The Yankees have acquired left-hander Clayton Andrews from the Brewers in exchange for minor league righty Joshua Quezada, the teams announced Wednesday. New York transferred righty Scott Effross, who’s recovering from December back surgery (that was just announced today), to the 60-day injured list. Milwaukee designated Andrews for assignment last week.
Andrews, 27, made his big league debut with Milwaukee in 2023, though things didn’t go as he’d hoped. He pitched just 3 1/3 innings but was torched for ten earned runs on the strength of three homers in that brief cup of coffee.
Ugly as that tiny sample was, Andrews had much more encouraging results in the minors. He spent the bulk of the 2023 campaign with the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate in Nashville, pitching to a tidy 2.53 ERA in 57 frames out of the bullpen. Andrews fanned a hefty 31.1% of his opponents in Nashville and posted a solid 45.7% grounder rate, but his 13% walk rate was an eyesore that’ll clearly need improvement if he’s to carve out a big league role for himself.
A 17th-round pick by the Brewers back in 2018, Andrews still has a pair of minor league option years remaining, which will give the Yankees some flexible depth in the bullpen. He’s a three-pitch lefty who averaged 94.8 mph on his heater in 2023 and also mixed in a changeup and slider. Andrews’ changeup is considered his best pitch, hence the reverse splits he showed in ’23; righties hit him at just a .215/.312/.349 clip while fellow lefties managed a healthier .233/.337/.438 slash.
As for the Brewers’ end of the swap, they’ll pick up a 19-year-old righty who’s entering just his second professional season. Quezada signed with the Yankees out of Nicaragua during last year’s international amateur free agency period. He spent the season with the Yankees’ short-season affiliate in the Dominican Summer League, where he pitched 46 1/3 innings of 3.69 ERA ball. The 6’2″, 185-pound Quezada fanned exactly one quarter of his opponents and issued walks at a 9.4% clip. Quezada wasn’t one of the team’s high-profile signings on last year’s international market and didn’t rank among the Yankees’ top 30 prospects, but he turned in a nice debut campaign and will give the Brewers a lottery-ticket arm to stash in the lower levels of their system.
Just what we need — a pitcher with a 27.00 ERA last year. Get Snell now!
Dude pitched just over three innings last year and gave up three hrs. Shouldn’t be the biggest cause of outrage, lol.
He’s a 2.50 pitcher in AAA, not so sure how that will translate. Likely a mop up guy unless he proves himself. And if this season is like last season, Yankees are going to need a lot of mop up guys.
Andrews was somehow worse than Krook. That’s crazy.
This was *not* the trade I had in mind when they DFAd Krook.
The Yankees have had such great success picking up scrap heap bullpen arms from all over on the cheap. That pitched badly elsewhere or barely at all and have turned then into useful arms. Please tell us who is responsible for this recent success so I can tell Reds management. It’s not that easy to pitch in Yankee stadium either. Shorter RF dimensions. Spacious CF/LRF area that you need prime Paul Blair to handle that ground.
He’s matt krook but two years younger! Cashman playing 4d chess rn lol.
Lol, Yes, classic Cashman 4d chess. Always a move ahead of the pack! We are soooo lucky to have his genius guiding our team……
Too far clip! Do we just spit on two years of relative youth and an extra option year or two nowadays? Is the smallest of incremental, lateral roster upgrades not still an upgrade? We mortals cannot presume to understand the galaxy brain at work here! For shame lol
This was not the trade you were looking for?
Jedi mind trick?
I tried, Reds, but I must’ve caused a disturbance in the force….
I was looking for the obvious one: Matt Krook for Dylan Cease in a one-for-one swap!
It was as if a million journeyman relievers cried out in fear and then silence.
Haha! You had me at “lateral roster upgrade”
Classic!
I am assuming they see something in his technical approach or peripherals that the Yankees training staff believe they can adjust and retrain into an effective sub-5 ERA reliever.
Really liked Andrew’s as a fringe prospect. Throws reasonably hard for 5’6” or so, supposed to have a plus changeup, plays a strong defensive CF, and hits for solid contact. Given the universal DH, his defense and offense lost the versatility that would’ve benefited a National League team prior. But a creative team might figure out a way to use him as a reliever, pinch runner, etc..
Projected by FG DC for a 4.43 FIP in 2024
I maintain this one piece of information conveys more information about Andrews” performance than everything you’ve written in the article.
I understand you have to cater to rationally illiterate fans, though.
Bud flipped me off once coming out of Gilles. He couldn’t decide which lane he wanted to be in so I gave him a friendly honk. He gave me a friendly one finger salute back.
ARC
Why you responded to me with this, I have no idea
Brewers so deep in pitching that they can afford to take a Yankee prospect. Somewhere Bud Selig is smiling while eating lunch at A custard joint
Yankees now have Clayton Andrews and Clayton Beeter.
Maybe just a small case of Clayton “K” envy of the Dodgers?
Clayton Richard next.
Or Clayton Bigsby…
Blind dudes can pitch baseballs now? What a time to be alive…
Dodgers also have coach Clayton McCullough
That 2.85 ERA in AAA talent is somewhere in there. NY will harness it as they always do.
I hate to say it but the Brewers tend to harness the majority of the bullpen arms they have. From cast-offs, homegrown talents, etc. This guy was awful in his small sample size. Much like Ethan Small it was truly consistently bad location from an average stuff pitcher. Were not talking missing spots by a hair, were talking absolute meatballs pitch after pitch. If the Yankees are able to harness anything good for them but this guy is a likely lost cause. Confidence shot early with average stuff rarely ends up well.
TGH
Whom to trust
The major league front office or the random internet commenter
Tough to say
I would trust the brewers front office a lot more than the Yankees, when it comes to pitching evaluation. Its not the Yankees have been developing a ton of pitching talent over the past decade+. Meanwhile the Brewers are making cast-off after cast-off into elite BP arms. If he isnt good enough for Milwaukee you can safely assume its a lost cause. The brewers turned cast off Hoby Milner into, statistically, the best Left handed relief pitcher in the NL not named Hader. And not a single Yankees fan has any clue who this great pitcher is.
And I am by no means saying the Yankees haven’t had some success developing cast offs or homegrown talent but not remotely close to the brewers. The brewers have been doing it for years. The only way they can contend. Can’t imagine if they had an extra 100 to 120 million to spend. They certainly wouldn’t be fighting for the wild card, missing out on most big name free agents, and forcing to try to buy pitching to make it work.
Are you the Brewers GM? Or his wife?
Apparently the random internet commenter. Andrews is junk.
You concluded all of that from his whopping 3.1 IP body of work on his major league debut?
How can you pitch 3 and 1/3 innings and have a WAR of -0.8? That’s like -350 if he pitched every inning for a full season!
It was a ROUGH 3 1/3…
As a Brewer fan, I would have settled for a bag of balls. Andrews is utterly terrible.
Joir
“As a Brewer fan, I would have settled for a bag of balls. ”
A reason you’re a fan and not in the front offics.
He was 6-0 in the minors with 5 saves, 74 Ks in 59 IP with a 2.53 ERA. He got shelled in 3.1 innings in his major league stint. Usually I hear” it was a small sample”. I remember the 2007 Brewers gave up on Grant Balfour after he gave up 6 runs in 2 innings in 2007. Next year he was 1.54 ERA with Tampa Bay Rays and 12 saves as a setup man.
That Balfour deal was mutually beneficial. As great as CC was down the stretch in 2008 the brewers needed what McClung offered in a swing role when injuries hit. Much like most rays/brewers deal it was a win/win. Balfour netted what the brewers needed at the time. They certainly didn’t give up on Balfour like they did Andrews (though the crew loves the low ball fliers. Last one that truly worked out was Freddy peralta in the Adam Lind deal)
I saw him pitch several times, did you?
Well you got a quesadilla instead.
One team, the Yankees, building arm depth for 2024. Another team, the Brewers building arm depth for their next contention window in 2028.
He throws batting practice. George continues to spin faster and faster
One of several horrible trades Cashman has done recently. Definitely near the top with Montas and Gallo
They will DFA him by 11pm tonight…Book it!
Wrong… try again.
Adams’ writing continues to be ugly. “Ugly as that tiny sample was” is NOT PROPER ENGLISH. You can just leave “as” out at the beginning of the sentence. Grammar isn’t optional.