George A. King of the New York Post reports that the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays have told the Phillies that they would be interested in acquiring Jayson Werth.
We talked about the Phillies’ rationale for trading Werth yesterday, but the interest on the part of the AL East teams is far more compelling given this Cliff Lee business.
For the Yankees, it’s a way of solidifying the lineup while solving their too-many-starting-pitchers problem. Werth could DH. Or he could take over in right, Swisher could move to left and Gardner could become baseball’s best bench player. Or Swisher could DH. They’re the Yankees. They tend to figure out what to do with excess.
For the Rays and Red Sox it would be more a matter of survival. The Red Sox are taking on all kinds of water right now and could obviously use a big outfield bat to help cover for all of those injuries. The Rays have offensive woes of their own, and if the Yankees get Lee, they’ll need to do something to counter the move.
Like I said yesterday: it would take some serious balls for the Phillies to trade Werth and plug in Domonic Brown as a starter while still contending for the playoffs. But if they can get a strong starting pitcher for Werth -- which is something they could really use -- they may have no choice.