10:10 p.m.: The Yankees have announced the trade.
9:52 p.m.: In return, Kansas City is acquiring pitching prospects TJ Sikkema, Chandler Champlain and Beck Way, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post ( Twitter link ).
9:45 p.m.: The Royals will acquire three minor leaguers in exchange, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports (on Twitter).
9:38 p.m.: The Yankees are set to acquire outfielder Andrew Benintendi from the Royals, YES Network’s Jack Curry reports ( Twitter link ). New York has been looking for an outfield upgrade in recent weeks, and they’ll fill the void by landing one of the top rental bats on the market.
Benintendi has been one of the most obvious trade candidates in the game in recent months. The Royals entered 2022 with designs on contending, but stumbled to a 16-32 mark through the end of May. That made Kansas City an obvious deadline seller and an impending free agent like Benintendi a strong candidate to switch uniforms.
New York adds a contact-oriented bat to its pitching mix. Benintendi is slashing .321/.389/.399 on the year, walking a hefty 10.1% while striking out just 13.5% of his trips to the plate. He’s only hit three home runs, but Benintendi leads the majors with 91 singles and 14 doubles. He hasn’t looked like the 15-20 hitter he was during his first few seasons with the Red Sox, but he has made contact on a strong 82.6% of his swings.
Benintendi’s production has been backed by a career-high .368 batting average on balls in play. As a line-hitter who uses the entire field, he typically produces solid numbers on batted balls, though it’s unlikely the Yankees anticipate his 2022 mark to stay that high. Even if his BABIP regresses closer to his career mark of .325, his plate discipline and bat control should support a solid on-base percentage.
Those more bat-to-ball skills contrast Benintendi starkly with the player he will likely displace from the lineup, Joey Gallo. Gallo, New York’s biggest deadline pickup last summer, has struggled mightily since landing in the Bronx. He’s a .160/.293/.371 hitter in 498 plate appearances as a Yankee, hitting a whopping 38.4% during that stretch. Among hitters with more than 200 plate appearances this season, Gallo has the third-highest strikeout rate (38.1%) and the third-lowest contact rate on swings (62.2%).
The Yankees are now poised to field a field of Benintendi, MVP candidate Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks, who owns a massive .333/.471/.593 line this month after a slow start to the season, most of days Giancarlo Stanton is the designated hitter, although he went on the disabled list yesterday. New York has already begun to reduce Gallo’s playing time while working the hard-hitting Matt Carpenter into the corner outfield mix, and tonight’s acquisition is the firmest sign yet that the Yankees are ready to move Gallo of the mixture completely. It stands to reason that they will try to find a buyer for him in a trade before next Tuesday’s deadline.
Judge has adequately handled a move from right field to center this year, leaving Hicks and Benintendi to the corners. The latter has played left field exclusively since landing in Kansas City’s expansive home ballpark, ranking well in both Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating eyes. Statcast’s above-average outings have exactly graded him as a scratch defender in each of the last two years. He should add an adequate above-average glove in the field while providing a marked improvement over Gallo’s recent work at the plate. It will be a remarkable boost for a lineup that already led the majors with 523 runs scored.
That the Yankees pulled the trigger on a deal with Benintendi is sure to raise a few eyebrows for an off-the-field reason. He was placed on the restricted list before the Royals’ recent series in Toronto, indicating he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 at the time. That makes him unavailable for series in Toronto, barring a change in his vaccination status or the lifting of the current ban on unvaccinated athletes crossing the border. Reports surfaced soon after that the Yankees might be deterred from pursuing him because of concerns about his availability for games in Toronto.
This obviously proved not to be the case in the end. Jon Heyman of the New York Post and Andy Martino of SNY suggest (Twitter links) that some close to Benintendi believe he is now willing to get vaccinated. Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark of The Athletic report that Benintendi’s vaccination status did not come up in talks between the Yankees and Royals ( Twitter link ). It’s unclear if that’s because they anticipate he’ll eventually be eligible to play in Toronto, or if they’ve just decided to accept his possible absence for a few games.
The Yankees, who ironically open a four-game series against the Royals tomorrow, have just three regular season games left in Toronto. With an 11 1/2 game cushion over the Jays in the AL East, a three-game absence, if it comes to that, seems unlikely to have much of an effect on the regular season standings , although it might be relevant in the event. the Yankees and Jays meet again in the playoffs.
More to come.