phillies have struggled against right-handed pitching this season, and both have recently incurred some notable injuries in the outfield mix.

Yankees Notes: Fried, Wells, Stanton

Lefty Max Fried continues to rehab from the left elbow bone bruise that sent him to the 15-day injured list last month. Today, manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including Chris Kirschner of The Athletic, that Fried is scheduled to throw off a mound tomorrow. That follows recent imaging which showed Fried’s elbow has improved and sets him up to eventually begin a rehab assignment.

Fried had a 3.21 ERA in ten starts before the injury, continuing his dominance from last year, when he was worth 4.8 WAR according to FanGraphs and finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting. The club’s official injury report has Fried returning at some point in July. Assuming he makes it back after the All-Star break, that would give Fried 12 to 13 more starts through the end of the season.

The rotation has fared well in Fried’s absence. Since May 14th, Yankees starters have a 3.49 ERA, which ranks fourth-best in the Majors. Cam Schlittler remains an early contender for the Cy Young Award, while Carlos Rodón and Will Warren have ERAs of 3.38 or better in that span. Gerrit Cole hasn’t quite recovered his strikeout stuff since returning from Tommy John surgery, but his velocity is at normal levels. Only Ryan Weathers has objectively struggled, running a 6.44 ERA in his last five starts.

New York’s end goal should be a playoff rotation of Schlittler, Fried, Cole, and Rodón. Knowing that and the club’s current position in first place in the AL East, the club will continue to exercise caution on Fried’s recovery. An exact timeline will be clearer when he begins a rehab assignment, though tomorrow’s plan of mound work marks a crucial first step.

Turning to the offense, Kirschner adds that catcher Austin Wells is expected to play in rehab games this week. That seems to put him on track for a return later this month, assuming no setbacks. Wells went on the IL on June 6th with cervical headaches, though he’s improved after an MRI on his neck came back negative on June 8th, per the team’s injury report.

Wells had been hitting poorly before the headaches, having a 53 wRC+ in 169 plate appearances. That’s a massive drop-off from last year’s mark of 94. Wells will eventually hit better than .206 on balls in play and could catch up to his .359 expected slugging percentage, which far exceeds his actual .255 slugging percentage. Still, the 2026 version of Wells is barely a replacement-level player, and that’s only due to his defense. Meanwhile, J.C. Escarra has been even worse (35 wRC+ in 79 plate appearances), and Ali Sánchez is a fringe player with a 20 wRC+ in 141 career plate appearances in the Majors. Given those options, it’s clear that New York needs some kind of upgrade behind the plate at the trade deadline.

In other news, Boone confirmed that Giancarlo Stanton will undergo imaging tomorrow on his ailing calf, as relayed by Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. Reports from yesterday indicated that Stanton tweaked his calf again while running the bases. When asked if Stanton is back to square one in his rehab, Boone stated, “I don’t think so, but I don’t know that.” That response aside, it’s a fair bet that Stanton will need longer to recover based on his extensive injury history.

Photo courtesy of Mitch Stringer, Imagn Images

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