1:23pm: The Yankees are acquiring catcher Omar Alfonzo and outfielder Luis Cruz in the deal, Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com reports.
1:17pm: The Pirates and Yankees are in agreement on a trade that will send right-handed reliever Camilo Doval from New York to Pittsburgh in exchange for two prospects, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN.
Doval, 29, is being paid $6.1MM this season. There’s about $1.859MM of that sum yet to be paid out. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that the Pirates are taking on $750K of the remaining salary. The Yankees, then, are sending about $1.109MM to help facilitate the trade. This is Doval’s second season of arbitration eligibility. He’s under club control through the 2027 season.
The hard-throwing Doval came to the Yankees from the Giants at last year’s trade deadline. He’s had an up-and-down tenure in the Bronx and has seemed like a possible change-of-scenery candidate throughout the season. Doval is a clearly talented reliever — a 2023 All-Star who’s saved 109 games and tallied 25 holds to this point in his career. However, he’s proven to be a tough fit at Yankee Stadium due to struggles against left-handed opponents who’ve capitalized on the Yankee Stadium’s notoriously short right-field porch.
Doval has a 7.08 ERA and five homers allowed in 20 1/3 innings at home this season, compared to a 1.86 ERA and one homer allowed in 19 1/3 frames on the road. He’s held righties to an awful .143/.231/.247 batting line but been tagged for a .360/.425/.573 line when facing left-handed batters. There’s more to those struggles than his home park, but the dimensions of Yankee Stadium have clearly exacerbated that susceptibility to left-handed opponents.
Looking beyond the 2026 results and home/road splits, Doval is the type of late-inning, power arm the Pirates have coveted. He’s averaging a blistering 98.6 mph on his sinker and 98.8 mph on his cutter — his two most frequently used offerings. A slider that averages 88.8 mph is Doval’s go-to breaking pitch, though he’s mixed in a very occasional changeup that sits 94.6 mph for the first time this season. It’s very much a show-me offering, having been thrown at just a 3.4% clip.
That power sinker leads to one of the game’s highest ground-ball rates. Doval is sporting a 57.3% mark in that regard this season and peaked at 60% in 2024. He’s seen a dip in strikeouts this year, with a roughly league-average 21.9% mark and a 10.5% swinging-strike rate — both career-low marks. However, Doval punched out just under 30% of his opponents in four-plus seasons with the Giants. His command isn’t great, as evidenced by a career 11.2% walk rate, but he’s sitting at a more manageable 10.1% mark in 2026.
All of the pieces are there for Doval to be a dominant force in the late innings, but it hasn’t fully clicked in either San Francisco or the Bronx. The Pirates are placing a bet on his power arsenal, immense ground-ball capabilities and a change of scenery. Doval figures to slide into the closer’s mix with the Bucs, though it’s certainly possible they add another arm before Monday afternoon’s deadline. The bullpen has been an Achilles heel throughout the season, and Doval alone isn’t likely to turn that around.
In exchange for one and one-third seasons of Doval (plus a bit of salary relief), the Yankees will acquire Alfonzo, the Pirates’ No. 28 prospect at Baseball America and No. 17 at MLB.com, and an 18-year-old lottery ticket in Cruz.
Alfonzo, 23 on Monday, is the son of former big league catcher Eliezer Alfonso. He’s hitting .239/.338/.420 with nine homers in 241 Double-A plate appearances this season. That’s exactly league-average production in that run scoring environment, by measure of wRC+, but Alfonzo’s 30.3% strikeout rate creates some reasonable skepticism.
Scouting reports on Alfonzo tout his bat speed, exit velocities, power potential and plate discipline. Baseball America notes that he’s a quality framer and is adept at blocking pitches in the dirt, but inconsistent transfers and footwork undercut his strong throwing arm and create concerns about his ability to control the run game. As his hefty strikeout rate suggests, there are also concerns about his hit tool, and Alfonzo is also a bottom-of-the-scale runner.
Those potential flaws notwithstanding, Alfonzo has posted average or better offense at basically every minor league stop and could be in Triple-A by season’s end. It’s not unreasonable to think he could be a big league option as soon as next year. He’ll need to improve some of his defensive traits behind the dish, but the Yankees are an organization that prides itself on being able to work with catchers in that regard. Alfonzo probably isn’t going to hit for much average, but he has big pull-side power and draws plenty of walks (12.1% this season). His left-handed bat, in particular, could mesh well with that same short porch that has tormented Doval at Yankee Stadium.
Cruz is considerably further from being any kind of consideration in the majors. He just turned 18 in June. The Pirates signed him as an amateur out of the Dominican Republic in January of 2015. He’s currently listed at 6’1″ and 155 pounds, so there’s obviously plenty of room for him to continue filling out.
Cruz has only 56 games and 195 professional plate appearances under his belt — all of them coming with the Pirates’ Rookie-level affiliate in the Dominican Summer League. He’s batted .264/.420/.338 in that time. A huge 18% walk rate and tiny 10.7% walk rate point to an impressive approach at the plate, but Cruz has yet to hit a home run in pro ball. He’s played all three outfield spots and gone 13-for-19 in stolen base attempts.
With Doval out the door in exchange for a pair of prospects, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Yankees look to bring in another experienced arm. Similarly, the Pirates don’t seem likely to call it a day on augmenting their bullpen. There’s some risk that Doval won’t right the ship in his new environs, but there aren’t many available arms with this type of upside on the market and he didn’t cost the Bucs anyone from the top tier of their system. It’s a worthwhile risk for them to take but seems more like a first step than a final piece of the puzzle.
