The Yankees prioritized getting on the board rather than hitting a home run at third base. They really liked Eugenio Suárez, but felt Arizona had a strong group of contenders vying for the slugger, perhaps led by the Cubs.
That convinced the Yankees that there would be a waiting period, through the weekend at least, as even after trading first baseman Josh Naylor to the Mariners, the Diamondbacks wanted to use more time to learn if they had a last-ditch chance to get into the wild-card race. And then with multiple teams on Suárez, the bidding could go back and forth all the way to Thursday’s trade deadline. That would guarantee a rise to a prospect cost that the Yankees did not want to expend on a walk-year player, as brilliant as Suárez’s power has been since last year’s All-Star break. And there was a fear of waiting until the deadline and not getting Suárez … and then what?
The Yankees wanted to hold onto better prospects because internally they see pitching as a bigger priority than third base. That is how they ended up on Friday dealing two lower-level pitching prospects — lefty Griffin Herring and righty Josh Grosz — to the Rockies for Ryan McMahon. They are seeing it as an upgrade at third base — almost anything would have to be — while staying flexible to add elsewhere.
It is even still possible that the Yankees add another position player — someone such as Minnesota switch-hitter Willi Castro or Washington’s righty-swinging Amed Rosario — as they search for batters who do well against lefties (as McMahon makes the daily lineup even more left-handed) and have positional maneuverability. But the main area of fixation now is to improve the pitching.