Swisher's move to Cleveland helped put Judge in Bronx

It was poetic and perfect that a Yankees right fielder was the one to break the American League home run record this year. It allowed us to draw a pinstriped line from Babe Ruth to Roger Maris to Aaron Judge in the progression from 60 to 61 to 62.

But when drawing the line from Maris to Judge, don’t forget to make a pit stop at another Yankees right fielder -- Nick Swisher. As Judge’s Yankees begin an AL Division Series against the Guardians on Tuesday night, it’s fun to look back at how Swisher’s free-agent departure for Cleveland one decade ago inadvertently brought baseball’s biggest bat to the Bronx.

“People say, ‘Swish, you’re the gift that keeps on giving!’” said Swisher, who now serves as a special advisor for the Yankees. “I have done my part, right?”

In the winter prior to the 2013 season, the Yankees showed little interest in re-signing Swisher. Though Swisher’s acquisition from the White Sox prior to the 2009 season -- in which New York won it all with the help of his 29 homers and 35 doubles -- had been one of general manager Brian Cashman’s better trades, the Yankees were ready to let “Swish” split. Following a sweep at the hands of the Tigers in the 2012 ALCS, Yankees ownership gave the front office a directive to get the payroll under the $189 million luxury tax threshold by the 2014 season, and that made a multi-year pact with Swisher unlikely.

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"At some point with the new rules it's going to become imperative to be a little more fiscally conservative," Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner told The Associated Press at the time. "That's where we've got to rely on our young players.”

One young player would take that idea to the extreme.

That winter of 2012-13 had kind of a “man bites dog” situation going on. While the big, bad Yankees were cutting costs after finishing just four wins shy of the World Series, a Cleveland team that had lost 94 games and finished fourth in the AL Central was ready to spend.

Cleveland had replaced manager Manny Acta with Terry Francona. The arrival of a two-time World Series-winning skipper energized the franchise, and it paired with the sale of the team-owned SportsTime Ohio regional television network to Fox Sports to embolden ownership to take a swing at the top of the free-agent market.

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Swisher and center fielder Michael Bourn, who had spent 2012 with the Braves, were considered two of the top four or five position players in that winter’s open market. Cleveland surprisingly landed them both. But Swisher was the team's top target, and it pulled out all the stops to tap into his Ohio roots (he was born in Columbus and attended Ohio State) and woo him. During Swisher’s visit to Progressive Field, he was shown a video on the scoreboard featuring OSU football coach Urban Meyer, basketball coach Thad Matta and baseball coach Greg Beals imploring him to join the club. Cleveland even brought former OSU football coach Jim Tressel to a lunch with Swisher.

The recruiting worked ... as did the four-year, $56 million contract offer.

“This is no disrespect to Cleveland, because I was blessed to be over there,” Swisher said recently. “But that was one of the hardest things to ever go through. I had always been told that if the fans fall in love with you, you’ll be in New York forever. For myself, that was the goal. I wanted to be a Yankee the rest of my career. But Cash told me, ‘Swish, we don’t even have enough money to get in the game.’ And at that point, as a six-year free agent, you want to make your big contract. So I knew very early I was going to have to move on, which hurt a lot. There were a couple nights spent with a lot of tears. But it is a business and you do have to move on.”

And with Swisher having turned down the Yankees’ one-year, $13.3 million qualifying offer for 2013, the Yanks were entitled to a compensatory Draft pick, tacked onto the end of the first round, for his departure.

With the Yankees’ regular pick at No. 26 overall, their Swisher comp pick at No. 32, and another comp pick at No. 33 for the free-agent loss of reliever Rafael Soriano to the Nationals, they were swimming in picks in that particular segment of the Draft. Having that cluster of picks allowed the Yankees to perhaps take some risks.

Because of his unusual size, a 6-foot-7, 255-pound Fresno State center fielder named Aaron Judge was considered a risky amateur prospect. To that point, the only position players that tall to have had a meaningful MLB career were Frank Howard, Richie Sexson and Tony Clark).

“People have a hard time dealing with things outside the norm when it comes to scouting in baseball,” Yankees amateur scouting director Damon Oppenheimer told MLB.com in 2017. “That’s why the [Jose] Altuves of the world and Judges of the world aren’t always the consensus.”

The consensus among the draftniks (including MLB Pipeline, which ranked him as the 24th overall Draft prospect that year) indicated that Judge would go somewhere in the top 30 picks. But 31 picks came and went, and every team with a pick in that range -- including the Yankees -- let Judge pass by. The Yanks used their pick at No. 26 to take Notre Dame third baseman Eric Jagielo, who never played above Triple-A.

After making the more conventional pick of Jagielo, the Yanks set their sights on their other college slugger target -- Judge. They anxiously watched the next five picks come off the board:

• No. 27, Reds: Phillip Ervin, a Samford outfielder.
• No. 28, Cardinals: Rob Kaminsky, a New Jersey high school lefty.
• No. 29, Rays: Ryne Stanek, an Arkansas righty.
• No. 30, Rangers: Travis Demeritte, a Georgia high school shortstop.
• No. 31, Braves (the compensation pick received from Bourn signing with Cleveland): Jason Hursh, an Oklahoma State righty.

And so, at No. 32, thanks to Swish, the Yankees selected the man who would go on to break Maris’ AL home run record.

Swisher and Judge actually crossed paths in 2016 at Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre. Swisher was playing on a Minor League deal with the Yanks in the final days of his career and Judge was on the rise.

“That was the first time I got the chance to get to know him, at the many meals we had at the Waffle House,” Swisher said. “I think you just knew that he was destined for greatness at that moment. Then, once I had the opportunity to meet his parents, and I really knew that the foundation and the family was there, you just knew he was going to do something great.”

The compensation system that brought Judge to the Bronx was blown up in 2017, when teams like the Yankees, who pay rather than receive revenue sharing, were no longer eligible to reap a comp pick in the first round. But Swisher’s departure came at the perfect time for them.

For one year, Swisher’s signing worked out in Cleveland. In 2013, while the Yankees were trotting out a post-peak Ichiro Suzuki in right field (en route to a third-place finish in the AL East), Swisher had a solid 22-homer, 27-double season for a team that surprisingly stormed to the top AL Wild Card spot. But the rest of Swisher’s tenure with Cleveland was marred by injury and poor performance.

The Yankees remain the team Swisher is more commonly associated with.

“Just to be a part of this organization and have my name associated with the home run champ,” said Swisher, “is something I hold near and dear to my heart.”

Swisher now annually represents the Yankees at -- where else? -- the amateur Draft.

This past summer, he was there in L.A. to announce the Yanks’ first- and second-round selections. The latter -- Cal Poly right-hander Drew Thorpe -- was taken at No. 61 overall. True to form, Swisher announced him energetically.

“Welcome to the family, kid!” Swisher said.

Then Swisher left the stage, and -- appropriately, it turns out -- made way for No. 62.