Yesterday, the Yankees shipped the reliable Adam Warren and exuberant Brendan Ryan off to Chicago in exchange for the services of soon to be 26-year-old Starlin Castro. Today, they’ve traded reliever Justin Wilson to the Detroit Tigers for righthanded pitching prospects Luis Cessa and Chad Green. Cessa will be added to the 40-man roster.

Wilson was acquired in exchange for Francisco Cervelli last off-season, and cemented himself as the third option in the bullpen in 2015. He was actually more effective against righties (.216 BAA) than lefties (.236), but as those two numbers show, got both out with regularity.

In 61 innings, his SO-to-BB ratio was 3.30, his PWARP was sixth among all Yankees pitchers at 1.7 and his VORP sat at a solid 15.8.

Who the Yankees get:

Green, 24, is probably a bit closer than Cessa, 23, is to helping out in the major leagues, but both could realistically make it there relatively soon, given the revolving door at the back-end of the pitching staff. Both have been starting down in the minor leagues.

The Tigers acquired Cessa, their No. 10 prospect according to Baseball Prospectus, along with Michael Fulmer in a trade for Yoenis Cespedes last season. He can hit 95-96 mph with his fastball but will likely hover around 92-93 mph if he starts. He also features a solid changeup and a curveball. He was a bit erratic in Triple-A last season, with an 8.51 ERA in five starts with the Las Vegas 51s before settling down a bit in seven starts with the Toledo Mud Hens (5.97 ERA).

Green came in at No. 20 on the Tigers MLB.com prospect list, and was a lot more stable last year than Cessa, going 5-14 with a 3.93 ERA in 148.2 innings. Like Cessa, his fastball is solid, but he needs to work on his secondary pitches, something Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild is very helpful with.

What it means:

Without Warren and Wilson, the Yankees are now left with no clear-cut No. 3 option in the bullpen behind Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, rather a handful of candidates to step up and take the job.  In order to replace him, the Yankees don’t necessarily need to find a lefthander, but they do need to find someone who can come close to posting that 1.7 PWARP.

There appears to be confidence in the organization that either Chasen Shreve, Jacob Lindgreen, Bryan Mitchell or James Pazos could eventually help fill in the role. If you’d have presented Joe Girardi that list in July, he’d easily go with Shreve, but his stumble to the finish line last season leaves plenty of questions. It’s unlikely he can survive that type of usage.

Before taking a line drive to the head, Mitchell’s stint in the bullpen had been going swimmingly, with just three runs allowed in 9.1 innings. There’s no way of knowing how the incident will affect him going forward, but he seems to be the most trustworthy of the bunch.

Lindgren, 22, flashed the raw ability to get hitters out in seven short innings, but he’s too young and too unpolished. Pazos might be a guy, but we didn’t really get a good look at him last year.

What happens next:

Well, for one, there might be more trades coming—maybe even some for relievers, or a starter.

Cashman after Wilson deal: I’m not done

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) December 10, 2015

Cashman said he has “a lot of things” in the air. Sounds like there could be some sort of announcement tonight.

— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) December 9, 2015

The Yankees will likely take a dip in the free-agent reliever market to patch some holes. According to CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman, they’ve checked in on old friend Rafael Soriano. I ran through some possible signings here, though a few names (Lowe, Soria) are gone. Shawn Kelley might be somewhere to look, as well as Antonio Bastardo, who can really get lefties out.

It doesn’t seem incredibly likely the Yankees will look in-house for a pitcher to handle the seventh inning, though it’s not out of the question they are reluctant to add an arm from this free agent pool. A trade is most likely on the horizon for a starter, which would move CC Sabathia or Ivan Nova to the bullpen.

(Photo: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports)

Since the All-Star break, Yankee relievers have pitched to a 3.86 ERA. In the last month, the group has a 4.85 ERA and 4.76 FIP. A hefty portion of the relief work has been done by pitchers that spent the year in the minor leagues and it shows. What was once a strength is now largely a group of inexperienced rookies and tired mainstays. The act of starting up the bullpen has been a roll of the dice for Joe Girardi, especially with his starting pitchers not working deep into games. He now gets to do that with the season on the line, and then against the Royals. He’s got his work cut out for him to say the least.

We know for sure that Betances, Warren, Justin Wilson and Andrew Miller will get spots. These are the rest of the candidates:

• Chasen Shreve
• Chris Capuano
• Ivan Nova
• Bryan Mitchell
• Andrew Bailey
• Nick Rumbelow
• Nick Goody
• Branden Pinder
• Caleb Cotham
• James Pazos
• Chris Martin

There’s a chance that Nathan Eovaldi could become healthy enough to be activated at some point, but the Yankees likely won’t want to risk the chance that he won’t be ready for important outings. That means these are the guys from which Girardi must select. I won’t pretend to have inside knowledge to Girardi’s thought process and most of these pitchers have been inside and outside of his fabled Circle of Trust at various times.

The most obvious choice seems to be Rumbelow. When Rumbelow is right, his stuff is electric. In 15.2 innings with the big club, Rumbelow has struck out 22.1 percent of the batters he’s faced, but he’s also walked five and given up two homers. This is a rather small sample, of course, but Rumbelow isn’t the worst option to eat an inning or two if the Yankees have a comfortable lead. That’s five of the spots filled. The recipients of the other two spots will likely not matter very much, as if the last man in the bullpen has to get into a playoff game, the game is likely over or deep into extra innings. The Royals showed us last year that due to the rest days built into the playoff schedule, it’s a bit easier to run the big guns out every time they’re needed.

That won’t matter if the Yankees don’t escape the showdown with the Astros. In the very real scenario in which Masahiro Tanaka serves up a few home runs to the powerful Astros and the Yankees have to get into their bullpen early, how do they piece together the necessary innings? CC Sabathia will probably be available in relief, but Sabathia has allowed a humongous .370 wOBA to right-handed hitters this year. The Astros are made up largely of righty power hitters like Carlos Correa, Evan Gattis and George Springer. Is Luis Severino capable of pitching effectively on short rest? With Dallas Kuechel on the mound for Houston, the Yankees don’t want to have to find out.

(Photos: Adam Hunger-USA Today Sports) 

Hahahahaha who’s that knucklehead? What a ridiculous, ill-informed thing to do, resting the weight of your prediction on a team’s bullpen, full of guys who are literally there because they are inconsistent, so much it’s accepted that you just don’t sign bullpen guys to long-term deals so you can build a team around them, because then you end up with a Ryan Madson or Jonathan Papelbon or whatever. Look at Fernando Rodney! In 2012, he had one of the greatest seasons in the history of pitching, and now his ERA is over 15, just because.

Oh. Uh, whoops. Last night’s 7-5 Yankees loss to the Orioles was the fault of relievers David Carpenter, Justin Wilson and Chris Martin. Their collective five-run meltdown in the sixth inning was a sharp heel turn for a staff that had ranked third in bullpen ERA before Wednesday.

Bullpen meltdowns happen. But the prospect and occurrence of them is particularly concerning for the Yankees, because their starting pitching hasn’t shown the skill or longevity that led PECOTA to project it for the top cumulative WARP in the A.L. East. The Yankees, before Wednesday, had received 36.1 innings from their bullpen, which was the most of any team in the majors. Then they got three tonight, so that ranking probably won’t drop significantly.

This was a particularly bad meltdown, of five runs in an inning, blowing a lead and ultimately leading to the team’s loss. What is the precedent for this happening to teams like the Yankees, who, if they are to make the playoffs, will have to outshoot their projections on the strength of their position, particularly the bullpen? (Because from the looks of it now, the offense sure isn’t going to pull the weight.)

The 2014 Royals are the ideal for this model for success. So, I did my own little Play Index segment (minus the Play Index, which was of no use to me for my specific query) and looked for games in which their bullpen, whether it be the fault of an individual pitcher of a combined effort, gave up more than five runs in an inning.

I found three instances: Aaron Brooks gave up six runs in the ninth against the Tigers on May 3; the Royals were already losing that game. Donnie Joseph and Michael Mariot gave up six runs in the ninth on June 16; the Royals were winning 11-2 before that inning, and the pitching debacle didn’t affect the final result. Finally, Bruce Chen gave up six runs against the Twins in the top of the 10th inning on Aug. 28…and I don’t think anything needs to be said there.

That was it. Three instances, and none of them involving guys who were actually a significant part of that bullpen. No Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, Greg Holland, Jason Frasor, Aaron Crow; you know, guys who were actually a significant part of that staff, in the same way Carpenter and Martin are for the Yankees right now.

I’m not saying that the Yankees blowing a game like this is a sign of impending doom. They’ve still got Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances to hold down the back end. Betances threw a scoreless inning tonight, and while his fastball was still in the mid, rather than upper, 90s, and he was missing badly on some pitches, he got strikeouts of Chris Davis (big whoop, I know) and Manny Machado.

But, at this point, things aren’t looking peachy, either.

Photo: Getty