The basic idea for this trade comes to us from Pittsburgh radio personality and former Major League pitcher Matt Clement, who proposed a Cruz for Dominguez and Volpe swap. I've added in Dennis Santana and Thomas Harrington to even things up a bit for the Yankees. If I'm the Pirates, I'm going for this trade in a heartbeat: getting two MLB-caliber hitters with plenty of team control left would be a major shot in the arm to the Pirates' hitting woes. Sure, Volpe hasn't ever been the best offensively, but he's still 24 and can improve, especially with the Pirates' well-documented love for contact hitters. Dominguez could immediately slot in as the Pirates' starting LF and a major home run threat, something that's sorely missed from the Pirates' lineup as currently constructed outside Cruz. For the Yankees, though, the problem with this trade is that Cruz would pretty much be thrown into the starting shortstop role in the Bronx with Volpe now a Pirate, and given Cruz's well-documented defensive limitations, I'm not sure that that's something they'd be keen on doing. Oswald Peraza has been terrible this year, and George Lombard Jr. is still at least a year away and only has a .671 OPS at AA Somerset this year. Theoretically, Everson Pereira or Spencer Jones could step into the OF spot that Dominguez would be vacating, but the Yankees might be reticent to trust Pereira with postseason ABs given his horrendous cup of coffee in 2023 (but that was two years ago, and he's improved since then.) And despite early returns looking very promising, Jones has only played in 17 games at the AAA level. So this might be a trade that creates as many holes for the Yankees as they would be filling.