Yankees swung best deal yet in lineup of deadline power plays

If you are having a case of déjà bat with Alfonso Soriano, it is understandable.

You have seen a version of this movie before. Actually, Soriano represents the sixth time in 19 years the Yankees obtained an established slugger in midseason who had at least the following season left on his contract. In each case, this served as a form of midseason free agency — because dumping as much of the future salary obligation as possible was essential for the dealing team.

And each previous time — Ruben Sierra, Cecil Fielder, David Justice, Raul Mondesi and Bobby Abreu — the obtained player helped the Yankees surge to the playoffs before, in most cases, becoming problematic the following year.

Soriano was fueling a playoff surge. His nine homers since his July 26 Yankees reunion were tied for the major league lead with Miguel Cabrera, Chris Davis and Paul Goldschmidt. That means Soriano could be in the discussion for the best of this type of trade during the wild-card era.

In order of success here are the stories of the five others. Note that Soriano hardly represents the first time a Yankees general manager did not want to make a deal for the big bat (as Brian Cashman did not want to do with Soriano). Also, check out how many times Soriano was a coincidental side player:

1. FIELDER

You could pick Fielder or Justice — both were essential to winning titles. But Big Daddy's 1996 acquisition helped trigger a dynasty.

The Yankees led the AL East, but were doing it with a power deficiency that beset the 2013 club. And that made George Steinbrenner uneasy. He would say, "We are not winning in Yankee style. These are not the Bronx Bombers."

So a few days after then-GM Bob Watson repeated "he doesn't fit" five times about Darryl Strawberry, Steinbrenner gave himself a July 4 birthday present by signing Strawberry anyway.

But what worried Watson more was — again, like this year's club — those Yankees' susceptibility to lefty pitching. Watson talked to Oakland about Mark McGwire. But en route to a then-franchise record 109 losses, Detroit was looking to rebuild by moving Fielder, who was making $7.2 million in 1996 and due the same in '97. Former Yankees executive David Sussman once told me the myth about those Yankees was they were flush with money because of their MSG deal. But much of the MSG money was distributed to the club's partners, and the Yankees did not yet have staggering attendance or a new stadium.

So the morning after obtaining Fielder, when informed the Yankees had indeed made the trade, chief financial officer Barry Pincus, worried about the lack of cash flow, told Sussman, "Are you [bleeping] crazy? How can we afford this? The only way we can afford this is if Fielder eats the other players on our team."