The Yankees after the Trade deadline

Well the trade deadline passed and several players have changed teams. The Dodgers were busy as they picked up Hanley Ramirez from the Marlins, Brandon League from the Mariners and Shane Victorino from the Phillies, all mostly for Salary relief. In response the Giants traded for Hunter Pence, this is the Kind of arms race we used to see in the AL East and its great because the Dodgers/Giants rivalry is probably the best in baseball right now.
The Yankees made their biggest moves before the deadline acquiring Ichiro Suzuki for DJ Mitchell after Gardner was ruled out for the year, It was a great pickup and I talked about it earlier. When ARod went down with a broken hand the Yankees were said to be looking for a third baseman to platoon with Eric Chavez and they did that at the deadline when they traded Chad Qualls to the Pirates for Casey McGehee. The Pirates had been platooning McGehee with Garret Jones at first and after they traded for Gaby Sanchez they did not need him anymore. Its a good pickup and I wonder if Nix or Pena will go down as they do not need Nix to play third anymore and his defense at shortstop isn't very good. Granted the Yankees could also decide to call up Eduardo Nunez to be the backup middle infielder, but we will have to wait and see. The Yankees were also connected to Ryan Dempster for Angelo Gumbs or Dante Bichette Jr, but he ended up going to the Rangers who needed him a lot more.

Corey Wade optioned and Chad Qualls activated

Well it figures that right after I write a post about how good Corey Wade has been and he goes on an epically terrible streak. He raised his ERA three runs and has been completely unusable and they needed to either send him down or DL him. The Yankees traded for Chad Qualls and he will now take Wades spot until Wade can work it out in the minors. I really do not know if this was the best move as Qualls has been pretty bad and I do not know if he will be better than some of pitchers in AAA like Ryoto Igarashi or Manny Delcarmen. Qualls has an ERA of 4.40 for the Phillies this year but he is completely unusable against Lefties this season as they are hitting .377 off him and have an OPS of 1.195 in 60 AB. If Qualls struggles I really hope that they bring up Kevin Whelan who has a 12.9 K/9 ratio right now. I doubt Qualls will be on the team for long as David Aardsma and Joba are on their way back and they will take his place.