Report: San Francisco Giants Trade Andrew McCutchen to Yankees

Just because the non-waiver deadline is up doesn’t mean that the waiver deadline can’t be any more entertaining. The San Francisco Giants are on the verge of trading Andrew McCutchen to the New York Yankees.

The San Francisco Giants traded for Andrew McCutchen in the 2018 offseason with hopes that adding the former MVP’s bat to the outfield would help their offensive woes. It did, but not enough to vault them into the postseason. With the Giants’ fate wrapped up in 2018, they’ll send one month of Andrew McCutchen to the Yankees for a couple prospects.

In the later hours of Thursday night, Joel Sherman broke news that the Giants and Yankees were involved in advanced discussions over McCutchen.

NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic later confirmed the report saying that the deal was unofficially done.

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The Yankees want outfield depth, and boy did they get it. McCutchen may not have been able to replicate his MVP numbers of the past, but playing in a much smaller yard will certainly help his stats. He’s hitting the ball harder than he has in his career, and a small yard should play to that.

The Giants clearly know they’re out of it, and the ability to shed his salary from their books in 2018 will allow them to call up stud prospects like Chris Shaw. They also got a couple of Yankee prospects in return.

One of them is Abital Avelino. Avelino is a weirdly toolsy prospect that can play anywhere in the infield. He has a plus plus arm and a good contact bat. But he has virtually no power and has really stalled out at the higher levels.

He might excel in a change of scenery, and there was no way he was breaking into that Yankees infield without having that power tool. His ceiling? I’ll say he can end up being better than Arias, but don’t expect him to be much better. That’s the type of player I envision him being for the Giants.

The other prospect is yet to be known, but we promise we’ll update with our thoughts when we find out.