So far, this has been an inactive off-season for the New York Yankees. They added depth outfielder Greg Allen to a lesser exchange with the Fathers last week and that’s all. Allen is the only player the Yankees have added to their roster of 40 players outside the organization this winter. Minor league signings like Jhoulys Chacin and Andrew Velazquez are his only other moves.
Inactive off-season is largely intentional. The Yankees are planning to cut the payroll in the midst of the pandemic – team officials have not provided a set number for the 2021 payroll, but they are expected to evade the $ 210 million luxury tax limit – and your number one priority is to rehearse DJ LeMahieu. This is understandable. LeMahieu is a great player and perfectly meets your needs.
On several occasions in the past month, GM Brian Cashman has admitted that the Yankees are awaiting LeMahieu’s decision before moving on to other off-season deals. Here’s what he said during an interview with Rede YES on December 10:
“As always, we will find out what the best options are, but first we will exhaust his option, which is to try to keep him here,” said Cashman. “He loves to play in New York. He loves to play for the New York Yankees. There are many things in our favor, but in the end it comes down to the financial opportunity we offer compared to the financial opportunity that others are offering. That is the big deal unknown. “
A few days later, Cashman held a conference call with reporters, including James Wagner, from New York Times, and said “everything that left the board before today left the board because I’m willing to wait to find a way to successfully navigate a deal with DJ LeMahieu.” Clearly, LeMahieu is the top priority.
Last month, a report indicated that LeMahieu is looking for five years and $ 125 million. Soon after that it was reported the Blue Jays and the Dodgers has an interest in it. It seems to me that the Yankees have leaked LeMahieu’s asking price to scare other teams, and LeMahieu’s team responded by saying that an AL East rival and another big market team are interested in putting the Yankees back on the table. That was the last update on contract negotiations.
My guess is that the Yankees have the biggest bid at stake and they know it, and are waiting for LeMahieu to say yes. Why bid against yourself? LeMahieu, however, may be looking for a better offer, or at least one that he can take back to the Yankees and raise them. This is not a single free agent negotiation in this sense. That’s how these things work. Both sides use the media and other teams as leverage.
The fact is that we are now in the middle of January and there are only five weeks to go before spring training, and the Yankees still have several needs to address. They have a viable midfielder in the major league (Gleyber Torres) and their second starter is Jordan Montgomery. Luis Severino is expected to return from Tommy John’s surgery in the middle of the season, although you never know what you will get right after the elbow reconstruction, and New York needs rotation help behind him. Your depth chart:
- RHP Gerrit Cole (amazing)
- RHP Luis Severino (expected back in the middle of the season)
- LHP Jordan Montgomery (5.11 ERA in 2020)
- RHP Domingo German (lost in 2020 while serving a suspension for domestic violence)
- RHP Deivi Garcia (main potential customer who imagines having a workload limit in 2021)
- RHP Clarke Schmidt (lead prospect who imagines having a workload limit in 2021)
- RHP Jhoulys Chacin (6.06 ERA in the last two years)
- RHP Michael King (7.76 ERA in 2020)
You are the Yankees and imagine yourself a candidate for the World Series. You can do better than that. No, let me rephrase: you Tue to do better than that. The bullpen is strong and the lineup is so good that they will cover a number of rotation deficiencies during the long regular season of 162 games. In a short series of postseason, however, this rotation leaves much to be desired.
The off-season was so slow in general that waiting for LeMahieu outside made sense. There was no need to rush anything. Things are starting to heat up, however, and in the past three weeks or so the Yankees have lost a wage eviction negotiation from Yu Darvish and Carlos Carrasco and Francisco Lindor from quasi-wage eviction commerce and Tomoyuki Sugano’s free agency. We could even include Lance Lynn here, although that exchange took place in early December. Everything else happened more recently.
(I don’t think Blake Snell was ever a realistic option for the Yankees to give all the AL East rivalry to the Rays. Charlie Morton was probably not an option either, given his stated desire to play close to the family home in Florida.)
There are four quality first pitchers, all of whom would have been classified as the best in New York after Cole, as well as a midfield superstar who would have replaced LeMahieu more than adequately. The Yankees should be in on each of these players and, to be fair, they would have asked about Lindor. They are just committed to making things happen with LeMahieu, so the conversations never get serious. The Yankees did not spend much time exploring Lindor as an alternative to LeMahieu.
The Yankees are about $ 35 million below the $ 210 million luxury tax limit at the moment. If they sign again with LeMahieu – I think a meeting is by far the most likely outcome – he will eat at least $ 20 million of that, maybe even $ 25 million. That doesn’t leave much to throw, be it a meeting with Masahiro Tanaka or something else. It certainly takes them out of the race for Trevor Bauer, the number 1 pitcher on the free agent market.
Waiting for LeMahieu and his $ 20-million-a-year contract probably took the Yankees out of the Darvish mix, meaning they didn’t even consider a switch (Darvish owes $ 59 million over the next three years). The odds are the same for Sugano, who allegedly wanted money from Yusei Kikuchi (four years at $ 14 million a year) and returned to Japan. The commitment to LeMahieu means that the Yankees could not even consider Darvish or Sugano financially.
The market has several attractive options behind LeMahieu and the expensive Bauer. On the mound are Tanaka and Jake Odorizzi, as well as projections for the recovery of brands like Corey Kluber and former Yankee James Paxton. Joe Musgrove stands out as a commercial candidate. Indoors, the Yankees could pivot for Marcus Semien, Andrelton Simmons, Kolten Wong or former Yankee Didi Gregorius if LeMahieu ended up elsewhere. The Yankees have not lost This one A lot of.
The Yankees lost several players because of their commitment to LeMahieu – however, Lindor is extremely likely to be the best non-LeMahieu field player available to the Yankees at any time during this off-season, and Carrasco, Darvish and Lynn (and Snell) appear to be the best starters – and the longer they wait for LeMahieu, the more they risk losing quality players who would improve their squad and therefore their chances of winning the 2021 World Series.
At some point the Yankees will have to sign with LeMahieu or start seriously exploring other options, and that point cannot be far behind because the hot stove is heating up and spring training is approaching. For a great candidate in the market, the Yankees have many needs in this off-season, especially in rotation. They are not a LeMahieu from being the World Series favorites. They shouldn’t let a player dominate their off season much longer.
For now, the Yankees are content to wait for LeMahieu, even if it means missing out on other opportunities. Patience has served them well in the past – the Yankees did not sign LeMahieu for the first time until January 14, 2019, a few days after rehiring Zack Britton and a few days before signing Adam Ottavino – and the slow free agent means that good players are still available. They cannot wait forever. The market is heated and the needs are numerous.