PHILADELPHIA – Speaking to reporters for the first time since the trade deadline, Brian Cashman said that the Yankees’ failure to acquire Jack Flaherty from the Tigers came down to cost.
“I think Jack Flaherty’s an exceptional starter and I had difficulty matching up with the Tigers on Jack Flaherty,” the general manager said Wednesday. “I certainly would love to have him as a choice for us, as well as anybody else that could potentially be an upgrade on our rotation.”
The Tigers ultimately traded Flaherty, the best starter dealt before the deadline, to the Dodgers. Los Angeles traded former Yankees prospect Trey Sweeney and Thayron Liranzo to Detroit.
Asked specifically if the Yankees had any concerns over Flaherty’s medicals, Cashman reiterated his previous comments.
“I had trouble matching up,” he said. “I tried to import him and I had trouble matching up on the values.”
On Tuesday night, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Yankees backed out of a deal for Flaherty due to medical concerns. The issue pertained to the right-hander’s lower back, which forced him to miss a start earlier this month.
“I can’t comment on medical stuff with trades,” Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said, per The Athletic. “You would have to ask the other teams. Jack is healthy. If we didn’t trade him, he was going to start for us on Thursday.”
Flaherty, in the midst of a resurgent season after battling injuries in previous years, has been sharp since the missed start, recording a 1.53 ERA over 17.2 innings and three games. He has a 2.95 ERA in 18 total starts and could have helped a Yankees rotation that has mostly struggled since June 15.
“Unfortunately, you get a lot of different reports going out there, and at the end of the day, I would have brought Jack Flaherty in if I could have matched up,” said Cashman, who didn’t add any starters. “I had difficulty matching up, and that was the reason I don’t have him. Simple as that.”
Cashman added that the 2022 Frankie Montas trade did not impact how the Yankees review medicals, nor did it make them “gun shy.” Montas struggled with shoulder issues before and after leaving Oakland that season, but Cashman said his medicals came back clean at the time of the trade.
“It was just unfortunate circumstances,” the GM said.
With that in mind, Cashman was asked if he had a chance to match the Dodgers’ offer for Flaherty. He declined to get into specifics – it’s unclear what the Yankees offered – but he said he was talking to the Tigers and in it “all the way to the end.”
“In the end, we failed because we couldn’t match up on value,” Cashman repeated. “That’s all.”
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