Will Warren got the kind of late-night text no player wants to see.
On Aug. 2, while riding the Yankees’ charter from Chicago to New York City, the right-hander’s phone lit up with a message from his wife. Inside was a screenshot of a report - one that was later debunked - saying he had been included in a rejected trade idea between the Yankees and Padres before the deadline.
The rumored framework had Warren going to San Diego for lefty reliever Adrian Morejon, a pitcher with a 2.89 ERA in 54 games and an impending free agent. The story spread fast, and it made enough sense on the surface to grab attention.
The Yankees were looking for bullpen help. Morejon fit the profile.
Warren, meanwhile, was the kind of arm another team might ask about.
His first response, though, was pure relief.
“Phew,” Warren texted back to his wife. “Close call.”
That reaction said plenty. Warren has grown into a useful starter for New York since the Yankees drafted him in 2021, and he didn’t want to go anywhere. Through 22 starts this season, he’s 8-6 with a 4.18 ERA, a solid line for a pitcher still carving out his place.
But the rumor hit a nerve at first.
“Definitely,” he told The Athletic on Sunday, “when you read it, I was like, no way. They didn’t think I was good enough? That’s how I took it at first.”
The whole thing didn’t last long. Less than 12 hours later, The Athletic reported, citing a team source, that the trade proposal had never happened.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing deliberations. Then Brian Cashman also shot it down after the deadline, calling the supposed Warren-for-Morejon deal “wasn’t true” during a conference call with reporters.
“There was a lot of noise on whatever that was,” Cashman said.
Warren took the news in stride, though not before enjoying the moment with teammates. He said he went up to Cam Schlittler and joked, “Whoa, I was almost gone there.”
He’s been around enough trade chatter to know not to let it shake him. Warren said rumors have followed him almost every season since his first year in the league.
“Since my first season,” he said, “I think I’ve been tossed in these trade rumors like every single season. At this point, it’s like, I can’t do anything about it. If it happens, it happens.”
He didn’t call anyone in the organization once the dust settled.
“I wasn’t worried about it,” he said.
Going into this year’s deadline, he said, he had already figured a deal was unlikely. The question in his mind was more about the Yankees’ plans than his own future.
“It was more like,” he said, “What are we going to do? Who are we getting? Who’s going away?”
This wasn’t even Warren’s first brush with Padres-related trade talk. At the 2023 Winter Meetings, his name surfaced in rumors involving Juan Soto. Warren said it got far enough that his agent told him he was “probably” going to be part of the package.
Instead, he stayed put. The Yankees wound up landing Soto and Trent Grisham for Michael King, Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez, Drew Thorpe and catcher Kyle Higashioka.
For Warren, the message remains the same: he wants to keep building in pinstripes.
“This is the only thing I know,” he said. “It’s really, really special because, like, (Austin) Wells, Cam.
Clarke (Schmidt). George (Lombard Jr.).
Ben (Rice). Spencer (Jones).
We all came up with the Yankees. Even if we didn’t play multiple years with each other, we were in the farm system together.
So we’re close. And the team we have is super tight-knit.
We jell together. I think we all have extra belief in one another.”
So when the rumor turned out to be nothing, the emotion was simple.
“I was super pumped when I wasn’t leaving,” Warren said.
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