On December 26, the New York Yankees sent 26-year-old outfielder Estevan Florial to the Cleveland Guardians in exchange for 27-year-old reliever Cody Morris.

Florial has appeared in parts of four big league seasons but has never had more than 71 plate appearances in any one of them. He’s accumulated enough playing time to lose rookie eligibility but not enough to evaluate him based on his big league performance; he’s still more or less an older prospect. I considered Florial to be one of the Yankees’ best couple of prospects in the 2018-19 window, but his strikeouts became excessive at the upper levels (usually hovering around 30%) and, especially after the pandemic season, I began to move off of him. After a rough introduction to Triple-A in 2021, Florial has had two really solid seasons, with a wRC+ in the 124-130 range each of the last two years. He experienced a substantial uptick in his power output as a 25-year-old at Triple-A Scranton in 2023, as Florial clubbed 25 homers in just 101 games, matching his combined Triple-A total from 2022 and 2021 across 180 games.

There appears to have been a swing adjustment here. Florial was completely hapless against pitches in the top third of the zone in 2022 and in years prior, and an overwhelming majority of his airborne contact came to his pull side. He’s shortened up his swing such that, in 2023, he was better able to get on top of the occasional high pitch, and was much more regularly driving balls in play to the opposite field with power.

It isn’t as if Florial is suddenly an average contact hitter, or even merely a below-average one. He still ran a meager 64% contact rate in 2023, which would rank last among qualified big league hitters last season. Triple-A pitching seemed to adjust to him later in the year, and he saw a steadier diet of low-and-away secondary stuff as opponents realized that Florial had made adjustments to high fastballs. But the Guardians, who ranked 29th in slugging last year, badly need an injection of power in their lineup, which Florial can provide if he wins a job. It’s plausible he could perform like Jose Siri has for the last couple of years, as a flawed power hitter who gets to enough of his pop to be a productive part-time center fielder despite all those strikeouts.

Florial will compete for the center field job with light-hitting incumbent Myles Straw (the diametric opposite of Florial as a hitter) and/or for a left-handed corner outfield role with Will Brennan (ditto) and prospect George Valera (who has his own hit tool question marks). Florial is out of options, while Valera has one left and Brennan has all three.

As for Morris, he is still rookie eligible (he’s been added to the Yankees list on The Board) despite being older than Florial because Morris has been hurt a ton; several times when it looked like he would rocket through the minors, he has gotten hurt again or had a sudden downturn in stuff. Morris’ health and stuff have both yo-yo’d since he was high schooler. He was ushered toward college by a Tommy John surgery, which he rehabbed from during a redshirt first year at South Carolina. He then performed well throughout both healthy seasons in Columbia. Cleveland shut him down after the 2018 draft, and over the next couple of seasons, Morris had his most violent fluctuations in stuff and health. A strained lat, shoulder, and teres major have all plagued him during the last few years, and Cleveland finally moved him to the bullpen in 2023, where Morris was much more walk-prone than his usual, healthy self.

At his best, Morris is parked in the mid-90s with uphill angle at the top of the zone and mixes in a bevy of unpredictable secondary pitches in just about any count. He has a 12-to-6 curveball, an upper-80s cutter (that sometimes tilts out with slider shape), and an 81-84 mph changeup that was de-emphasized a bit in 2023. He’ll show you three plus pitches, but Morris’ inability to stay healthy colors his FV grade. He has the repertoire depth of a nasty multi-inning reliever, which I tend to value in the 40+ FV tier, but his injury history forces that grade down a bit because it’s unreasonable to anticipate him being as healthy as a typical pitcher.

I expect him to contribute to New York’s 2024 bullpen in a meaningful way, but because Morris has two option years left, I also think there’s a good chance he begins the season in the minors in deference to guys like Luis Gil or Yoendrys Gómez, who have fewer or none. I have Morris ranked ahead of those guys on the updated Yankees list because his healthy ceiling is higher. The Yankees have tended to take pitchers with violent, atypical deliveries and let them start anyway, so perhaps they’ll deploy Morris, who threw just 39 innings in 2023, as a long reliever initially before transitioning him back into a rotation down the road.

This was a “fit” trade. The Yankees have a glut of outfielders after acquiring several, most notably Juan Soto via trade this offseason. Florial was too far down the depth chart to have a clear path to playing time in New York, whereas Cleveland could stand to take the chance that he’s entering a peak window where Florial’s physical tools can play despite his hit tool issues. Conversely, Cleveland is as good at churning out pitchers as any team in baseball and has the depth to part with Morris.

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