Never Forget When Yankees Almost Traded Gary Sanchez for Now-DFA'd Jose Peraza

It appears as if the Jose Peraza era in Cincinnati is coming to a close, as the club chose not to tender a contract to the once-promising infielder this afternoon. It was not long ago, however, that Peraza was a top prospect in the Braves system, and his name was dangled in trade talks all across the league.

Safe to say, though, that on a day like this, one Peraza deal from the archives that fell through is hitting us a bit harder than the others.

Back in early 2015, Peraza's name with bandied about with the Yankees for players like...Luis Severino and Gary Sanchez, before he was ultimately sent to the Dodgers as a part of a massive three-team trade.

Brian Cashman's spent a lot of time sleeping on the ground recently in order to raise awareness for homelessness and its surrounding causes, but the GM may actually have been left without lodging if he'd pulled the trigger on this.

Sanchez, since then, has 105 home runs in just 372 games. Peraza, worse than 10 different infielders the Yankees have trotted out in recent years, has hit .273 with 28 homers total, and was worth -0.9 WAR in 2019. Robust!

To call Peraza's career a disappointment to this point would not be an overstatement. The young Venezuelan was once thought to be a future All-Star at shortstop, as many scouts projected him to be a player with Jimmy Rollins-type upside. Unfortunately, he will need to find a new home if he wants to tap into that upside before calling it quits.

It's always sad when a prospect fails to realize their full potential, but on the brighter side of things, at least nobody traded any future All-Stars to bet on Peraza's potential. At just 25 years old, there is time for Peraza to rebuild his career, and he should be scooped up by a team in need of infield depth very quickly.