Not Getting Washburn Turned Out Well For Yankees

As I said in looking back at the non-trade of Melky Cabrera for Mike Cameron, sometimes the best trades are the ones not made. And when they're not, they're certainly fun to analyze and look back on. One trade the Yankees should be thankful that was not made last year was the acquisition of Jarrod Washburn.

As Jon Heyman wrote at the time, this was a strict "salary dump" situation, where the Yankees would take on the rest of Washburn's salary, which included $10.35 million for 2009. Other versions of the deal included Kei Igawa on the Yankees side and Jose Vidro on the Seattle Mariners. When Washburn pitched well in July (2.67 ERA and 1.158 WHIP), Seattle balked and asked the Yankees to include a good prospect in the deal as well. Unwilling to eat the salary and give up a prospect, the deal with kaput. It looked at the time like the Mariners had made a bad decision: they weren't expected to contend this year and they could have used the salary relief.

Well, according to Baseball-Reference, Washburn went 0-5 in August with a 5.45 ERA, with a WHIP of 1.529 and a 20/15 K/BB ratio (which looked good compared to how he pitched in May with an OPS against of .975). In September/October of last year he pitched one inning.

This year he's returned somewhat to form (3.45 ERA, 1.203 WHIP), but his team is currently 6 games out of first in the AL West and one of the worst teams in the American League. Furthermore, The News Tribune reports that Washburn is back on the free agent market.

What makes this even sweeter for the Yankees is that they figured that instead of bringing Pettitte back for $16 million, they'd pay $10.35 million for Washburn for 2009 (and maybe more if he demanded extra incentive to waive his no-trade clause). Well, the market went south and the Yankees ended up bringing back Pettitte for $5.5 million. So in the end, the Yankees made out pretty well while the Mariners are still trying to get rid of Washburn.