Blockbuster: Trade for Matt Olson AND Sean Manaea
The Yankees need to make a number of upgrades to their roster. They should go for the cake and include both Matt Olson and Sean Manaea in their plans.
Since I literally live on Twitter, I stumbled upon a deal that would make perfect sense for the Yankees. They obviously had trouble with getting both offense and defense from the first base position in 2021 and they could also use a bonafide No. 2 or No. 3 starter in the process.
In step Matt Olson and Sean Manaea.
It’s no secret that the Oakland A’s don’t like spending money and have been known to trade star players as their arbitration figures grow larger and larger. Matt Olson is projected to get $12M in his second-to-last year of arbitration and Sean Manaea is projected to get $10.2M in his final year of arbitration. You’re telling me that the A’s are going to pay $22.2M to two players when there’s no clear path to contending in 2022 for them? I don’t think so.
Matt Olson, 28 in March, has been one of baseball’s best home run hitters since the start of 2019, as he’s tied for third in the majors with 89 homers in that span. In 2021, he hit 39 HR, drove in 111 runs, and had a 146 wRC+ in 156 games.
His 146 wRC+ was the fifth-best mark in the American League in 2021.
Olson did this while handling both righties and lefties from the left side of the batter’s box. His 159 wRC+ against left-handed pitching actually led all left-handed hitters with at least 100 PA against same-sided pitching this season.
27 of Olson’s 39 homers in 2021 were pulled to right field. That was the second-most pulled homers by a left-handed hitter this season, only trailing Kyle Seager.
Imagine Olson’s left-handed swing and power at Yankee Stadium with that short porch. It’s a mesmerizing thought, I can’t lie.
Also something to note: Olson cut down on his whiff rate in 2021, dropping it from 34.8% to 23%… an 11.8-point drop. Only Gregory Polanco had a larger drap in whiff rate from 2020 to 2021.
A power-hitting first baseman that hits from the left side that doesn’t whiff a ton and strikes out less than 20% of the time? Shades of Tino Martinez, perhaps? I see it.
Olson is also one of the best defensive first basemen in the sport. He leads all of baseball in Defensive Runs Saved by a first baseman since the start of the 2019 season.
Trying to trade for Matt Olson seems like an obvious move for the Yankees. How about getting a very solid starting pitcher along with him in Sean Manaea, too?
Sean Manaea, 30 in February, had two different seasons in 2021. In his first 16 starts, he posted a 2.91 ERA in 92.2 innings. Over his final 16 starts, he had a 4.98 ERA in 86.2 innings — getting beat by homers.
Even with the rough second half of Manaea’s season, I’m not worried about him. He loves throwing strikes… and what do we love? STRIKES. What do we hate? Any type of walks because they are a crime.
Manaea was in the top half of the league this year in lowest walk rate, but he had the third-highest rate of pitches thrown in the strike zone this season among pitchers with over 1500 pitches thrown this year.
The great thing about this is that Manaea was also in the top-5 in the league in most swing-and-misses on pitches in the strike zone and in the heart of the plate. That’s really good.
The more whiffs you get, the more strikeouts you end up getting, as Manaea posted his highest K/9 (9.7) of his six-year career in 2021, besting his 2020 total of 9.1 K/9.
Manaea only uses three pitches: A sinker, a changeup, and a curveball. He throws his sinker the most and it got hit the hardest in 2021, sporting a .339 wOBA against.
You would think with the success Yankees’ pitchers had this season with sinkers (Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loáisiga, and Wandy Peralta to name a few) that Matt Blake and friends could really help Manaea unlock a different level with that pitch.
Also, you’d essentially be replacing 80 innings of Corey Kluber with 170+ innings of Sean Manaea. That seems like a good thing.
After diving into Olson and Manaea and why they’d fit on the Yankees, how would the Yankees even make all of this work financially? Well, it shouldn’t be this hard because they’re the NEW YORK YANKEES. The Yankees entered the 2021 season valued at over $5 billion and selling chicken buckets for $49.99 (not really, but you get the idea). They can afford whoever they want.
However, for the sake of this exercise, we have to work off the idea that the Yankees aren’t going to have a $300M payroll.
In order for a blockbuster trade like this to happen, the Yankees would probably need to get the A’s to bite on Luke Voit, who is projected to make $5.4M in arbitration next season. He would give the A’s an offense-first bat with the potential for 30+ homer and a wRC+ over 130 (when healthy, of course).
You’d obviously have to throw in a couple decent prospects probably. Maybe some combination of Oswald Peraza, Ken Waldichuk, and Everson Pereira as starting pieces? That’s the Yankees’ No. 3, No. 9, and No. 13 prospects. You could also include Estevan Florial (No. 21) to offset a few hundred thousand from the team’s payroll since he’s on the 40-man roster. As long as you’re not involving the top-2 prospects, I’d listen to what’s on the table.
I think that a Voit, Peraza, Waldichuk, Pereira package could start a conversation. If you needed to, you could include Schmidt, too. It really depends on what Oakland’s looking to do here.
Sure, maybe that “Baseball Trade Values” website wouldn’t validate this trade, but I think you need to take a few things into consideration. First off, the A’s would love to exchange salary for prospects, though they don’t necessarily have to move on yet from Olson… he still has two years left. Secondly, Voit is better than how he’s valued. He’s at worst a great bat that can DH.
In addition to all of this, you’d have to non-tender/trade the players that don’t have a definite spot on the big league roster (Clint Frazier, Miguel Andújar, and Domingo Germán) and also get some value for Gio Urshela, assuming the Yankees dish out a contract to one of Corey Seager, Trevor Story, or Carlos Correa. Also, it’d be nice to get rid of even just half of Zack Britton’s contract ($14M for 2022), as he’s not going to be pitching while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Try to attach a prospect or two to his contract and hope a rebuilding team buys those prospects for about $7M?
The Yankees could have around a $240M payroll with all of these moves… so around $10M before the third luxury tax threshold (pending the new CBA agreement). Since they care about those type of things, I think doing all of this could make it work.
Yes, a $240M+ payroll would be a hectic thing to manage and it might be me being way too in over my head, but you have to wonder: How committed is Hal Steinbrenner to bringing home a 28th championship?
What would the lineup and rotation look like? Let’s add Olson and Manaea, and, let's say… Corey Seager… to the equation.
I’d think that’s a championship-caliber starting lineup. That’s also a very solid rotation to go along with practically the same bullpen that was lights-out to end the season in the Bronx.
Payroll is obviously the concern and Brian Cashman doesn’t enjoy trading from a farm system he’s worked hard to rebuild over the last couple years, though this is THE TIME to trade from within. You’d still have Anthony Volpe, Jasson Dominguez, Luis Medina, and Luis Gil.
Go for it. Go make a blockbuster trade.
*Editor’s note: I should give Twitter Users YankeesFanEarl and RyanGarciaESM credit for being the masterminds for this idea. I just put pen to paper and expanded.