Eugenio Suárez sure would be a nice pickup for the New York Yankees.
Third base is the Yankees' biggest need, and Suárez leads all third basemen this season with 29 home runs. He's also got an OPS of .873, which would instantly make him the Yankees' second-most productive hitter this season behind Aaron Judge.
The Yankees even saw with their own two eyes how much of a game-changer Suárez can be. Back in April, he hit an eighth-inning grand slam at Yankee Stadium that flipped a 4-3 deficit into a 7-5 Diamondbacks win.
So it's easy to see why the Yankees would want Suárez, and if the Diamondbacks are selling, several other teams would want him to, despite the fact that he's scheduled to hit free agency after the season.
However, as Max Goodman of NJ Advance Media reported on Friday, the package the Diamondbacks seem to be looking for in a potential Suárez trade is quite steep.
"One person with knowledge of the Diamondbacks’ deadline strategy told NJ Advance Media that Arizona would covet a top-ranked prospect like right-hander Cam Schlittler or outfielder Spencer Jones in a potential Suárez swap," Goodman wrote.
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"Yankees catching prospect Rafael Flores and hard-throwing right-hander Carlos Lagrange could be enticing for the Diamondbacks as well. Both Flores and Lagrange are currently in Double-A Somerset and both are considered top-10 prospects in the Yankees’ system by Baseball America. At that point, particularly with Flores, the Yankees would likely need to include a secondary prospect piece to sweeten the deal to Arizona’s liking."
Jones is currently the number-two prospect in the system according to MLB Pipeline, while Schlittler ranks 10th. Those rankings aren't particularly up to date, though, and both players have been raising their stocks with big performances lately, as Schlittler made his major league debut on Wednesday and Jones recently earned a promotion to Triple-A.
Lagrange, 22, has been striking out the world recently, so it's easy to see how his stock is getting closer to that of Jones and Schlittler.
The Yankees will have to get uncomfortable if they want Suárez, which for all intents and purposes, seems like a worthy objective.
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