What Would You Give Up For Mason Miller?

By EJ Fagan

July 2026

***

The following post comes from EJ Fagan's Substack, Baseball Is Life. It is shared with permission.

***

The Yankees “love the idea of adding Mason Miller” according to Jon Heyman. It’s your call about how much you buy into that as a rumor. Let’s discuss it anyway.

Miller is pretty darn amazing:

That’s a lot of 100th percentiles! Miller is undoubtedly the best relief pitcher in the world. He’s under team control for three and a half years. He’s eventually going to get expensive in arbitration, but for now he costs nothing. Of course the Yankees would love to add him.

But at what cost? The Padres acquired Miller last year for Leo De Vries, the #12 prospect on Baseball America’s list, Henry Baez, a legitimate mid-minors pitching prospect and two lottery tickets. I can’t imagine that he would be much cheaper in a trade this year.

The Yankees only real equivalent to De Vries is George Lombard Jr. Would they really trade Lombard for a relief pitcher? I’m skeptical. Very skeptical. The Yankees are apparently already talking about promoting Lombard in a few weeks.

The Yankees need some stability in the infield way more than they need a closer. David Bednar has been right up there with Miller over the last few months. Even with his early season struggles, his overall profile on the season has been elite:

Would it be nice to push Bednar down a bit in the bullpen pecking order? Of course. But not before fixing the Yankees bigger problems first, nor is he worth sacrificing their only real hitting prospect.

So what’s going on with this rumor? I guess I could see a trade package centered around the Yankees second tier group of Elmer Rodriguez, Carlos Lagrange, Ben Hess, Henry Lalane, Dax Kilby, Spencer Jones, Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, etc. But the Padres surely could get more than that for Miller. Every team in baseball would love to make him their closer.

Maybe there’s a world where the Yankees get a cheaper price on Miller in return taking on one of the many terrible contracts on the Padres books. I can’t imagine that the Yankees would want anything to do with the worst contracts in baseball given to Manny Machado or Xander Boegarts. Fernando Tatis Jr. is interesting given how backloaded the contract is, but I have trouble seeing the Padres trading him. Maybe the Padres want to dump Nick Pivetta’s contract?

My bottom line here: Mason Miller makes no sense to me unless the Padres really want a bank shot. But on the other hand, Ryan Jeffers has returned from the injured list.