Why Yankees waited so long to trade for Andrew McCutchen, how deal went down

Weeks into his search for outfield help, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman acquired former MVP Andrew McCutchen late Thursday night for two prospects.

NEW YORK — Andrew McCutchen was still a Giants outfielder last Thursday and enjoying a rare off day in San Francisco with his boy and nine-month-old son when getting tipped off for the first time that the Yankees were trying to deal for him before the next day’s Aug 31 midnight trade deadline.

“We were in a Starbucks and I got the phone call that it was a possibility that this could happen,” the five-time All-Star and former NL MVP said Saturday before debuting with the Yankees in a 2-1 win over the Detroit Tigers. “It hadn’t been set in stone, but there was a possibility.

“That was probably around 3 o’clock in San Francisco, so it was 6 o’clock here (in New York). So I automatically didn’t want my coffee right away. My stomach started turning a little bit, then at that point it was just waiting … waiting for a phone call.”

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McCutchen didn’t know that Yankees GM Brian Cashman was very interested in getting him for a couple weeks but had to wait for the Giants to put him on waivers, which basically meant giving up on the season.

McCutchen had heard that he cleared last week (because he was due $2.5 million or so that was remaining on a six-year, $51.5 million contract that is up this year), but he didn’t know that the Yankees put in a call right away or that the Giants then opted to wait a little longer before working a deal due to a late August winning streak.

After a lot of waiting and then some negotiating between Cashman and Giants GM Bobby Evans, the deal came together Thursday night – McCutchen was swapped to the Yankees for Triple-A infielder Abiatal Avelino and short-season A ball righty Juan De Paula – and it was announced Friday morning.

Despite reports that a deal was done on Thursday night, McCutchen didn’t know for sure until getting a call Friday morning. He headed to New York later that day, then debuted Saturday by going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and a hit by pitch.

Here’s Cashman’s take on the details of trading for McCutchen, who will play right field for the Yankees until Aaron Judge returns from a broken wrist someday in September and then probably do some platooning in left field with Brett Gardner.

“We’ve been looking at reinforcing this outfield situation as the timeframes on Aaron Judge and (injured outfielder) Clint Frazier were much longer than anticipated. Obviously that didn’t declare itself until after the first trade deadline (on July 31) had expired.

“We’ve been pretty active on the waiver claim process, but with no luck. A lot of people have been taking guys off the board because we have the second-best record in the game. Things were not getting to us.

“McCutchen went on waivers probably about a week ago. He was not somebody that was in play for the first three weeks of (August). The Giants obviously were contending or trying to contend, so they made a strategic decision to hold off. They placed him on waivers last week, he cleared and immediately after the waiver clearing process I engaged with Bobby Evans and told him that we would have an interest in adding McCutchen if we could thread the needle on the financials and come up with a player match.

“I think then during this process (the Giants) won five out of six, so there was some hesitancy on their part whether they were willing to do anything or not and see how things played out. It was when they lost a game in their head-to-head with (NL West-leading) Arizona (last Wednesday night) that pushed them back a little bit again (in the standings) and they had an injury to their center fielder and (star catcher) Buster Posey had season-ending surgery.

“(Trade talks) picked up. Clearly, (McCutchen) was a player that given our circumstances we targeted and were hopeful that there was some way we could find a way to match up with (the Giants) where we don’t trip up our luxury tax and get (prospects) in play that we would be able to live with them parting. Having to step up in some degree in the circumstances and at the same time satisfy their needs and put them in a position to decide, ‘All right, we’ll do it’ … it was a long week, but I’m glad it resolved the way it did.”

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.