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 $1.837MM 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 $1.086MM 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.
More to come.