Not Trading Trocheck Might Have Been Right, But It Doesn't Help
Drury may have created the Trocheck dilemma—but that doesn’t mean he handled the deadline wrong. If the offers weren’t good enough, punting the decision to the summer might have been the only sensible move.
Two things can be true at the same time when it comes to Vincent Trocheck and the trade that never happened.
The first is that Chris Drury backed himself into this corner, released The Letter 2.0 stating the "direction" (and I use that term loosely) of this "retool" (and I use that term because it's a direct quote from him), and set himself up to be in this no-win situation.
The second thing is, if the returns for Trocheck—the only true flexible trade chip he has to play—were underwhelming, then it was the right decision to punt this into the summer. Risky? Yes. But, I'd rather play this game again in three months then take a bad return today just to say something was done.
And, as I pointed out on the Emergency Bandwidth podcast yesterday, everyone who is currently crucifying Drury for punting Trocheck to the summer also was holding the return of this trade over his head in a "he must maximize value" type of way.
You can't have it both ways.
In his conversation with the media after the deadline passed, Drury had a series of nothingburger comments and quotes. There were a couple, however, that I thought were pretty poignant and at least showed me he was looking at this the right way.
The biggest is the below:
#NYR GM Chris Drury: "It didn't make any sense to do something just to say we did it, or to do something just because we wrote a letter."
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) March 6, 2026
Why was it important to #NYR GM Chris Drury to stand firm on his stand firm on his price points?
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) March 6, 2026
"I think it's not just this deadline, but when you're trying to put deals together and you already have something in mind -- whether it's me or the other general manager -- just try…
The only—and, at this point, I mean the only—positive to James Dolan's unwavering support of Drury is that the general manager clearly doesn't feel like he needs to panic. That's a good thing, whether you like Drury or not, since a general manager fighting for his life would have likely taken whatever came to the table Friday afternoon.
