Yankees rumors: No interest in Brett Gardner, price too high for Brian McCann, and more

Despite the fact that the trade deadline has come and gone, the Yankees still have a number of rumors surrounding their rebuilding team. New York placed Brian McCann on waivers, which he cleared, and can now trade him if they choose. McCann has drawn the most interest from his old team, the Atlanta Braves.

According to Jon Heyman, the Braves would be willing to take on half of McCann’s remaining salary in a trade. However, the Yankees are interested in getting Mike Foltynewicz and Ender Inciarte in the deal. Atlanta prefers to take on more salary instead of giving up better players, so that idea was shot down.

New York was also listening to offers for Brett Gardner, but found no real interest in the outfielder. The Yankees are stocked with outfielders who will need big league playing time in the near future. Aaron Judge looks poised to take over right field regularly, but clearing out one of Gardner or Jacoby Ellsbury also seems necessary to make room for the likes of Clint Frazier before too long.

A scout told Heyman that the lack of interest in Gardner is related to him “playing nervous” in an attempt to not injure himself like in seasons past. That could be a reason why Gardner has reduced the amount of stealing he does, even to the detriment of his value.

Two teams were said to have asked about CC Sabathia, and both were contenders. Sabathia started the year off strong before fading over the last number of starts. According to Heyman, Yankees people see this interest from other teams as evidence that Sabathia won’t end up shuffled away like Alex Rodriguez.

Jayson Stark writes that the Yankees were basically willing to give Rodriguez away for nothing before coming to the conclusion that they would part ways. New York was willing to eat all of the salary except MLB’s minimum to be rid of Rodriguez, but still no team would bite. Still, more than a couple executives believe that Rodriguez will end up with another team. The Miami Marlins are obviously a popular pick. It seems ambitious to hope a team would take him when they have to pay A-Rod if they wouldn’t accept his services for virtually nothing, but who knows.

Other teams also showed interest in Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi at the trade deadline, but the Yankees didn’t receive a strong enough offer to make them go through with the deal. Heyman writes that they are less likely to clear waivers, which makes a trade less likely. Now than Eovaldi has gotten injured, those odds shrink even more. Pineda has struggled enough that the Yankees couldn’t realistically ask for much, but it sounds like they weren’t at the level of accepting anything with a pulse the way they were with Ivan Nova.