Covering Major League Baseball

By: Joe Jacquez

2014 Trade Deadline Coverage

The Trade Deadline continues and it looks like despite moving into third place in the N.L West after a horrible month of May look to be committed sellers. Today the Padres traded third basemen Chase Headley to the Yankees for Yangervis Solarte and pitching prospect Rafael De Paula sources told CBS Sports Jon Heyman. Jack Curry of the YES Network first reported the trade.

The Padres will send one million to the Bronx to help pay the 44 million dollars still left on his contract for this year. He is a free agent after this year.

This makes sense for an aggressive selling Padres team. Headley hasn’t been the same since 2012 when he led the N.L in RBI’s and it’s time for them to move on. Remember the Padres are making deals without a G.M. Instead it’s G.M by committee led by former Dbacks manager A.J Hinch.

As it turns out the Padres might long term get the better end of the deal. The Yankees have gotten more production out of Solarte than the Padres have out of Headley.

The Padres probably are not done selling. Teams are interesred in reliever Joquin Benoit, starter Ian Kennedy, closer Houston Street, and OF Chris Denorphia.

The Yankees haven’t had a quality productive third basemen since Alex Rodriguez and they desperately needed to find a way to upgrade their offense. So many people thought they were going to get an infielder and they did.

Headley will have the superior bat this year and he gets to move to from an extreme pitchers park in San Diego to an extreme hitters park at Yankee Stadium. I’m sure he will learn to become a dead pull hitter taking advantage of the right field porch at Yankee Stadium.

From Jon Heyman at CBS Sports: Headley, 30, is hitting .229/.296/.355 with 12 doubles, seven homers and 32 RBI this season. He finished fifth in NL MVP voting in 2012 when he hit .286/.376/.498 with 31 homers and 115 RBI.

The Yankees never believe their out and despite losing four fifths of their starting rotation to injury they are still going to be aggressive buyers. Trust me G.M Brian Cashman isn’t done buying players. They need starting pitching and they are interested in Cole Hammels, Cliff Lee, Ian Kennedy, Jake Peavy. They need help at second base, with Ben Zobrist and Daniel Murphy being the best options and after DFAing Alfanso Soriano they could use help at DH.