Nova on the trading block?

Normally I do not pay attention to rumors during the off season. In many cases the New York Yankees are linked to every possible big name player. And in 99% of the cases the rumors appear to be BS.

Also the rumors about Brett Gardner and Andrew Miller being trading candidates, do not get me excited. I look at it this way: First see what happens. I only am interested if the news is published about a player that has been traded.

Actually I look at it the same way with the “news” about the Yankees putting Ivan Nova into the shopping window. But in his case it is a little bit different.

Nova will be a free agent after the 2016 season and if the Yankees want something in return for him, they must trade him before his contract expires. So in a certain way this rumor makes sense. But… Nova’s rebound from Tommy John surgery eventually wasn’t quite successful. In the first few starts after being activated, he was very effective as he limited his opponents to only two runs in five of his first seven starts. But after August 8, he slowed down and ended the season with an ERA of 5.07 and a 6-11 record. His demise was even this bad that the Yankees wanted to remove him from the rotation but due to an injury of Masahiro Tanaka, he was kept in it.

Nova’s best season was 2013 when he won nine games and lost six and posted a 3.10 ERA.

If there is any team that is interested to trade for Nova in the off season, this team is taking a risk. It remains to be seen how Nova will recover from his downfall in the next season. Perhaps teams will not be prepared to send any high profile player to the Yankees in exchange.

The question remains if this is just another BS rumor or that it is true that Nova is on the trading block. But since the New York Post spread the news, I tend to say that the rumor probably won’t be true.