Yankees Trade Buzz Heats Up Around Deadline Blockbuster For Two NL West Stars

The New York Yankees trudged into the All-Star break with two straight losses and nine defeats in their last 15 games. Meanwhile, their closest division rivals hit the break on respective high notes.

The Boston Red Sox, just one game behind the second-place Yankees, won their last 10 straight, while the first-place Toronto Blue Jays, two games ahead of New York, have taken seven of their 10 contests leading into the four-day hiatus.

The Yankees held what seemed at the time like a comfortable seven-game lead in the American League East as recently as May 28. But since then they have slogged through not just one but two six-game losing streaks and gone just 18-23 overall to fall to the position they find themselves in, with just 17 days remaining until the 2025 trade deadline.

Yankees Need to ‘Do Something Big’ at Deadline

Clearly, the Yankees will need to, as longtime MLB insider Jon Heyman wrote in a Sunday New York Post column, “do something big” at, or even before, the deadline — or the defending American League champions risk seeing their 2025 chances to get back to the World Series slip away.

The details may differ, but the two players that Heyman suggests that the Yankees acquire via deadline trade seem to be an emerging consensus. Not only Heyman, but Empire Sports Media founder Alexander Wilson, Jim Riley of BALLCAP Sports, and Pinstripes Nation scribe Esteban Quiñones have all come to the same conclusion over the last three days.

The two players that the Yankees should be targeting are Arizona Diamondbacks All-Star third baseman Eugenio Suarez, and his teammate, right-handed pitcher Zac Gallen.

“The issue, of course, is that the D-Backs still want to buy, not sell,” Heyman wrote in his Post column. “Suárez should be the Yankees’ top third base target as a righty bat with big power (31 homers) and reasonable 2026 salary ($15 million).”

“Third base production has been a weak link for New York, especially after D.J. LeMahieu’s struggles and subsequent DFA earlier this month,” Quiñones wrote on Monday. “Suarez’s bat would immediately lengthen the lineup and provide protection for stars like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.”

As for Gallen, according to Quiñones, the 29-year-old “remains a name of interest despite a down year. The right-hander owns a 5.40 ERA but has shown signs of rebounding, including a pair of strong outings this month.”

Gallen was a National League All-Star in 2023 and placed third in Cy Young Award balloting that year as well.

Starting Rotation Battered by Injuries

The Yankees starting rotation has been torn apart by injuries, the latest being a pitching hand index finger blister suffered by All-Star lefty ace Max Fried.

But 2023 Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole and No. 3 starter Clarke Schmidt are both now done for the season with Tommy John surgery, and 2024 Rookie of the Year Luis Gil remains sidelined with a lat muscle strain that has kept him waiting to make his 2025 debut all season.

“I can see the Yankees in one phone call grabbing [Suarez] and grabbing Gallen and getting the two top list items that they need, third base and starting pitching,” said Riley on his podcast Saturday. “One phone call. So, give me give me a big one for the New York Yankees here with Suarez and Gallen.”

The Yankees would need to give up quite prospect haul to land the Diamonbacks duo. Quiñones lists 6-foot-7 outfield slugger Spencer Jones, the Yankees’ No. 2 prospect, and No. 6, righty pitcher Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz — who was just acquired last offseason from the Red Sox organization in a trade for catcher and Rookie of the Year candidate Carlos Narvaez.

Heyman believes that three pitching prospects, righties Cam Schlittler and Cade Smith — the organization’s No. 10 and 14 prospects respectively — and southpaw Brock Selvidge, at No. 8, should be enough to extract the two players from Arizona — especially with both hitting free agency at season’s end.