There is no price that feels right to acquire four seasons of Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, but that hasn't stopped the New York Yankees from sniffing around. As MLB insider Jon Heyman noted this week, the Pirates' reticence to deal scared off almost everybody from even the "exploratory phone call stage." Brian Cashman was not among the terrified.
According to recent reporting from Jon Heyman, digging up some post-trade deadline dirt one month later, the Yankees called the Pirates about Skenes this summer, despite being rebuffed. A handful of teams tried anyway, and the Yankees attempted to center their initial offer around both George Lombard Jr.