Yankees Potential Trade Target: Ryan Brasier
Yesterday at 10:00 AM
The Dodgers have a logjam in their bullpen. Could the veteran righty be a fit for the Yankees?
In case you didn't hear, the Dodgers signed Blake Snell. They also signed Roki Sasaki, not to mention Teoscar Hernández, Hyeseong Kim, and now Tanner Scott and reportedly Kirby Yates. They also acquired Michael Kopech at the Trade Deadline and re-signed Blake Treinen. It's clear the Dodgers will need to make some room on their 40-man roster, and that's even before considering the returns of guys like Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin from injury. Plus, LA is likely to utilize a six-man rotation with Shohei Ohtani set to return to the mound in 2025 post-elbow surgery alongside Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who are both accustomed to longer rest.
Apparently, Ryan Brasier will be the odd man out as LA is apparently trying to trade the veteran righty. Yankee fans will remember Brasier from as far back as his stint with the 2018 champion Red Sox. He had seasons ranging from good to awful during his time in Boston, culminating in a midseason trade in 2023 that sent him to the Dodgers. He has enjoyed a nice bounce-back in Dodger blue, pitching to a 0.70 ERA in 38.2 innings in 2023 and a 3.54 ERA in 28 innings in 2024 (though he stumbled in the postseason).
Brasier has a somewhat interesting pitch mix for a reliever, relying primarily on a slider and four-seamer but mixing in a sinker and cutter quite a bit. He really excels at limiting walks, issuing free passes just 4.5 percent of the time last year. In the second half of 2023 with the Dodgers, he held batters to just a .198 OBP., and he garnered a decent whiff rate last year at 34.8 percent in 28 innings.
Brasier is a pitcher susceptible to platoon splits. Righties struggle mightily against him, slashing .128/.173/.298 against Brasier in 2024. Lefties, however, smacked him around, hitting .296/.316/.444. When he gets hit, he gets hit hard—his average exit velocity of 90.7 mph is alarmingly high. That may be due to his slider losing some vertical drop from 2023, where it dropped two inches more than average. That dip in production was also reflected in his the pitch's run value going from 5 in 2023 to -8 in 2024. Such a precipitous decline lends itself to speculation that it is related to the three months that Brasier missed with a calf strain. Overall, he performed well as a Dodger and was only pushed to lower-leverage innings due to an embarrassment of riches in LA. Maybe another team thinks they can tap into his slider once more.
Brasier wouldn't cost much in a transaction given his age and the position the Dodgers find themselves in given their roster construction. The Yankees had interest in acquiring him as recently as last offseason. Brasier is far from best choice to bolster the bullpen, however, and even his modest contract will still keep the Yankees above the luxury tax threshold that they are trying to put themselves under. If the team is going to pick up a reliever for around $4.5 million plus the 90 percent luxury tax (before they trade Marcus Stroman, at least), why not re-sign Tim Hill?
To be clear, wouldn't be an incredibly exciting move, if not only for the optics of rehoming the scraps of LA's roster. Still, the Yankees and Dodgers have swapped pitching projects in the past couple of years—namely Andrew Heaney, who signed with LA after his ill-fated Yankees tenure in 2021, former Dodgers prospect Clayton Beeter, and 2023 Dodgers-turned-2024 Yankees Victor González and Caleb Ferguson. If the Yankees' pitching lab sees something they think they can tap into with Brasier, don't be surprised if he winds up in the Bronx this year.
