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The Reds are still after Sonny Gray and the Yanks reportedly have interest in some young arms

January 14, 2019 by Mike

It is January 14th and Sonny Gray is still a New York Yankee. He’s been on the trade block all winter, and, at one point, as many as eleven teams were in on him. The Yankees reportedly whittled that list down to the best possible suitors, but once CC Sabathia had his heart procedure, trade talks slowed. Gray could be necessary rotation depth.

Interest in Gray persists, however. Jon Heyman reports the Reds are still after Sonny despite reports to the contrary earlier this offseason. A few weeks ago Cincinnati was said to be fading out of the picture after acquiring one-year rentals Tanner Roark and Alex Wood. The reasoning was they wouldn’t want to give up more prospects for another one-year rental.

That said, Reds pitching coach Derek Johnson was Gray’s pitching coach at Vanderbilt, so there is a connection in place. And besides, the Reds could use more rotation help. In the deep NL Central, they’re going to need more than Roark, Wood, Yasiel Puig, and Matt Kemp to have a shot at contention. A few thoughts on this Grays/Reds stuff.

1. The Yankees apparently want pitching prospects now. Earlier this winter the Yankees reportedly asked the Reds for outfielder and top prospect Taylor Trammell in Gray trade talks. That was never going to happen, but hey, you can’t get what you don’t ask for, you know? Start with a high asking price, and if the other team doesn’t blink, adjust down. That’s what happened here.

Heyman says the Yankees are now focusing on upper level pitching prospects in talks with the Reds, specifically right-handers Tony Santillan, Vladimir Gutierrez, and Keury Mella. MLB.com ranks Santillan as the fifth best prospect in Cincinnati’s system, Gutierrez the eighth best, and Mella the 11th best. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranks Santillan and Gutierrez fifth and ninth best, respectively, with Mella outside the top ten.

As the rankings suggest, the 21-year-old Santillan is the best prospect of the bunch. He managed a 3.08 ERA (3.69 FIP) with 21.3% strikeouts and 6.0% walks in 149 innings at High-A and Double-A last season. Here’s a snippet of the Baseball America scouting report:

His plus-plus fastball sits 94-98 mph with late life. It can be a heavy fastball that is difficult for hitters to square up. He works off his fastball with a future plus slider that has good plane and tight break, though it morphs into a cutter at times. While his firm 85-88 mph changeup lags behind the other two offerings, he does show some feel for it and throws it with deception and fade … (Important) control is important for him to reach his ceiling as a mid-rotation starter.

A physically large (6-foot-3 and 240 lbs.) righty with a huge fastball? Yeah, sounds like someone up the Yankees’ alley. Gutierrez, 23, had a 4.35 ERA (4.09 FIP) with 23.2% strikeouts and 6.1% walks in 147 Double-A innings last year. Baseball America calls him a potential back-end starter. The 25-year-old Mella has been an up-and-down guy the last two years. He’s a fading prospect with a fastball/slider combo that probably fits best in the bullpen. Mella is Cincinnati’s Chance Adams, kinda.

Anyway, the Yankees were never going to get a top prospect like Trammell for Gray. Now they’re apparently targeting the next best thing, which is upper level pitching depth. They have a ton of lower level pitching prospects and they’re largely set on upper level positions. There’s no such thing as too much pitching though, so that’s where they’re looking. They asked for Trammell, the Reds said no, and now the Yankees have lowered the asking price. It is the natural order of negotiations.

2. The Yankees say they’re willing to keep Gray. But I don’t believe them. Not based on the way they’ve been talking about him the last few weeks and the palpable frustration that was evident every time he was discussed last season. The Yankees tried everything. They gave Gray his personal catcher, they changed his pitch selection, they changed his role. Nothing worked. The Yankees are ready to move on. It’s best for everyone, really.

Because of that, I don’t think the Yankees are serious about keeping Gray. They’ve determined he can not succeed in his current environment, and if that is true, then he’s not really rotation depth, is he? If the expectation is a 5.00 ERA going forward, well, you can find that for cheap in free agency. Francisco Liriano, Jason Hammel, and Josh Tomlin all strike me as swingman types who can be had on the cheap. I think the Yankees are done with Gray. All that talk about keeping him following Sabathia’s procedure was just an attempt to create leverage.

3. Gray is quite a bit cheaper than expected. I had a feeling this would happen. Gray’s 2019 salary is considerably lower than projected. MLBTR projected a $9.1M salary. Sonny signed for $7.5M. For the Yankees, that $1.6M difference is less than 1% of their projected payroll. It’s still $1.6M in real money, and for a team with a projected $110M payroll like the Reds, that’s quite a bit of cash. Gray’s below projected salary makes him more affordable to everyone. The Yankees if they keep him and interested trade partners if they deal him.

4. The Yankees are already over the luxury tax threshold. And this could mean one of two things. One, the Yankees will say screw it and keep spending. Maybe not Manny Machado or Bryce Harper, but Adam Ottavino or another reliever. Or two, the Yankees could now be operating under a mandate to reduce the luxury tax penalty as much as possible, thus making a Gray trade a necessity. My hunch is the reality is somewhere in the middle.

My quick math has the Yankees’ luxury tax payroll at $219.5M, assuming Luis Severino wins in his arbitration hearing. That doesn’t leave much wiggle room under the $226M second luxury tax tier, the tier that kicks in a surtax and moves their top 2020 draft pick back. Perhaps the Yankees are willing to blow by that $226M threshold. Would be cool. If not, trading Gray will be a prerequisite to doing anything further because a guy like Ottavino ain’t taking $5M per year.

* * *

Trading Gray for salary relief and an upper level pitching prospect or two would be a pretty good outcome in my opinion. Sonny’s value is down, there’s no doubt about that, but it is not zero. Personally, I’d be cool with keeping him as a swingman/spot starter. I don’t think the Yankees are okay with that though. They seem ready to move on. Whether it’s the Reds or another team, it still feels like only a matter of time until Gray is moved, even if things are dragging on longer than expected.

Thoughts after the Yankees agree to sign DJ LeMahieu

January 14, 2019 by Mike

Late last week the Yankees made what figures to be their final infield addition of the offseason. They agreed to a two-year, $24M contract with DJ LeMahieu. The signing came out of nowhere. There were no rumors connecting the Yankees to LeMahieu this offseason. Now he joins the infield mix. Anyway, here are some thoughts on the signing and what it means.

1. There are two ways to look at the LeMahieu signing. One is what he’ll provide on the field and what it means for the roster. We’ll get to that in a bit. The other is what it says about the Yankees, or, rather, what it reinforces about the Yankees, and that is they are willing to spend, but only to a certain point. That has been made crystal clear. They passed on Patrick Corbin to sign the cheaper (and not as good) J.A. Happ, and, barring a total surprise, they will pass on Manny Machado to sign the cheaper (and not as good) LeMahieu. That is disappointing at best and infuriating at worst. Machado (or Bryce Harper) would make the Yankees demonstrably better and don’t even waste your time trying to convince me otherwise. (People have tried all winter and nothing has been remotely close to compelling.) The Yankees did everything they needed to do leading up to this offseason. They developed a cheap homegrown core and they reset the luxury tax rate. Now they’re passing on two 26-year-old mega-talents for financial reasons. Even though the Yankees never came out and said they planned to spend big after resetting the luxury tax rate — that was an assumption made by fans and the media — I couldn’t blame fans for feeling conned right now. Ticket prices keep rising and I think many fans assumed getting under the luxury tax threshold was a good faith plan to put the Yankees in better position to spend big on stars. Instead, DJ LeMahieu. Maybe the Yankees will sign Machado or Harper. It’s possible as long as they remain free agents. Chances are they won’t though. Actions peak louder than words, and with their moves this offseason, the Yankees have told everyone they want to be good, but are unwilling to pay the price to acquire the best free agents, even when they are prime-aged generational talents. It is unfathomable to me a team in the Yankees’ position (or the Cubs’ position or the Dodgers’ position, for that matter) would pass on 26-year-old Machado and Harper.

2. Alright, on to the baseball portion of our program. The LeMahieu signing itself is fine. What it represents (no Machado) stinks, but the signing is fine. I’m glad the Yankees didn’t sit tight and assume Troy Tulowitzki will solve their middle infield issues with Didi Gregorius sidelined. You don’t have to try real hard to see a scenario in which Tulowitzki is hurt and/or ineffective early in the season, leading to Gleyber Torres and LeMahieu taking over the starting double play combination. In fact, I’d like the Yankees to go into the season with the Torres/LeMahieu middle infield tandem rather than the Tulowitzki/Torres tandem. That is almost certainly the best double play combination the Yankees can put on the field. We know that, at the very least, LeMahieu will play excellent second base defense. Tulowitzki is a giant unknown. Worth a league minimum roll of the dice, sure, but an unknown. The Yankees sound committed to giving Tulowitzki a chance to show he can contribute and hopefully he does. The more good players, the better. I’m just glad the Yankees brought in a quality middle infield insurance policy at a reasonable price — I’d rather have LeMahieu at two years and $24M than Jed Lowrie at two years and $20M because he’s four years younger and I think he’ll be the better player the next two years, and because he addresses the team’s biggest weakness (infield defense) — and if Tulowitzki isn’t cutting it, I hope they pull the plug quickly. The Yankees raised their internal replacement level with LeMahieu. When your starting shortstop has no firm return date from his major surgery and his replacement hasn’t played in 18 months, yeah, getting a guy like this is a smart move.

3. I don’t like the apparent plan to play LeMahieu at first base. I get that it’ll only happen occasionally, ideally only when Luke Voit (or Greg Bird) needs a day off, but I still don’t like it. Tulowitzki should be the backup first baseman. I say that because we can safely assume LeMahieu will be the better defensive middle infielder this season, in which case he should, you know, play the middle infield. Tulowitzki at short and LeMahieu at first won’t be quite as bad as the time the Yankees played Derek Jeter at short and Brendan Ryan at first base (that happened), but it would be close. The Yankees have strongly indicated Tulowitzki will be the shortstop though — Tulowitzki himself indicated he’d rather retire than move into a utility role — so it seems LeMahieu at first base will be a thing. I don’t like it. I expect him to be more than fine at third base given his athleticism and defensive chops. And, really, not liking LeMahieu at first base has more to do with wasting his defensive ability that worrying he’ll be a liability. Maybe Tulowitzki will be great at shortstop now that his nagging heel issues have been addressed, and playing him at short and LeMahieu at first will be no big deal. To me, it seems the best defensive alignment would have Torres at short, LeMahieu at second, and Tulowitzki at first.

4. LeMahieu’s offense is something we’ll surely look at more in-depth in the coming weeks. We know two things about him. One, Coors Field boosted his numbers. We know that because it boosts everyone’s numbers. The question is how much, and what do his numbers look like playing at sea level full-time? And two, LeMahieu is just different. In an era with huge power numbers and huge strikeout totals, LeMahieu is a throwback contact hitter who wears out right field as a right-handed hitter. That approach makes him an outlier these days. He can turn on a fastball and yank it out to left field …

… but, generally speaking, he has an opposite field swing and approach. It’s not fair to say the Yankees have no hitters go the other way — Aaron Judge (28.6%) and Gleyber Torres (25.1%) both bested the league average opposite field rate for right-handed hitters last season (24.6%), with Giancarlo Stanton (24.0%), and Miguel Andujar (23.3%) not far behind — but few in the game do it as much as LeMahieu (career 35.0%). He’s going to bring a different look to the lineup and a little offensive diversity never hurt anyone. It doesn’t guarantee the Yankees will be better, of course, but they’ll be a little different. It’ll be like having a mini-Jeter in the lineup, that righty hitter who serves everything the other way.

5. If you’re skeptical about the LeMahieu signing, and I totally get it if you are, you should take solace in the other teams that were pursuing him. The Dodgers were after LeMahieu, per Jon Morosi. The Athletics were after LeMahieu, per Susan Slusser. The Nationals were after LeMahieu, per Bob Nightengale. The Giants and new president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, most recently the Dodgers GM, were after LeMahieu, per Ken Rosenthal. Those are some pretty smart teams. There is mounting evidence Coors Field park factors are screwed up and unfairly punishing Rockies players — Baseball Prospectus and their new Deserved Runs Created (DRC+) park factors say LeMahieu was a top 20 player in baseball last year — and the fact a bunch of really smart teams were after him suggests there is some validity to that. Taking a player’s road numbers and declaring that the real him is overly simplistic, and that is especially true with Rockies players, who essentially see two completely different sets of pitches (pitches at altitude and pitches at sea level) because of the way the ball interacts with the thin mountain air. Breaking balls don’t spin the same way in Coors Field. Imagine facing the same pitcher with different stuff in different ballparks? There are signs LeMahieu is a better hitter than the raw stats — even the park-adjusted stats — would lead you believe. That so many smart teams were pursuing him makes me believe that is the case.

6. The LeMahieu signing gives the Yankees some Gregorius insurance for 2020. Brian Cashman says the Yankees want to keep Gregorius long-term and that’s great. Everyone loves Sir Didi. The fact of the matter is the two sides have not yet agreed to a multi-year contract extension — he signed a one-year deal worth $11.75M last week — and Gregorius is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. What happens if his rehab hits a snag and takes longer than expected, or he comes back and isn’t the same player? I don’t think it’ll happen, but it is possible. If the Yankees are unable to work out an extension with Gregorius or something goes wrong with his rehab, they know they can roll with Torres and LeMahieu on the middle infield in 2020. We’re not going to spend next offseason wondering how the Yankees will replace Gregorius again. His replacement is already in-house. And, if Gregorius does come back fine and the two sides work out an extension, then LeMahieu resumes the same utility role the Yankees apparently have planned for him now. Hopefully the Yankees and Gregorius work out a sensible extension soon. He is good and fun, and good and fun players are always worth keeping. At least now the team has some middle infield protection in case things go wrong somewhere along the line.

7. Eventually I’ll put together a full payroll breakdown like last season. For now, my quick math has the 2019 luxury tax payroll at $219.5M with LeMahieu, assuming Luis Severino wins his arbitration hearing. (If he loses, it’ll be $218.65M.) Subtracting Sonny Gray’s entire $7.5M salary — doesn’t that feel inevitable? — gets the Yankees down to $212M. The luxury tax threshold is $206M. At this point, there is almost no way for the Yankees to get under (and stay under) the threshold. They’d have to do something drastic like trade Dellin Betances and replace him with a league minimum player, and no. Just no. The number to pay attention to now is $226M. That is the second luxury tax tier. Right now the Yankees will be taxed 20% on every dollar over $206M. If they exceed $226M, they get hit with a 32% surtax and their top draft pick in 2020 moves back ten spots. On one hand, now that the Yankees are over the $206M threshold, they might as well keep spending. If not on Machado or Harper, then at least on another reliever like Adam Ottavino. Heck, they could trade Gray and give Ottavino something like $12M per year, and still remain under the $226M threshold. On the other hand, now that the Yankees are over the threshold, there might be a mandate to keep the penalty as low as possible. I think the most likely scenario is the $226M threshold is the new “do not cross” line, and, if that is correct, the Yankees still have money to play with this winter, assuming they do move Gray at some point, which I expect to happen. LeMahieu pushes the Yankees over the luxury tax threshold. At this point, they might as well go get Ottavino as well.

8. Not-so-bold prediction: We’re going to do the “the Yankees want to get under the luxury tax threshold” thing again in 2021. I say that for three reasons. One, 2021 is the final season under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, and I think every team will want to go into the next CBA with a clean luxury tax slate. Two, the luxury tax might go away in the next CBA (unlikely, but possible), so 2021 could be every team’s last chance to treat the threshold as a de facto salary cap, so they’ll take advantage. And three, the Yankees have a lot of money coming off the books following the 2020 season. These deals expire after 2020:

Masahiro Tanaka: $22.143M luxury tax hit
Jacoby Ellsbury: $21.857M luxury tax hit
J.A. Happ: $17M luxury tax hit (if his 2020 option doesn’t vest)
Zach Britton: $13M luxury tax hit (if his club and player options are declined)
DJ LeMahieu: $12M luxury tax hit

Is it a coincidence the Yankees have limited themselves to short-term deals that (at least potentially) expire before the final season under the current CBA? Probably not. The roster can and will change a bunch over the next two seasons. We all know that. Right now, the Yankees are poised to shed significant payroll following the 2020 season, putting them in position to get under the $210M luxury tax threshold in 2021, and again reset their tax rate. I’m just saying, don’t be surprised if the “2021 luxury tax plan” becomes a thing we find ourselves talking about in the future.

9. Alright, so what’s the 40-man roster move? I thought it would be Ben Heller for Britton, and it turned out to be Hanser Alberto, who wasn’t needed as infield depth because the LeMahieu signing was in the works. I’m going to stick with Heller, Tim Locastro, and Kyle Higashioka as the players most at risk of losing their 40-man roster spots for LeMahieu. Higashioka is the third catcher and he has a minor league option remaining. I think he’s pretty safe. The LeMahieu signing means Locastro isn’t absolutely needed — the Yankees would still have Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada, and non-40-man roster player Gio Urshela, as infield depth — but the fact he can play pretty much anywhere makes him a good piece of depth. Plus the Yankees gave up an actual player (2015 third rounder Drew Finley) to acquire him. I think Locastro stays and Heller, who is still rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, loses his 40-man spot. Keeping healthy players over injured players just makes sense. Just like I said last week with Britton, I expect it’ll be Heller to clear a spot for LeMahieu. Now prepare for it to be someone else entirely again.

Fan Confidence Poll: January 14th, 2019

January 14, 2019 by Mike

2018 Regular Season Record: 100-62 (851 RS, 669 RA, 98-64 expected record), second in ALE
2018 Postseason Record: 2-3 (22 RS, 29 RA), won WC Game, lost ALDS

The Lineup and LeMahieu

January 13, 2019 by Matt Imbrogno

In the middle of the week, the New York Jets hired (apparent castoff) Adam Gase as their newest head coach. The reaction I saw on Twitter and heard on the radio was universally negative. I’ve been mostly unplugged from football this year, but if my brief exposure is any indicator of the truth, this is a terrible hire by the Jets.

As a New York sports fan, I should be used to it, but the totality of the (often) extreme pessimism towards Gase and his hire bordered on shocking. Despite my negative reaction to this negativity, I found myself in a similar place when the Yankees signed DJ LeMahieu on Friday afternoon.

The gut reaction was somewhere between befuddlement and anger as the move most likely ends the Yankees’ pursuit of Manny Machado, a far superior player who would improve the Yankees. In a vacuum, LeMahieu does the same thing; he’s a better option in the infield than Tyler Wade or the recently departed Ronald Torreyes or Hanser Alberto. He just doesn’t improve the Yankees as much as Machado would and it’s frustrating to see the Yankees pass on a player over money when they have so much. Along with that gut reaction, though, there are baseball reasons not to like this signing.

Despite playing the majority of his career for the Rockies–thus having his home games in Coors Field–LeMahieu is a below average offensive player. His career wRC+ is 90 and he has a lowly ISO of just .108. More surprising is the relative lack of production at Coors Field. Aside from the year he won the batting title–2016–he has failed to put up a wRC+ greater than 90 AT HOME. 2016 is also the only year in which his overall offensive production was better than league average. Pardon the snark, but I guess any time you have the chance to sign a guy who can’t be a league average hitter in the league’s best hitting environment, you’ve gotta do it.

To cut myself short and avoid sounding like one of those Jets fans, there are reasons to like the move. Bobby covered some of them yesterday in his post. Regardless of my reactions, though, he’s here and now we’ve got to see how he’ll fit into the lineup.

LeMahieu is a second baseman. He’s played nothing but since he played about 40 or so innings between first base, third base, and shortstop in 2014. And there’s the rub of fitting him into the lineup. With Troy Tulowitzki on board and shortstop while Didi Gregorius is out and Gleyber Torres at second, things become crowded in the Yankee infield rather quickly. A possible solution is one I’ve floated in the event that the Yankees did indeed sign Machado: move Miguel Andujar to first base. If that were the case, the lineup could look like this:

Aaron Hicks CF
Aaron Judge RF
Giancarlo Stanton DH
Gary Sanchez C
Miguel Andujar 1B
Gleyber Torres 3B
Brett Gardner LF
Troy Tulowitzki SS
DJ LeMahieu 2B

This is definitely a workable lineup, but it does move two players out of position in Andujar and LeMahieu. It also cuts down the fact that LeMahieu is, by all accounts, a great defender at second. But is it a likely scenario? For it to be, we’ve got to believe that Tulo will be healthy and I’m not taking that bet; are you? Should he continue to be injured–or be ineffective and get cut in Spring Training–the lineup looks a little more “conventional”:

Aaron Hicks CF
Aaron Judge RF
Giancarlo Stanton DH
Gary Sanchez C
Luke Voit 1B
Miguel Andujar 3B
Gleyber Torres SS
Brett Gardner LF
DJ LeMahieu 2B

Signing LeMahieu probably signals that the Yankees aren’t terribly confident in Tulo staying healthy or being good and we’ll cross the Didi bridge when we get there. There are pluses to signing him, but his being successful requires the Yankees to–like they were with Luke Voit–be successful in judging that a player’s batted ball profile will adjust him well to Yankee Stadium. It helps that this player is a great defender at an up-the-middle position, but that position is already taken and, as previously mentioned, he hasn’t played another one in a while. Might it have made more sense to give this deal to Jed Lowrie, especially when he got a less expensive one from the Mets? Probably. But that’s not how it worked out and we (I) have got to live with it.

DJ LeMahieu is the Latest Sign the Yankees Have Changed

January 12, 2019 by Bobby Montano

The Yankees signed DJ LeMahieu to a two-year, $24 million contract yesterday, all but guaranteeing that the team’s half-hearted pursuit of Manny Machado has come to an end. That realization prompted a fierce reaction among many Yankee fans on social media yesterday, a great deal of whom not only wanted to see the 26-year-old superstar don the pinstripes but had expected it since Machado was a teenager in Baltimore. The Machado connection is part of what makes analyzing the LeMahieu signing a more difficult exercise than usual, but it goes even deeper than that: it is a symbol of a changing relationship between the New York Yankees and its fanbase.

That is a difficult space in which to operate from an analytical standpoint. Consider, for instance, the baseball element alone: LeMahieu is an outstanding defender. Publicly-available advanced metrics consider LeMahieu worth several wins defensively and non-statistical methods agree with this assessment: he is a three-time Gold Glove-winning second basemen. That is no small reason to cheer the signing; the Yankees have many defensive question marks in their infield and LeMahieu will almost certainly be a defensive upgrade even if he moves off of second base with New York.

Offensively, he is but two seasons removed from winning the National League batting crown with a .348 batting average and even though that season was the only one in his career in which he has been a better than average hitter, there is ample evidence that he hits the ball hard and to the opposite field. Back in July, fans scoffed at the addition of Luke Voit, but the Yankees trusted that similar underlying metrics revealed a hitter who could thrive in New York, and they were right. The Yankees are a smart, well-run operation with access to proprietary data and statistics that external analysts simply don’t—and their track record is deserving of the benefit of the doubt. It wouldn’t shock me at all to see LeMahieu have unexpected offensive success.

Factor in that LeMahieu is a 2-3 bWAR player and a hidden star of Baseball Prospectus’ new metric and it becomes clear that his $12 million annual salary is a perfectly normal deal for a perfectly normal free agent. Average to slightly-above-average major league players have real (often forgotten) value, and LeMahieu fits that bill. He’ll even be replacing the non-vital role of Neil Walker and Ronald Torreyes.

In other words, it is easy to see how LeMahieu will fit on the team. Why, then, was the reaction so fierce?

That was mostly because his signing comes amid a turbulent offseason for the Yankees and their fans. You need no reminder that the Yankees and the long-coveted 2018 free agent class have a special relationship. Insert your preferred Star Wars analogy here: fully-operational Death Star, Evil Empire, etc. There were special free agents available, and the Yankees were expected to have a special offseason. LeMahieu, more even than the decision to pass on Patrick Corbin or the many nebulous comments offered by Brian Cashman, is the symbol that this expectation, so long held, won’t come to pass.

Never mind that when the Yankees sold important pieces in 2016, it was to build a young core that could be supplemented by one of the stars pending free agency. Never mind that that young core blossomed faster than anyone could have reasonably expected and became a fearsome core of extremely talented, young and (unfortunately, most importantly) team- and cost-controlled stars. Never mind that the Yankees cut $50 million in payroll after missing the pennant by a single game in 2017, finally coming under the luxury tax we’d all heard so much about. Never mind that both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado were both open about their desires to play in New York. Never mind that adding even one of them would position the Yankees not just to win the World Series in 2019 but many more after that. Never mind it all, because very little of it mattered in the end.

These are the realizations running through the heads of Yankee fans when they think about DJ LeMahieu, and that is why the reaction to his signing was overwhelmingly negative. The Yankees organization itself understood this: that’s why, just 16 hours before the signing was announced, the team’s television network featured a segment with the most trusted Yankee reporters belittling and mocking fans who dared want to cheer for the best possible version of their team. It’s also why team sources may have reached out to reporters, planting the idea that if it were only a slightly different set of superstars—ones who, coincidentally, will be on the market in two years—then it would have been different. Besides, we will hear, the Yankees are almost certainly going to start the season over the luxury tax threshold, and this will be used to discredit arguments that the Yankees are cheap.

These tactics are meant to soften the blow of passing on Machado and Harper, to give fans a new shiny object—this time, Nolan Arenado in 2019 or Mike Trout and Mookie Betts in 2020—to dream about. Speculation about Arenado aside, most fans understand that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado were once those shiny objects of free agent classes to come—until they suddenly weren’t.

There’s one thing that we never hear about when writers and teams talk about future free agent classes: we never hear about the DJ LeMahieus, the perfectly average free agents who will cost less and demand less years than their superstar counterparts. The decision to choose DJ LeMahieu and Troy Tulowitzki over Manny Machado to patch up the Yanks’ battered infield lays bare that the Yankees have changed. For the first time since the Yankees signed Reggie Jackson before 1977, the team is more interested in justifying passing on superstars than it is justifying itself as the Evil Empire baseball needs.

CORRECTION (by Mike): The YES Network video linked above (this one) was not intended to belittle and mock fans. It was a quick comedic intro that led to a baseball discussion about the Yankees, Machado, and his market. We misrepresented what the video said and apologize for the error.

Yanks sign Hutchison, lose Cole and Alberto on waivers among flurry of roster moves

January 11, 2019 by Mike

Friday was a very busy day for the Yankees. In addition to all the arbitration filing deadline activity, they also agreed to a two-year contract with DJ LeMahieu, and announced several smaller transactions as well. Here is a recap of the day’s moves:

Officially announced three-year deal with LHP Zach Britton.
RHP A.J. Cole claimed off waivers by the Indians.
IF Hanser Alberto claimed off waivers by the Orioles.
Signed RHP Drew Hutchison to a minor league deal with an invitation to Spring Training.
Signed OF Matt Lipka to a minor league deal with an invitation to Spring Training.

The Yankees haven’t announced the LeMahieu signing yet. That is still pending a physical and it’ll be a few days. The Britton deal is technically a three-year contract, but, functionally, it is a two-year deal with a two-year club option and a one-year player option. Two years vs. three years doesn’t change anything with regards to the luxury tax. Britton still counts as $13M against the luxury tax payroll annually.

Cole, 27, was designated for assignment last week to clear 40-man roster space for Troy Tulowitzki. I thought the Yankees might be able to trade him for cash or a player to be named later, but no luck. They lost him on waivers to the Indians for nothing. Oh well. Cole had a 4.26 ERA (4.92 FIP) with 29.2% strikeouts in 38 innings for New York last season. He came over in a cash trade with the Nationals and had a few good weeks before falling apart.

Alberto was designated for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot for Britton, then was claimed by the Orioles a few hours later. I thought it was kinda weird the Yankees would unload infield depth given Troy Tulowitzki’s general fragility, then a few hours later the LeMahieu news broke, and it all made sense. The Yankees claimed Alberto from the Rangers a few weeks ago. He’s a great defender but not much of a hitter. Now he’s an Oriole.

Hutchison, 28, started Opening Day for the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium only four years ago, but injuries and ineffectiveness have dogged him since. He had a 6.75 ERA (6.42 FIP) in 42.2 innings with the Rangers and Phillies last season, and a 2.14 ERA (3.29 FIP) in 42 Triple-A innings. For what it’s worth (nothing), I signed Hutchison to be Triple-A Scranton’s veteran innings guy as part of my 2018-19 Offseason Plan. Now the Yankees have done the same.

The 26-year-old Lipka is a former high draft pick (35th overall in 2010) who stalled out with the Braves. He spent last season in Double-A with the Giants and hit .240/.329/.352 (91 wRC+) with four homers and 21 steals. Lipka has a little Triple-A time and I imagine he’ll spend the coming season as the roving Double-A and Triple-A depth outfielder. He’s not a prospect anymore. Just a roster filler signing.

Hutchison and Lipka join catcher Ryan Lavarnway, infielder Gio Urshela, lefty Rex Brothers, lefty Danny Coulombe, and outfielder Billy Burns as minor league contract depth pickups this winter. You never know with these things, but that might be it for the non-roster signings. If nothing else, the Yankees have addressed all Triple-A Scranton’s roster needs.

2019 Salary Arbitration Filing Day Updates

January 11, 2019 by Mike

Today is an important date on the offseason calendar. Today is the deadline for teams and their arbitration-eligible players to file salary figures with the league. The player files what he believes he should be paid in 2019. The team files what they believe the player should be paid in 2019. Pretty straightforward, right? There is a lot of money on the line today around the league.

Most arbitration-eligible players will agree to 2019 contracts today. Only a handful will actually file salary figures. The two sides can still work out a contract of any size even after filing salary figures, but most teams employ a “file and trial” approach, meaning once they file numbers, they cut off contract talks and go to an arbitration hearing. That’s designed to put pressure on the player to sign.

If the two sides do go to a hearing, they will each defend their filing number and state their case to the three-person panel. It can get ugly. Jeff Passan says the Red Sox played a Kris Bryant highlight video during their hearing with Mookie Betts last year to show the panel Betts is not as good as Bryant, and didn’t deserve a similar salary. Ouch. (It didn’t work. Betts won.) The panel will ultimately pick either the salary the player filed or the salary the team filed. Nothing in between.

The Yankees have a massive arbitration class this season. Not only do they have nine arbitration-eligible players, those nine players combine for over $50M in projected salary in 2019. Last year’s nine-player arbitration class ran only $29.2525M in actual salary. This year’s arbitration class could come close to doubling that. Arbitration-eligible players could chew up more than a quarter of the $206M luxury tax threshold.

Unless something unexpected happens, like a long-term extension, we’re going to keep track of all the day’s Yankees-related arbitration news right here in this one post. The Didi Gregorius situation is the important one to watch. Here are this year’s arbitration-eligible Yankees and their projected salaries, via MLBTR:

	Service Time (years.days)	MLBTR Projection	Actual 2019 Salary
Didi Gregorius	5.159	$12.4M	$11.75M
Dellin Betances	5.078	$6.4M	$7.25M
Sonny Gray	5.061	$9.1M	$7.5M
Austin Romine	5.045	$2M	$1.8M
Aaron Hicks	5.041	$6.2M	$6M
James Paxton	4.151	$9M	$8.575M
Tommy Kahnle	3.131	$1.5M	$1.3875
Greg Bird	3.053	$1.5M	$1.2M
Luis Severino	2.170	$5.1M	Filed
Total		$53.2M	$45.4625M

As a reminder, players with 0-3 years of service time are pre-arbitration-eligible and teams can pay them pretty much whatever they want. Players with 3-6 years of service time are arbitration-eligible. (Severino is a Super Two and will be arbitration four times instead of the usual three. Here’s a Super Two primer.) Players with more than six years of service time are eligible for free agency.

The Yankees have been to one arbitration hearing in the last ten years (Betances in 2017), and, for the most part, they get their players signed before the filing deadline. They have had a few negotiations continue beyond the filing deadline, most notably Aroldis Chapman in 2016. Generally speaking though, the Yankees get their guys signed before the salary filing deadline. They’ll be busy today given their sizeable arbitration class.

It’s worth noting one-year contracts for arbitration-eligible players are not guaranteed. These players can be released in Spring Training and owed only 30 days or 45 days termination pay, depending on the exact date of the release. Chances are none of them will get released in camp. It doesn’t happen often. Kahnle seems most at risk of a Spring Training release should he show up to Tampa with his velocity still missing.

Anyway, the salary figure filing deadline is 1pm ET but news is going to trickle in through the day. The Yankees tend to announce everything all at once at the end of the business day, so official confirmation is still a few hours away. Here’s the latest contract news for arbitration-eligible Yankees. Check back throughout the day for updates.

12:00pm ET: According to Bob Nightengale, the Yankees and Bird have agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.2M. Bird has played in only 130 of 486 possible games the last three seasons, though he was accruing service time while on the Major League disabled list, so he’s arbitration-eligible.

12:00pm ET: Romine and the Yankees have agreed to a $1.8M salary for 2019, reports Nightengale. Thus far both signings come in a tick below the MLBTR projection. Probably just a coincidence, but, given the state of free agency, I can’t help but wonder if teams are putting the squeeze are arbitration-eligible players too.

12:57pm ET: Hicks gets a $6M salary for the coming season, according to Nightengale. Another below projection number. Hmmm. The big question now: Will the Yankees and Hicks discuss a long-term extension at some point, or is this it until he becomes a free agent after the season?

4:12pm ET: Jeff Passan reports the Yankees and Luis Severino did not agree to a contract before the 1pm ET deadline. They’re expected to go to an arbitration hearing. No word on their salary filing figures yet. Those will come out eventually.

5:25pm ET: The Yankees and Betances agreed to a one-year deal at $7.25M, reports Sweeny Murti. That is well-above the MLBTR projection. Good for Dellin. Of course, the Yanks beat him in arbitration a few years ago, so his salary is lower than what it could’ve been.

5:52pm ET: The Yankees have agreed to one-year contracts with all their arbitration-eligible players except Severino, the team announced. We’re still waiting on Severino’s filing numbers as well as salary numbers for Gregorius, Paxton, Gray, and Kahnle.

9:55pm ET: Ron Blum says Gregorius received $11.75M, Paxton received $8.575M, and Gray received $7.5M. So much for the Yankees getting Gregorius at a discount while he rehabs from Tommy John surgery. Also, Severino filed for $5.25M while the Yankees countered with $4.4M. Arbitration hearings will take place in February. Still no word on Kahnle’s salary.

Saturday, 10:12am ET: Blum’s story has been updated to include Kahnle’s salary. He gets $1,387,500. Seven of the eight arbitration-eligible Yankees who signed yesterday signed below their MLBTR projection, with Betances the lone exception. Those eight players combine for $45.4625M in salary, so, even if Severino wins his hearing, this year’s class comes in at roughly $2.5M below the projection.