Yankees designate Brian Roberts for assignment after Prado and Drew trades

The Brian Roberts era ended in New York after the Yankees traded for Martin Prado and Stephen Drew at the deadline. Drew will take over as the second baseman in New York with Prado seeing time in the outfield and elsewhere around the diamond. The writing had been on the wall for Brian Roberts for a few days after he was benched with only two plate appearances to go before cashing in on a performance bonus. Girardi noted that the aging player needed time off, but it seemed as though Roberts felt like he could play.

Roberts' time in New York wasn't exactly impressive. His play outside of a few brief hot streaks was pretty poor, and his defense in the middle infield caused plenty of problems alongside his lack of offense. In bringing in Chase Headley and Drew, the Yankees have done a nice job in making their pitchers' lives a little easier when inducing ground balls. That, alone, is a nice upgrade.

It's possible that this is the end of Roberts' career unless some team wants to take a chance on him. The former Oriole was remarkably healthy, considering his reputation, this season, having spent no time on the DL and playing more games already than he had in recent memory. Thanks for the homer against the Angels, Brian. We'll always have that.