Good afternoon everyone, it’s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember to send in your questions for our weekly call by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.
Michael R. asks: What’s going on with Dax Kilby? Is he in a witness protection program? Last I heard it was a hamstring injury. Was there an amputation needed? Surely, if it was just a hamstring issue he should be back by now.
Hamstrings are finnicky muscles, and tweaking them can easily set back
a rehabbing player’s progress — look no further than Giancarlo Stanton for a prime example of how long it can take if things go poorly. Kilby did manage to get into a rehab game at the end of May, but reaggravated the injury during the game and has been out again since. We don’t know the full extent to how bad the hamstring was after that game, but the team is going to be cautious with any soft tissue injury like this especially after the rehab attempt went poorly. If we don’t have an update around mid-July then there’d be some valid concern, but for now Kilby is simply going to be on the shelf for a bit longer.
jws85 asks: Why do writers keep talking starting pitchers? I would think the hot topic would be Josh Jung and Higgy from Texas.
It’s not so much that starting pitching is a need as it is the singular face of the trade market this deadline appears to be Tarik Skubal — and when the reigning two-time Cy Young winner is available, you have to at least consider being the one to make a move for him. Any other starter wouldn’t make sense for the Yankees to pursue when they have one of the strongest rotations in baseball and have some clear holes elsewhere, but Skubal could push them all-in on being perhaps the most dangerous team in the field even with the reigning champion Dodgers looking every bit as strong as they have been the last two years.
Make no mistake though: it would be an all-in move, and it would be costly. Even though the team that lands him would only guarantee Skubal’s services for the remainder of this season, the Tigers can demand a king’s ransom for him and have a number of suitors willing to pony up. Skubal did sit out for a month with an elbow injury that might raise concerns, but he’s recovered in admirable time and the Yankees just got a front-row seat to see how sharp he looks already so I doubt there would be a major discount on account of his arm. Any trade on the Yankees’ ends would start with top prospect George Lombard Jr. and likely include several other top prospects within the organization’s top 10, probably even their top five given their rankings fall off quick from there. That’s going to mortgage the future fairly significantly, but if they don’t push those chips into the pot the Dodgers can definitely outbid them (and possibly still can even if the Yankees leave no one off the table).
Sounds like an awful lot to index everything into a rotation that is already one of the best, and leaves little room to make other upgrades when some are definitely warranted. So why should the Yankees consider this? Well, there’s the opportunity cost of passing on Skubal to consider — if they don’t go and get him, someone else will and the Yankees will likely have to face him on their road to a World Series title, making him a major obstacle instead of a piece of the puzzle. Could anyone compete with the Dodgers if Skubal dons an LA cap this postseason? Will the Yankees’ hopes of walking through a weak American League remain high if say, Seattle doesn’t want to fall just short of making the Fall Classic at long last and throws their arsenal of top 100 prospects at Detroit? Leaving it up to chance that Skubal won’t become the next version of Texas Cliff Lee or Houston Gerrit Cole isn’t ideal for a team whose core is getting dangerously close to old.
Age is the other factor — the Yankees have, outside of their push in 2024 with Juan Soto, danced around the idea of ever going all-in. Now they have a roster with superstars exiting their primes, with Aaron Judge already in his age-34 season and Cole approaching his 36th birthday in September. Both players have now faced mounting injuries in the last few years, and while I’m highly confident in both of them performing in October this year, how many more years will they be able to carry the weight of a title run on their shoulders? The team has gotten a much-needed injection of youth with Ben Rice and Cam Schlittler excelling this year, but they’re facing Father Time down with the contracts still on the books for their superstars. A rental starter would’ve been ideal in past seasons but isn’t this time around, but you could argue that getting picky about which pieces were available to them and at what prices got them into this position in the first place. Now they need to decide if pushing for a championship with their captain is more important than always being in the mix, and act accordingly.
With all this said I truly don’t know if they can even get Skubal or should pursue him if they could, but they have to do their due diligence in considering it. I like Lombard a lot, and he can potentially be the answer to a position that has given the Yankees a lot of headaches over the years. It would take a lot to move him, but the circumstances are undeniably there. We’ll see if they determine it’s worth pulling the trigger or not.
The idiot that said, “Harper is coming” asks: Clarke Schmidt? He’s going to face live batters any day now, so his return this season seems inevitable. What do the Yankees do with him? Do they just ride out the season and if he’s healthy and available keep him in the minors, or bring him up and force him into a bullpen role? Does he have any trade value? How does he rank among Yankee starters for 2027?
Schmidt is in a strange spot, with the rotation blossoming in his absence and nearly all the candidates to hold down a spot ahead of him being under control long-term. Schmidt, meanwhile, will be a free agent after next season and still has a minor league option remaining to toy with, giving the team flexibility now with how they handle his return but forcing the issue next year if they did keep him down. I doubt they would stash him in the minors, to be honest — when healthy he was one of the better starters the Yankees had, pacing out to about three fWAR per season had he played all of 2024 and 2025. The reality is he hasn’t pitched over 100 innings since 2023 though, so easing him back in a multi-inning relief role would be the ideal scenario if he stays and the rotation remains healthy in front of him.
A trade to shake things up in this equation is very much on the table though, as the Yankees have needs around the roster and for once have an extreme excess of starting pitching. Schmidt’s injuries might prevent him from recouping significant value, but he could also serve as a solid fallback option if Will Warren or one of the prospects like Elmer Rodriguez or Brendan Beck gets packaged in a deal. That could allow Schmidt to build back up his arm with a handful of starts this year and then slide back into the rotation as the fifth starter for 2027 should he beat out Ryan Weathers in spring. The only concern is that you truly can’t have too much pitching, and it would be the height of folly to act as if the team had too much pitching in July only to run on empty in October, but if they seriously pursued the Skubal angle perhaps that’s how they could hedge on building a super rotation for this season and still have depth for next year and beyond.
