Why Yankees jumped on Ryan McMahon trade — and gave up on Eugenio Suarez

The Yankees prioritized getting on the board rather than hitting a home run at third base. They really liked Eugenio Suarez, but felt Arizona had a strong group of contenders vying for the slugger, perhaps led by the Cubs.

That convinced the Yankees that there would be a waiting period, through the weekend at least, as even after trading first baseman Josh Naylor to the Mariners, the Diamondbacks wanted to use more time to learn if they had a last-ditch chance to get into the wild card race. And then with multiple teams on Suarez, the bidding could go back and forth all the way to Thursday’s trade deadline. That would guarantee a rise to a prospect cost that the Yankees did not want to expend on a walk-year player, as brilliant as Suarez’s power has been since last year’s All-Star break. And there was a fear of waiting until the deadline and not getting Suarez … and then what?

The Yankees wanted to hold onto better prospects because internally they see pitching as a bigger priority than third base. That is how they ended up on Friday dealing two lower-level pitching prospects – lefty Griffin Herring and righty Josh Grosz – to the Rockies for Ryan McMahon. They are seeing it as an upgrade at third base – almost anything would have to be – while staying flexible to add elsewhere.

It is even still possible that the Yankees add another position player – someone such as Minnesota switch-hitter Willi Castro or Washington’s righty-swinging Amed Rosario – as they search for batters who do well against lefties (as McMahon makes the daily lineup even more left-handed) and have positional maneuverability. But the main area of fixation now is to improve the pitching.