My Take: Yankees Acquire Jose Caballero & Camilo Doval
Other takes:
David Bednar/Jake Bird (link)
Ryan McMahon (link)
Amed Rosario (link)
Austin Slater (link)
The details:
The Yankees acquire UTIL Jose Caballero, RHP Camilo Doval, OF Wilberson De Pena, and international bonus pool money.
The Rays acquire OF Everson Pereira
The Giants acquire C/3B Jesus Rodriguez, 1B/3B Parks Harber, RHP Trystan Vrieling, and LHP Carlos De La Rosa
The Angels acquire UTIL Oswald Peraza
This trade deadline was wacky, and the Yankees have roster decisions to make. And they have to make them in a hurry.
They took care of three 40-man roster slots by dealing Pereira, Rodriguez, and Peraza.
What the Yankees get:
I didn’t expect these trades after the first two. But one theme of this trade deadline was improving at the margins. Could they have kept Peraza around as the last guy on the bench? Yes. However, they wanted more. I like the aggressiveness.
Caballero can play anywhere and has elite speed. The Rays, who always value versatility, have played him at second base, shortstop, third base, and all three outfield positions in 2025. Like their other acquisitions, he has a platoon split, hitting .241/.348/.392 against LHP and only .219/.318/.271 against RHP. His value is more in his versatility and speed. He leads baseball with 34 stolen bases this season after leading the American League with 44 last year. One thing he has done this year is improve his efficiency (73.3% in 2024; 80.9% in 2025). The entire profile adds up to being worth 1.0 fWAR this year after posting a 1.9 fWAR in 2023 and 2024.
Doval has a lot of talent in his right-handed arm, including a cutter that averages 98.1 MPH. He is mostly a cutter/slider pitcher, though he mixes in a sinker. It adds up to a profile that includes a 52.6% ground ball and 26.2% K. The walk rate (12.6%) is high, but his talent can overshadow that (3.09 ERA/3.18 FIP). Doval screams, “Matt Blake Special.” He is the type of arm that Blake will likely love to work with to go the next level. The arm talent is as good as anybody’s, and the results have mostly been good. It’s not like he is a project like Clay Holmes was. During his recent run of success, only his 2024 campaign can be seen as below average. And even that came with a 3.71 FIP. In other words, don’t underestimate his value. The Yankees have him through 2027. He can close games, but will go into the middle inning mix, a mix that is filled with impressive arms and the weirdness that is Tim Hill.
De Pena, who was acquired for Peraza, is the only prospect the Yankees acquired at the deadline. He is a DSL outfielder who is hitting .211/.296/.451 with four homers in 31 games. Sometimes, there is a backstory to these acquisitions. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Yankees scouted De Pena at some point before he signed with the Angels and grabbed him when they had a chance. It doesn’t matter, as they did this deal for the 40-man roster space. Peraza had no future with the organization.
What the Rays get:
Pereira has the power to tap into. The biggest question is whether he has enough contact to support that power. He is a good fit for a high-contact Tampa team that needs pop. While his first MLB audition didn’t go well (.151/.233/.194 in 103 plate appearances in 2023), I am confident he has the tools to hit against the world’s best competition. Even if that is a low-average, high SLG type, that’s valuable. I think I said it last week: Sometimes, we are too enamored with the “perfect player.” Pereira doesn’t need to be perfect.
What the Angels get:
I hide nothing. I was once very high on Peraza, and it didn’t work out. With the Angels, he should earn some extra playing time to see if he can get into a groove. That won’t be as a shortstop, as the Angels have Zach Neto. However, he can play second base (Kyren Paris is hitting .190/.266/.381 in 44 games) and third base (Luis Rengifo is hitting .244/.286/.327 in 102 games) as well. The Yankees were also working him out in the outfield. We’ll see if the Angels decide to stick with that.
Can he still become a valuable player? The odds don’t seem great, but the Angels have the bandwidth to find out.
What the Giants get:
Rodriguez was the latest fan favorite, given his ability to make contact (and his current 17-game hitting streak). After struggling in Somerset to begin 2025, the Yankees promoted him to Scranton after Alex Jackson went on the injured list. He hit very well for Scranton, putting up a .317/.409/.430 (129 wRC+) line over 362 plate appearances. There are questions about his defensive position. The Yankees have tried him at catcher, first base, second base (small sample), third base, and the outfield. This year, the Yankees have limited him to catcher and third base, and they have cut back his third base time considerably over the past several weeks. While some of that was due to signing Jeimer Candelario and trading Alex Jackson, it likely was also done as a showcase.
Harber got off to an incredible start in the lower minors this season, but has been missing in action for a while. Signed as an undrafted free agent out of North Carolina, the 23-year-old hit .319/.404/.510 in 54 games between Tampa and Hudson Valley. College bats tend to murder the ball in the lower minors, but not all of them do. For now, Harber has done enough to earn a shot in the upper minors. He probably falls somewhere in the Andres Chaparro or Eric Wagaman lane, which means MLB is a reasonable goal.
The Yankees were very aggressive with Vrieling, placing him instantly in Double-A to start his debut 2024 season. He did OK after being fed to the sharks, going 13-7 with a 4.58 ERA (3.73 FIP) with a 21.3% K over 147.1 innings. An injury delayed the start to his 2025 campaign, and he owns a 4.50 ERA in 46 Double-A innings. This is the type of prospect the Yankees have traditionally dealt over the past several seasons. I see him continuing as a starter with a back-of-the-rotation type of ceiling.
De La Rosa is your typical lottery ticket. Signed for $400,000 (the Yankees typically don’t spend high on international starters, so this stands out), the 17-year-old owns a 5.32 ERA in 22 innings with a 36/5 K/BB. 17-year-old pitchers in the DSL are as volatile as you can get, but that’s an impressive K/BB for a kid his age. I will watch him closely as he moves up.
The Bottom Line:
This is the craziest deadline in recent history, all across baseball. Cashman revamped the bullpen and the position player mix immensely. I am not shocked about the bullpen. I am shocked by the bench pieces they acquired. It feels as if he found the light, no longer mostly ignoring the bench. Aaron Boone has a lot of versatility to work with, and we will see how he deploys it all. When Aaron Judge returns, someone has to go. I hate to say it, but Cabellero has options. I don’t know if that is the path they will go down, or what other paths are possible. Technically, they can go with 12 pitches and 14 position players (the only rule is that you can’t have more than 13 pitchers), but that would be unusual, and it just shifts the logjam elsewhere. Until Judge comes back, there is nothing to worry about.
The Yankees made these moves while trading only one top ten prospect (Rafael Flores). It looks like they aimed high with starting pitchers instead of looking at 4th/5th starter types who would come with lower price tags. You can criticize that part, but none of the big starters were moved today. The “aim-high” guy (Minnesota’s Joe Ryan) required a massive package that the Red Sox supposedly weren’t even close to meeting. We don’t know what the Marlins wanted for Sandy Alcantara or Edward Cabrera, but Spencer Jones‘ name likely came up. The Padres didn’t move Dylan Cease. Most of the starters traded today were mid-to-lower-rotation types, and Cashman likely wasn’t interested in pitchers at that level. Criticizing that is fine, but if you like Cam Schlittler, it may buy him more time in the rotation. I am not as upset with that as I expected to be, as I thought they would at least look to acquire a #3 type. They decided against it at the prices being asked.
Overall, I am a fan of the deadline. I like some of the prospects they traded, but is there a high-impact MLB player in that mix? I am not so sure. As stated above, not every player needs to be high-impact to be valuable. But those are also the type of prospects you shouldn’t be scared to trade.