The Yankees are having one heck of an offseason. Last night, they agreed to a six-year, $162 million contract with lefthander Carlos Rodón, giving them the best rotation in the American League, if not in all of baseball. And they did so in addition to re-signing both Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo, giving them the three players they most needed to sign.
Indeed, New York is better now than it was last season—Rodón is a major upgrade over Jameson Taillon, who signed with the Cubs last week during the winter meetings—when it won 99 games, finished first in the AL East and came four wins short of the AL pennant (though the gap certainly felt wider than that). That said, general manager Brian Cashman still has more work to do over the next two months before spring training begins.
The Yankees, as Tom Verducci wrote last night, signed Rodón with the expectation that “he can not only help them get to the postseason but also it.” This is true; they needed another ace with the swing-and-miss stuff that is so crucial for winning in the playoffs. And yet, their biggest problem in their AL Championship Series loss to the Astros was their inability to score.
Yes, it’s true that some of the Yankees’ offensive struggles during the ALCS could be attributed to poor luck against an elite pitching staff. Judge finished 1-for-16 in the series, but he just missed extra-base hits on three of his flyouts; the expected batting averages on those ropes: .810, .910 and .960. Judge’s first true slump of the year happened just as Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres also went cold, and while DJ LeMahieu was out with nagging toe inflammation and Matt Carpenter was coming back prematurely from his aforementioned broken foot. Meaning, at the worst possible time, five of New York’s best hitters last season were simultaneously either struggling or hurt.
However, the combination of injuries and ineffectiveness wasn’t an anomaly for the 2022 Yankees. Rather, with the exception of Judge, this was the story of the second half of their season. These players are more than capable of staying healthy and producing more consistently next year, but it would be foolish to expect them to be relatively injury- and scuffle-free. Their infield depth is fine: in addition to Torres, top prospect Oswald Peraza, Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and LeMahieu, assuming he’s healthy to start the season, the Yankees also have Oswaldo Cabrera—whose primary position is middle infield, even though he played mostly outfield after his callup last season—and top prospect Anthony Volpe, who will have a shot to make the major-league roster out of spring training. On the flip side, their options in the outfield are limited. You could make the case that Judge and Harrison Bader are their only two true starting outfielders, depending on how you evaluate Cabrera. Stanton has not played more than 72 games in the outfield since he joined the Yankees, and Aaron Hicks is at best a fourth or fifth outfielder. Also, their lineup is still too right-handed, which makes them susceptible to righty power pitchers with nasty sliders. If nothing else, they should add one more lefty bat, preferably one who plays the outfield. But who? And how?
Well, they are the Yankees; the natural response is to say they should look to free agency and open up their checkbooks. The dilemma, though, is they’ve already added $92.75 million to next season’s luxury tax payroll, which, according to Roster Resource, is currently at an estimated $292.8 million. For simplicity’s sake, let’s round this up to $293 million, which is the fourth and final competitive balance tax threshold.
They exceeded the first threshold last year, so as repeat offenders, they face a 30% tax penalty on the first $20 million they spend over the lowest CBT threshold, a 42% tax on the next $20 million and a 75% tax on the next $20 million. If they add any more payroll, they would exceed the final threshold, which would trigger a 90% penalty.
Instead of looking at the current pool of free agents, the Yankees could try to trade for a player such as Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds, who reportedly requested a trade earlier this month. Pittsburgh has said it doesn’t want to deal Reynolds, so it would likely take a haul of prospects to get him. New York, though, does have the prospects to get him, and he’s one of the few players who’d be worth it because he’s under club control for the next three seasons. The Diamondbacks also have a quartet of young, talented lefty-hitting outfielders—Dalton Varsho, Jake McCarthy, Alek Thomas and Corbin Carroll—are open to trading one of them, with Carroll reportedly being the only one who’s off limits. Arizona would probably ask for less than Pittsburgh would for Reynolds.
The Yankees can also afford to wait until the trade deadline, when their needs and those of other teams become more clear. Maybe Cody Bellinger is finally healthy and looks more like the player he was in his first three seasons, and maybe the Cubs are out of contention by the All-Star break. Or, maybe the Giants fall into a distant third behind the Dodgers and Padres in the West, without much of a shot at a wild-card spot, and make Joc Pederson available.
They’ve had an excellent offseason so far. Before the end of next season, they need to do more.
