For what its worth, Heredia has a $400,000 buyout in his contract for next year, which is why the Reds were willing to let him go for nothing. He’ll only get $100,000 for the next month, but the Yankees will end up paying him $500,00 for his time served.
Is Heredia useful? Maybe. But who does he replace? Mateo and Soriano are the only two with options left, and they’re better than Heredia. Sasaki, Benitez, Rhodes, and Hasegawa aren’t going anywhere. You could go to 12 pitchers, but the bench is already too thin. When the playoffs roll around (if we get there), you’re booting Franklin from the rotation anyways, giving us 7 relievers as is. So, Heredia would have been the 7th arm out of the pen for a month and the 8th arm out of the pen in the playoffs. Not exactly the kind of return you hope for for a half million bucks.
In case you missed it, the New York Yankees picked up lefty reliever Felix Heredia on waivers from the Reds. The Yankees have the best record in the AL, meaning every other AL team — including your Seattle Mariners — had a chance to claim Heredia before they did. Heredia isn’t the greatest left-hander ever, but he has held left-handed batters to a .276 OBP this season and is allowing just over 1.2 baserunners per inning (again, not great but not bad either).
Isn’t there a certain baseball team in the Pacific Northwest that’s been needing a lefty reliever for the past two seasons? Heredia’s certainly better than the guys the M’s have tried recently: Doug Creek, Matt White, Steve Kent, etc. And they could have had him for free. Was salary a concern? Perhaps, but it shouldn’t have been. Heredia makes $600,000 this season, meaning the money he’s owed the rest of the way is roughly $125,000.
Asleep at the switch again, Mr. Gillick? Or perhaps just catching a commuter flight back from Toronto…