NEW YORK — Two familiar names slid onto the waiver wire in the final days of August, and both fit the profile of a bat a contender might chase.
One was a slugger with a long track record of power. The other was a former All-Star center fielder with speed and a swing that had started to wake up. Each could have helped a lineup building toward October.
Neither ended up in the Bronx.
It is tempting to file both outcomes under the same heading. Two available bats, two players the Yankees did not add, one shrug from a front office that had already made its big moves. That framing misses the point.
The two cases are barely related. One was a clear decision the Yankees made and can be judged on. The other was a decision they may never have been allowed to make at all.
The Yankees entered September at 79-60, four games clear of Boston for the American League’s top wild-card spot heading into Wednesday’s series finale against the Angels. In a race that tight, every roster call gets a second look. And the one that could sting longest has nothing to do with a pass.
Suarez decision a real pass and Yankees were not alone
Cincinnati placed Eugenio Suarez on outright waivers in late August, opening a 48-hour window for the other 29 clubs to claim him and take on the rest of his contract. Every one of them, the Yankees included, let it close.
Suarez cleared waivers and stayed with the Reds. That confirms what the Yankees had in front of them. They could have claimed a right-handed power bat almost for free, and chose not to.
The math was not hidden. The 35-year-old was hitting .208 with a .705 OPS, 19 home runs and 57 RBIs. He was on a one-year, $15 million deal, and a claiming team would have owed less than $3 million on the remaining salary. His bat had shown a pulse, too, with an .798 OPS and 11 home runs across a recent 42-game stretch.
For the Yankees, the fit had thinned out. Ryan McMahon came off the injured list Tuesday and stepped right back in at third base. Jazz Chisholm Jr. is locked into the infield. Ben Rice and others give Aaron Boone choices at designated hitter.
Suarez would not have walked into everyday at-bats. The Yankees would have been paying several million dollars for a bat with a shrinking role. That 29 other clubs reached the same conclusion suggests the pass was defensible, not careless.
Robert never cleared and that changes question completely
Luis Robert Jr. cannot be graded the same way, because Robert never reached the Yankees at all.
The Mets put Robert on outright waivers over the weekend. Baltimore claimed him Monday, one day before the deadline for a player to be in an organization and stay postseason eligible. The Orioles took on close to $5 million, including roughly $3 million left on this season and a $2 million buyout on his $20 million club option for 2027.
Robert, 29, was hitting .223 with 10 home runs, 23 RBIs and a .702 OPS in 58 games, numbers dragged down by a lumbar spine disc herniation that cost him nearly three months. The recent version looked different. He hit .288 with six home runs and a .922 OPS over his final 21 games before the claim.
Here is the piece that separates the two cases. When more than one team claims a player on outright waivers, the claim goes to the club with the lowest winning percentage. Baltimore sat at 68-69, below the Yankees in the standings and therefore ahead of them in the waiver order.
So even if the Yankees wanted Robert, and even if they filed a claim, the Orioles’ worse record would have won him anyway.
Waiver claims are confidential. There is no public list of every team that tried and failed to land Robert. Boone, speaking Monday in Anaheim, was focused on a different roster question entirely, the return of his injured captain, when he described where things stood.
“I think it’s possible,” Boone said of Aaron Judge rejoining the lineup during the homestand that begins Sept. 8. “I’m not going to put a date on it. But I think those things are in play now. Again, it’s about getting the durability, and the workload built up on him, which is the biggest thing now.”
That answer matters here because Judge changes the outfield math. Judge has been out since late May with a stress fracture in his right rib. A healthy Judge, plus a surging Spencer Jones and starters Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham, leaves little obvious room for another outfielder needing regular at-bats.
How the waiver order alone erased the Yankees’ shot
Strip away the roster talk and one detail decides it. The gap between the Yankees at 79-60 and Baltimore at 68-69 is 11 games in the loss column. Under the waiver rules, that is not a small edge. It is a wall.
Any team that sits above another in the standings falls behind it in the outright waiver order for the rest of the season. The Yankees spent the summer earning the better record, and that same record pushed them to the back of the line for a player like Robert. It is a quiet cost of contending that rarely gets spelled out. The honest read is not that the Yankees passed on Robert. It is that a claim, if they made one, likely never had a chance.
Baltimore’s claim could become a problem for Yankees
The bigger sting may arrive next year. The Orioles hold that $20 million club option on Robert for 2027, with the $2 million buyout. A strong September becomes an audition for a spot in Baltimore’s lineup beyond this season.
If Robert keeps hitting the way he did before leaving the Mets, the Orioles could open 2027 with another power-and-speed threat inside an already dangerous core. Pete Alonso is signed through 2030 on a five-year, $155 million deal and had reached 32 home runs by late August. Gunnar Henderson remains under club control through 2029.
Add a rebuilt Robert to that group and Baltimore has three hitters who can flip a game with one swing. In 2023, Robert produced 38 home runs and 20 stolen bases for the White Sox. He has battled injuries since, and the Orioles still must decide on the option. But that choice belongs to Baltimore now, not the Yankees.
What the Yankees did do is show where their priority sat. New York claimed right-handed reliever John Schreiber from Kansas City on Aug. 31 and put him straight on the active roster. Schreiber carried a 3.65 ERA over 55 appearances and had held right-handed hitters to a .143/.184/.231 line. Because the Yankees added him before the eligibility deadline, he can pitch in October.
That was the tell. The Yankees used their waiver claim on bullpen depth rather than another position player. Suarez was the pass fans can fairly question, since he cleared every club. Robert is the one that could linger, because if he turns into a difference-maker for a division rival, New York may face harder questions about whether it ever wanted him at all.
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