The Trade Deadline Plays Out In Real Time As Yankees And Rays Work Around A Rain Delay

Forbes

5 days ago

The Yankees and Rays took two hours, 26 minutes to complete a game on Thursday afternoon game, which is hardly unique given the implementation of the pitch clock.
The most unique feature of the final meeting between the AL East foes in New York was the game coinciding with the frenzied action of the trade deadline, known for things like hug watch and the refreshing of social media.
In recent years the action around this time is seemingly intensified with way more deals than a decade ago and in an ideal world for the Yankees and Rays, the brisk pace would have ended the game with about two and a half hours to go before 'pencils down' at the end of the deadline.
Except the game was played with a threat of rain that came to fruition about an hour into it. The rain was slow like the trickle of news about who the Yankees were getting but the rain intensified to the point where the teams could not continue, resulting in a two hour, 45 minute rain delay of idle players hanging out in clubhouses, possibly (likely) reading the same social media as anyone else connected to the sport.
At 2:40 pm, the game went into a delay. Five minutes later, word spread on social media about the Yankees acquiring David Bednar from the Pittsburgh Pirates, making it the 20th trade of any kind between the teams since Brian Cashman became the general manager in 1998.
At the sixty-five minute mark of the delay, word spread on social media about the Yankees acquiring another reliever. This time it was Jake Bird from the Colorado Rockies, who were in Baltimore last Friday when Ryan McMahon became a Yankees.
Then at the 84-minute mark of the delay, word circulated about Carlos Correa going back to the Houston Astros as part of a surreal deadline by the Minnesota Twins, who traded 10 players ahead of the deadline.
The most unique aspect of Thursday occurred about 27 minutes after the game resumed when word circulated Jose Caballero was traded to the Yankees by the Rays. Nine minutes later, television cameras saw the evidence Caballero was indeed traded by panning to the dugout and seeing him exchange hugs with numerous teammates, manager Kevin Cash and coaches before taking the short walk to clear his locker and move over the first base side of Yankee Stadium.
Then was the sight of Cash coming out to talk to plate umpire Chad Whitson before the playing of 'God Bless America'. It was nothing like Jim Leyland starting an argument, pausing it and then getting kicked out in 2006 while managing Detroit to an eventual AL pennant.
This was merely Cash walking out with a lineup card explaining how Caballero no longer was in the game because he was getting traded. And this was a game Caballero played about two innings since he entered as a defensive replacement after first baseman Jonathan Aranda injured his left wrist in a collision with Giancarlo Stanton
As the scene was playing out on TV, word trickled out about the Yankees getting another reliever from the National League by acquiring Camilo Doval from the San Francisco Giants. And because of fortuitous scheduling, he was already in New York since he flew with the Giants from San Francisco and was gearing up to contribute to a three-game series with the Mets, who obtained Tyler Rogers from the Giants Wednesday.
Shortly after the Yankees wrapped up a game where virtually nothing of note occurred on the field after the delay, Cashman began his teleconference by reciting the names of the players acquired before talking about the deadline for about 15 minutes. Then Aaron Boone spoke and noted how he just talked to Caballero before heading to the podium.
'I just saw Caballero in the clubhouse, so that was a little odd,' Boone said afterward. 'I saw him actually hugging people in the eighth.'
The scenes playing out after Cashman spoke included Brandon Lowe and other members of the Rays expressing gratitude they did not move while noting the uniqueness of the Caballero situation.
'It's definitely weird, but you've seen it on TV multiple times of people saying goodbye in the middle of the game in these situations,' Lowe said. 'It was a little weird to see it happen, but you just kind of put all the pieces together and figure it out for ourselves.'
Just like the Rays did on Monday night when Danny Jansen was pulled from the lineup 45 minutes before first pitch but stayed on the roster because the Rays needed a catcher before he could get to the Milwaukee Brewers.
'A unique week,' Cash said before Caballero joked about the trade by saying:
'I was winning today regardless. We won the game I guess. That's what I feel right now.'
And this was said by Caballero hours after he woke up in a Manhattan hotel room as a member of the Rays and before he boarded a flight to Miami with the Yankees.