The New York Yankees’ search for an additional right-handed bat before Opening Day has been repeatedly telegraphed in recent weeks. In fact, team brass went as far as not to inform spring standout/likely Opening Day DH Ben Rice that he’d made the roster prior to Tuesday’s final exhibition game, playing coy about potential bench plans until the finish line arrived.
Yes, Rice will travel north with team; he was given the good news before the plane left Miami. But Oswald Peraza might not be so lucky, given Pablo Reyes’ surge up the depth chart and the Yankees’ admitted desperation to find a veteran righty they can trust.
Mark Canha, who seemed destined to be squeezed off the Brewers after a tough spring, felt like a perfect reliably veteran option who could fill multiple positions with more pop and on-base propensity than Peraza. Last season, the 35-year-old Canha posted a 97 OPS+ for the Tigers before being dealt to the Giants, where he hit .288 with a 107 mark in a small sample size. All Canha does, even as he ages, is hit solidly, if unspectacularly, and walk regularly. He hasn’t had a full season with a below league-average OPS+ since 2017.
According to Joel Sherman, the Yankees were involved on Canha before the Kansas City Royals ultimately managed to make the Brewers’ roster decision easier by trading cash for him. It’s hard to understand how the Yankees could “try” to obtain Canha and not manage to do so, given the lack of bidding war and the Brewers’ clogged roster. Maybe the Yankees couldn’t guarantee Canha the playing time he desired, but why would player preference be involved in these types of trade talks?
Regardless, whether we can classify this as “trying” or not, the Royals came out victorious, and the Yankees’ search for a right-handed supplement will continue, through tomorrow and all first half long.
The Yankees tried to acquire Mark Canha per Joel Sherman.
— Darius Glover (@GloverDarius) March 25, 2025
Yankees “tried” to trade for Brewers’ Mark Canha before KC Royals acquired him
Canha is a good, solid player who costs very little at this stage of his career, and might be aging out of effectiveness. The verbiage here is the issue. It’s really tough to believe the Yankees could’ve “tried” to make a low-impact move like this and failed. Either they weren’t sold on the addition and got jumped in line, or they never came to the table in the first place.
Regardless, Canha isn’t an All-Star, but he would’ve balanced out the Yankees beautifully. Try harder next time?
