Jeff Samardzija Would Make the Rich Yankees Richer

Last season, the New York Yankees had a top-10 rotation bothby FIP-based WAR and RA9-WAR. They were really good. This offseason, CC Sabathia and Jaime Garcia have left as free agents, and Michael Pineda won’t be around after undergoing Tommy John surgery. But Sonny Gray will have a full season with the club, and top prospects Chance Adams and Justus Sheffield have reached the upper minors, making them ready for in-season call-ups.

All of this is to say, the Yankees will have a good rotation even if they do nothing else this offseason. Right now on the FanGraphs depth charts, the club is projected to have the 10th-best starting rotation in the majors. That’s pretty good, especially when you combine it with a top-notch bullpen, strong offense, and above-average defense.

Nevertheless, the Yankees have an opportunity to get richer.

Travis wrote earlier today about the possibility of trading Jacoby Ellsbury, which makes plenty of sense. I wrote in July that Ellsbury has retained a modicum of value and wasn’t necessarily someone who needed to be traded, but now that the Yankees have Giancarlo Stanton, Ellsbury has descended that much further down the depth chart. So, while the Yankees don’t necessarily need to trade Ellsbury, moving a superfluous outfielder to fill a rotation need would be a wise move.

The current theory is that the Yankees could tie Ellsbury to a top prospect and receive a starting pitcher in return. According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, one such pitcher could be Jeff Samardzija. Samardzija’s contract, as you may recall, allows him to list eight teams to which he is allowed to be traded, effectively giving him a no-trade clause for 22 teams. As far as we know, the Yankees are not one of those 22 teams. In July, Andrew Baggardly wrote that the eight teams to which Samardzija could be traded were the Angels, A’s, Cubs, Dodgers, Mets, Nationals, Red Sox, and Yankees.

Adding Samardzija wouldn’t come free for the Yankees. For one thing, as Sherman notes, there is a disparity in Samardzija’s and Ellsbury’s salaries, so the Yankees might be forced to take on another high-dollar player to balance the scales. More importantly, it would cost the Yankees prospects. You can bet those prospects would be position players, and you can start with Clint Frazier and perhaps add Tyler Wade to the mix. Both would be beneficial for the Giants to have, particularly if San Francisco does look to trade off Joe Panik.

Swapping Ellsbury for Samardzija would carry a significant benefit for the Yankees, though. Here’s how the Yankees’ rotation would project without him:

Now, let’s swap Samardzija in and take out some innings from other pitchers to compensate.

Reassigning the bulk of the innings from the triumvirate of Domingo Acevedo, Luis Cessa, and Domingo German to Samardzija nets the Yankees a two-win upgrade. And while Ellsbury is expected to be a player of value, he’s only projected to provide 0.3 WAR on the current Yankees depth chart, since he’s only slated for 231 plate appearances. And that playing time can easily be vacuumed up by Brett Gardner and Tyler Austin. Austin’s projected .305 wOBA more or less matches Ellsbury’s .310 projected mark. In other words, the Yankees probably don’t lose anything of value to the 2018 team if they deal Ellsbury and Frazier for Samardzija.

Is that enough? Who knows. If the Giants insisted on receiving Wade in the deal, too, that might complicate things. With Chase Headley off to San Diego, Wade is currently slated to man third base for the Bronx Bombers. But that could change. And the Yankees have other prospects. Given the machinations of the Yankees this past week, that they still have several good prospects is nothing short of breathtaking.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the deal is Ellsbury plus Frazier plus another prospect not currently expected to contribute to the 2018 Yankees roster — all that for Samardzija. The Yankees get their two-win upgrade in the rotation. Where would that put them?

Where this would put them is atop all the pitching staffs in the game, according to the projections. As you can see, it would still leave Cleveland and the Dodgers with superior rotations overall. The Astros and Nationals would linger close behind, too. But add that starting rotation to an excellent bullpen and a position-player group that is already among the top five in terms of projected WAR, and you have the makings of a juggernaut.

The Yankees are a rich team, both in terms of money and talent. This will be true even if they do nothing to alter their current starting rotation — or their current team at all, for that matter. But with Jacoby Ellsbury poised to have a diminished role, the Yankees may be able to sell him off with a top prospect or two and land a starting pitcher, be that Michael Fulmer (as Eno suggested earlier today, or Jeff Samardzija, or someone else. Samardzija might be the most stable pitcher they could land, given that he has posted two wins or better for five straight years and is projected to do so again.