Yankees Go a Different Route on the Infield
The Yankees signed a free agent infielder. He’s been an All-Star and has won Gold Gloves, and there are considerable differences of opinion over how much he might be worth, but the Yankees found the player for whom it was worth going over the competitive balance tax threshold. That player is not Manny Machado. Signing DJ LeMahieu will cost the Yankees $24 million. Not per season, but total over the next two years, per Jack Curry and Ken Rosenthal.
The Yankees’ infield is an intriguing one. With shortstop Didi Gregorius set to miss some of next season, the team signed Troy Tulowitzki to play shortstop. Tulowitzki has barely played the last two seasons and at 34 years old, it isn’t clear he has much left, but with Gregorius coming back at some point and Gleyber Torres able to play short, the team didn’t necessarily need Tulowitzki to earn a starting role. The club still has Miguel Andujar penciled in at third base with some hope that he will improve his defense, while over at first base, the team has late-season wonder Luke Voit and perpetually hurt Greg Bird.
The logic for adding Manny Machado was pretty sound. Beyond his obvious talent at the plate, the Yankees had a potential hole at shortstop and a long term opening there after next season. This year, Machado could have played third base, with Andujar moving to first base, designated hitter, or another team. That would leave Torres at second base, and first base as is. It would also likely provide the team a five-win upgrade over its present situation. As to how things will fit with LeMahieu, Jack Curry provides some insight.
The Yankees plan to use LeMahieu as a versatile player around the infield. They will use him at second base, first base and third base.
— JackCurryYES (@JackCurryYES) January 11, 2019
LeMahieu has started 882 games in the field in his career and 857 of those have come at second base. He’s started 24 games at third base, the last one coming in 2014, and he also started one game at first base for the Cubs during the 2011 campaign. It would seem that this signing is an insurance policy of sorts for the shortstop situation. If Torres needs to move to short, the organization doesn’t have anyone capable of playing at an average level at that spot. If Andujar completely bombs out on defense at third base, the team could move LeMahieu or Torres there and hope to get decent play. Of course, LeMahieu is a very good defensive second baseman, and it would be odd to move him from that spot given how well he fits there.
There’s also the question of LeMahieu’s bat. The now-former Rockies’ second baseman has played essentially six full seasons in the majors and been above-average offensively in exactly one of them. In 2016, Leamhieu posted a double-digit walk rate, a strikeout rate of just 13%, an ISO of .147 and a sky-high .388 BABIP on his way to a 130 wRC+. The last two seasons, his walk rate has dropped to 8%, his strikeout rate increased slightly to 14%, his ISO has been .123, his BABIP .326, and his wRC+ has been 10% below league-average. Combined with solid defense, this has made him a roughly average player. Jeff Sullivan noted that LeMahieu does have some hidden upside as a player who hits the ball hard and makes a lot of contact, and used the graph below to illustrate those two skills, with LeMahieu’s spot highlighted.
If LeMahieu could take that hard contact and put it in the air more often, he might hit for more power and have better overall numbers. As Sullivan (along with Travis Sawchik) noted, there might have been some attempts by LeMahieu to achieve a change. In 2018, he posted a GB/FB rate below 2.0 for the first time in his career, while his 30% pull-rate was a career-high. It likely helped cause his career-high .152 ISO. If that power came at the expense of hits — LeMahieu had a career low .298 BABIP, as well as fewer walks, with just a 6% walk rate — it isn’t clear the trade-off has helped yet.
The problem for LeMahieu is that he just hasn’t been able to translate his hard ground balls into hard fly balls. On ground balls last season, LeMahieu put up an average exit velocity of 89.6 MPH, well above the 84.5 mph league average and in the top 10% in all of baseball. On fly balls, LeMahieu put up an average exit velocity of 91.3 mph, which is harder than his grounders, but below the league average of 91.6 mph last year. His exit velocity ranks so highly overall because he hits balls on the ground very hard, which is generally what allows him to post high BABIPs and come close to a league-average player. This is what his spray chart looked like last year.
That’s a lot base hits from a player who can’t be effectively shifted against. LeMahieu might have some untapped power, but he hasn’t yet been able to get to it. At 30 years old, he probably isn’t getting any better than the useful player we see right now. In any event, the Yankees aren’t bringing LeMahieu in for his untapped power. They are bringing him in to raise the team’s floor should their other infield options fail to work out, and to add a solid glove with good contact ability.
In a world where LeMahieu was one of very limited options, the move would make sense, albeit not all that much sense if LeMahieu is a utility player. We don’t live in that world, though. We live in a world where Manny Machado exists, wants to play in New York, and doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of bidders for his services. By signing LeMahieu, the Yankees are essentially committed to going over the competitive balance tax next season. The last time the Yankees passed on a $200-plus million infielder who really wanted to play for the Yankees, the team missed the playoffs in two of the next three seasons and didn’t play in a playoff series during that time. Robinson Cano averaged five wins per season over those three years in Seattle, as the Yankees opted to spend their money on Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran. The Yankees should be better the next three seasons than they were from 2014 to 2016, and D.J. LeMahieu should help them, but it’s easy to see how the Yankees might end up regretting passing on a 26-year-old star so they can save a little money. Unless they still sign Machado, in which case the last paragraph is moot.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
The real question is whether there will be any infielders left outside of New York City by the end of this offseason.
A&E can do a series on them. They found JD Davis next to an old box of newspapers.
The evil empire has gone stingy. Didn’t anyone tell them the Red Sox won the world series last year?
If this was any team other than the money-printing machine of the New York Yankees, I would say they that they’re going to regret this signing. Signing a guy with this track record of hitting to play some 1st and 3rd base isn’t ideal, and we don’t know if his excellent defense at 2nd is going to translate to those other positions. The Mets literally signed a better player for less money yesterday to do the same things the Yankees are going to do with DJLM.
That said, it’s the Yankees, so if it doesn’t work they can just go “lol!” and print more money.
I am also with Craig don’t like that they seem to have punted on Machado, who solves pretty much all their problems except he’s not a lefty, when they’re going to be over the tax anyway. If you’re going to be $10M over, you might as well be $27M over and be way better.
maybe, instead of Machado, they’re going to sign the lefty.
But then why did they sign LeMahieu? I think Moustakas makes a lot of sense for them even now, but that makes LeMahieu a very expensive backup 2nd baseman.
I’m pretty sure he means the other free agent that is in the same price range as Manny, but hits left handed.
That would also be an interesting direction, although in an entirely different way. Would Harper play 1B? DH? Sticking him in the outfield to put Judge or Stanton at DH doesn’t make much sense. Would they try to unload Stanton to the Cubs or Dodgers? A logjam of an entirely different kind…
Hicks, Judge, Harper in the OF, Stanton DH. Gardner 4th OF.
Stanton will be mostly DH regardless
Sticking Stanton at DH for Gardner and Judge is a reasonable decision. Sitting Stanton to play Harper in the outfielder is straight-up dumb, because Stanton is a much better defensive outfielder than Harper. Why would anyone think that is a good idea?
Well then they can DH Harper and play Stanton… either way
Harper is a CF. He says with a forced smile
Harper is a DH.
The only way this move makes any sense to me is if the Yankees’ early workouts of Tulowitzki have shown that he just isn’t capable of playing on a regular basis. If that’s the case, then they’ll need to play Torres at short and LaMahieu at second until Gregorius gets back, which is fine, but which then makes you wonder what they’ll do once Gregorius gets back, and in 2020. But signing LaMahieu AND Tulowitzki just leaves you scratching your head — this is a lot of money to pay for a utilityman. Unless they’re so sure that Andujar has to move to first base that they intend on using LaMahieu at 3B to start out the season with Andujar at 1B… but if that were the case, signing Machado should have been more of a priority.
I just honestly don’t understand this.
And just to continue on this because it’s really sticking in my craw — signing Gregorius after 2019 would seem like a no-brainer, given that he’s an extremely productive player who probably isn’t going to be that expensive given the recent injury history. But the Yankees shouldn’t be too worried about that injury history, since Torres just came off the exact same injury and had a productive rookie season. But how do you work Gregorius, Torres, Andujar, and LaMehieu into the same infield in 2020? If they’re insistent on moving Andujar, why sign a second baseman whose best skill is his defense to fill the slot at third base? It just seems like there had to have been a better option than this.
DJ is also Gleyber insurance since he has had issues with his hip before last season.
Also, Gleyber’s TJS was on his non-throwing arm, Didi’s is on his throwing arm.
Torres 3B, Gregorious SS, LeMahieu 2B, Andujar 1B/DH in 2020
If they wanted to sign a third baseman Moustakas is available and a great fit for Yankee Stadium. LeMahieu is a seriously weird choice in this context.
perhaps they’ll move Andujar to first and, with LeMahieu at second, move Gleyber to 3B
I think the answer is that you can’t count on Tulo as your everyday SS, even for half a season. So Gleyber gets a lot of time there. And LeMahieu gets a lot of 2B time. And probably does occasionally spell Andujar as a defensive replacement at 3B.
It does get a bit trickier once Gregorious is back. And I happen to like the Lowrie and (especially) Dozier signings more.
Maybe I am taking any two points and turning them into a line, but I think it’s interesting that the last two NYY signings – which each have seemed a little odd to me – run directly counter to the TTO mindset that’s the norm in today’s game. IE, Britton and LeMahieu both have less swing-and-miss and more BABIP in their profiles than most of their peers.
If Tulo can’t play every day, then why sign him? Sign Galvis , Iglesies, or someone else. In an era with short benches, carrying a player who is hurt and needs to be rested all the time and is not versatile is very difficult.
Because Tulo was league minimum and has MVP potential. No one else comes so cheap with such a high potential. There’s so much enormous variance with him he could literally do nothing or be comeback player of the year, and we have no idea which. You can’t blame the Yanks for taking a flyer on him but also not depending on him for a whole half season. DJ was cheap, has a high floor, and could provide depth in case Andujar or Torres are injured or become 2018 Gary Sanchez. It’s a good move for 12m/year.
So the advantage of signing Tulo is that you can cut him if it looks like he sucks. The advantage of signing LeMahieu is that he’s a good defensive second baseman, but since they’re planning to play him out of position (and at positions where bat doesn’t play well) I don’t really think he’s “cheap.” The Mets literally signed a guy for less money who has experience doing exactly what the Yankees are planning on doing and who is a better player…and that was yesterday.
Wait, what?! Tulo has MVP potential? Is this 2014?
Tulo hasn’t been a great player in five years…since he was 29. This is like saying “Jose Bautista has MVP potential”. I guess it takes a long time for the fans’ view of a player to catch up to reality. (Since 2014, Tulo has had WRC+ of 101, 104, 79, and missed entire year.)
I think Tulo signing for $550k showed he is not capable of playing on a regular basis.
the Bluejays are paying all of Tulowitzki’s 19M salary except the 550k. Whoever signed him would only pay the minimum. That’s how mlb contracts work.
These moves make sense if this is the Yankees’ strategy:
1. Sign a bunch of players with high ceilings and/or positional flexibility, throw them all into the mix.
2. Play them in the first half, see who’s healthy and/or playing up to potential.
3. Re-assess mid-season, see where your holes are, and sign the best player available to fill those holes for your playoff push.
If they sign Machado now, they can’t maximize their gains mid-season. There is some chance that between Andujar/Torres/Tulowitzki/LaMahieu/Voit/Bird/Gregorius that the Yankees infield won’t even be an issue by July.
So it’s not about whether this puts them over the luxury tax threshold. They know they’re going over, but want flexibility at the trade deadline.
They did a pretty good job getting McCutchen and Voit last season to fill holes, and in those cases didn’t even need to spend money. Based on just second half numbers alone, either one of those players would have come close or even surpassed a Machado (acknowledging his defensive superiority and long term consistency).
Yes, unlike Cashman, people here seem to have a hard time considering joint probabilities.
Cashman’s The best GM in baseball. He has a master plan behind all of this. He always does.
I don’t agree with your assertion that this only makes sense if they don’t believe in Tulowitzki, but I don’t see how the same logic wouldn’t apply to Machado even moreso. Tulo plays SS, Machado plays 3B or SS, LaMahieu plays 3B, 2B, or 1B. Which one of Machado or LaMahieu has less intersection with Tulo? In any case, they can release Tulowitzki without any problem. As far as LaMahieu, utility man implies that he won’t be playing every day. But if he is hitting well they will probably work him into the lineup almost every day at either 3rd, second or first. If he isn’t hitting well then isn’t it good that they have a backup plan? The worst case scenario of the “head scratching-ness” of this signing seems to be that everyone is playing well when Gregorius returns. Not a terrible problem to have.
I think it’s a good signing and it’s smart to avoid Machado. This allows them to contend while they evaluate Andujar further and decide what to do with him without committing to him or committing $300 million dollars. It provides additional backup at 1B, a position they probably feel a little unsure about. Basically this is an upgrade over Neil Walker. It also gives them a contact hitter when they have so many strike out guys, something that is important to matching up as well as possible against a variety of teams in the postseason. They could still use an impact lefty, though, for the same reason.
Without knowing what’s in Cashman’s head as a next step, there’s a weird logic to this. Tulo costs MLB minimum. He’s utterly dispensable if he isn’t any good, and Torres moves to short, leaving LeMahieu at 2nd. After the Yankees signed Britton there was concern their infield wasn’t good defensively–this does help a bit. But still, Britton and LeMahieu for $25M a year is very weird. It might mean the Yankees are committed to not trading Andujar, and think that they may not be able to sign Didi.
Agreed, I think it makes good sense.
Tulo was signed as a pure upside play (and there is upside there for league minimum), and if he doesn’t pan out (a significant risk), no worries, the Yankees aren’t counting on him anyway.
Putting Tulo aside, and with Didi out for the forseeable future, the lineup will be Torres at SS, Andujar at 3B, DJ at 2B and Voit/Bird at 1B.
Seems very reasonable. And if Tulo is healthy and raking then it’s all gravy and DJ can serve as the utility option.
LeMahieu hits much better at Coors than on the road, so probably many teams were aware of this and stayed away from him. However looking at his spray chart, he does hit more to RF than LF. His natural swing seems to generate line drives to the right side. With Yankee Stadium’s short porch, that can play out two ways (1) to his benefit, with more balls reaching the wall and/or the seats, or (2) to his detriment, with much less ground to cover in CF-RF, balls that may have fallen in for base hits in cavernous Coors will be easier outs in Yankee Stadium. Maybe the Yanks studied his hitting profile and are convinced (1) is more likely to happen than (2).
It also seems worth noting that playing at Coors helps hitters increase their average more than their home runs. So LeMahieu presumably will be hurt more than the average Rockies hitter by moving to a different team.
Has anyone looked into (or is there a good place/way to calculate) a team’s chances in five- and seven-game playoff series against the other potential playoff teams in 2019? It seems to me that teams who find themselves almost guaranteed to make the playoffs next season may not feel the need to add Machado or Harper for $300+ million if they aren’t going to move the needle in the playoffs that much and you already expect to make the playoffs with your current roster. If the Yankees are facing the Red Sox, Astros, or Indians, subbing in Machado for Andujar and flipping Andujar for some more pitching moves the Yankees chances from 50%/50% to what? 50.2%/49.8%?
I’m just trying to figure out how all these big market, analytical front offices who aren’t heavily in on Machado/Harper are thinking about it, because it sure seems like the rest of us are missing something.
The caveat here is that the Yankees specifically may find more value in Machado/Harper than other teams this season given they’ll be vying with the Red Sox for the division again, but I would guess that even moving from a projected 95 to 98-100 wins wouldn’t move the needle a ton in terms of their chances of winning the division either?
A few thoughts come to mind:
– Machado wants to be a Yankee? How badly? Enough to come off $300M+ over ten years? Portraying LeMahieu as a utility leaves the door open a crack for Machado but only a crack. “The ball’s in your court, Mr Machado. Top dollar in Philly or 7 years in pinstripes?”
– Saying LeMahieu is going to play 2b, 3B, and 1B says nothing about how often or *when* he’ll play there. He might open the season at 2b with Torres at SS until Gregorius gets back and then share 3B with occasional work at 1B.
– Or, maybe the Yankees do want Machado but first want to turn Andujar into Kluber via San Diego.
It’s still January. Spring training is still a month away, opening day over two months away. Plenty of time to make moves, turn Gray into prospects, sign Moustskas or Harper, ditch Ellsbury, or whatever else they intend to do.
All we know for sure is they added a decent 2b and can credibly go into the season without giving anybody a record-setting contract. Just because you can afford a shiny new toy doesn’t mean you have to go get it.
I’m not seeing how paying Machado $300m over 10 years is anything but a good use of those dollars. If they really let him go elsewhere it’s a major loss. LeMahieu loses most of his much smaller value away from 2B. Signing him for $24m to play 2B 1/2 the time and elsewhere 1/4 of the time and sit 1/4 of the time seems like a waste of $24m.
Machado when?
Is there any chance that maybe there isn’t a market for Machado outside of one team?
Is there any chance that Machado doesn’t immediately make any team in MLB several wins better?
The Dodgers?
Indians
“But it’s easy to see how the Yankees might end up regretting passing on a 26-year-old star so they can save a little money.”
2ys/$24mil for LeMahieu
~7-10yr/$250-$350mil for Machado
It’s always easy to spend someone else’s money! It’s just a “little” anyway..
The Yankees seem ready to commit to Gregorious long-term (whether they let him hit FA remains to be seen). They have young, controllable, really friggin’ good internal options at 2B and 3B. And they’ve got a few regular DH options too. It’s easy to say that the Yankees could slide Andujar over to 1B. But for someone who already has *ahem* deficiencies defensively, it’s easier said than done. If they don’t feel like they want him to make that switch, then they really don’t have a place for Machado when Gregorious is back. The OF is already too crowded to move Andujar out there, where he may be a better fit.
Now, if they had traded Andujar (they still could) as part of a package for an elite SP, then it would be a slam dunk. Go sign Machado. But under the current circumstances, it would be a REALLY expensive way to muddy up their depth chart, which they’ve already done recently (see: Stanton, Giancarlo).
PS. They’ll be pretty darn good without him too.
The first part of this is spot-on.
The strangest part of the whole article was the author suggesting that the Yankees somehow regret not giving Cano that Mariners contract!
Ya I thought he was talking about Alex Rodriguez in 2001
I think it’s likely that while Machado would check a lot of the boxes that the Yankees currently need, the Yankees simply weren’t all that enamored with the idea of committing 10yrs and $300 million on his attitude and knee injury history. To take on that sort of commitment, you really shouldn’t have any reservations on the player.
SS Capable – Tulo, Torres, Gregorious (eventually, and likely long-term) – CHECK
3B Capable – Andujar – CHECK
Plus RH Hitter – Sanchez, Torres, Andujar, Judge, Stanton – CHECK
So which of the current needs is he addressing? Sure, he’d be a massive defensive upgrade over Andujar. But they only need a fill in for a half season or so for Gregorious, and this guy will be signing through 2026 minimum. For a ton of cash.
He’d be a luxury. He’s nowhere near a necessity.
This is an expansive definition of “3B” capable if you’re including Andujar here. It is technically, if not substantively, correct.
Point taken, but let’s give him another year at least to allow the defensive statistics to stabilize (I recall it takes three years for that to happen). If he still looks like the worst defender in the game at the end of next year, then we can have a serious conversation about his future.
For now, he’s blocked at DH and in the OF, and I don’t see his outlook at 1B as being any more encouraging than it is at 3B currently.
If he’s not traded, he still deserves to play everyday, despite the deficiency in the field. You sign Machado, you block his or someone else’s opportunity to play.
Maybe, I should have said “could have used” rather than “need”. I didn’t mean to imply necessity. But he would have been more than a luxury. The Yankees “could have used” Machado to :
1. Allow Torres to remain at 2b full-time and focus on hitting (ie. reducing strikeouts), rather than manning multiple positions.
2. Capably man shortstop for at least the first half, and possibly beyond if Didi either doesn’t recover well, or chooses not to resign.
3. Provide a potent right-handed bat that’s not prone to striking out. Aside from Andujar, there’s no one you listed that doesn’t carrry with them the threat of a 70% or lower contact rate. If you watched the playoffs last year, you realize how exposed the Yankees were against good playoff-caliber pitching.
So yeah, not a necessity, but not exactly a luxury, either. Not to a team that needs to find a way past the Astros and Red Sox in the postseason.
The yankees primary need is still starting pitching. Somebody more reliable than Sonny Gray.
^^Truth
The Yankees have Severino, Paxton, Tanaka, Happ, and Sabathia, plus Montgomery possibly returning from TJS in time for the playoffs. Some more depth would be nice, but a good starter would push someone capable out of the rotation.
Teams have been known to get through a season with only five pitchers but it is rare. Ditto six. Eight is more common.
Injuries and poor performance happen.
Five and a half pitchers is cutting it close and the Yankees don’t like relying on kids if they can help it.
They also have German, whose shown flashes
The Yankees are #3 on the Steamer projections for starting pitcher, with Sonny Gray projected to get nine innings as a starter.
Their “needs” are pretty simple: A guy who can play shortstop and stay healthy, and a guy who can actually play defense at shortstop, and a lefty bat. Depending on who you ask, they already have those guys, but those are a hell of a lot more important than shifting Sabathia to being the 6th starter. Finding an up-and-down arm who is better than German/Loaisiga makes some sense, but hardly seems like a major priority.
Points 1-2 are referring to the luxury of having someone to fill in temporarily this season while Gregorious is out. Even if they don’t sign Didi long-term, Machado should not be the answer at SS.
Regarding point 3, if it’s contact rates you like, seems like they signed the right guy.
They won 100 games last year. It’s reasonable to expect improvement from Stanton and Torres. Possibly Judge as well given the injury he suffered through. Their rotation is improved, as well. You sign Machado, you’re putting a young, talented, controlled player on the bench for him (I am not a proponent of moving Andujar to 1B at all). Why bother?
Agreed – Machado rose the kind of red flags that I don’t think were worth paying what he wanted. I think the Yankees used some smart out-of-the-box thinking in choosing the lower risk LeMahieu. He shoots to right field constantly and Yankees stadium is the smallest park in baseball down the line. My guess is that someone took a look at his spray chart and decided that LeMahieu’s Colorado warning track power could become home run power in NY.
Especially post-humidor Coors
I think it’s funny how the writers here cried about the plight of the middle-class free agents all last offseason, and now that we see the middle class free agents signing ahead of the big guys who will get paid, don’t you worry, the articles are crying about these teams not signing the big guys.
This is a fantastic point.
I imagine it’s harder to be a baseball writer in January when teams aren’t wontonly throwing money at players.
Thus, the complaining.
The winter meetings are a sideshow at this point. There’s no reason for people running billion dollar businesses to rush to meet an artificial deadline to create content for reporters.
But I see no indication that baseball *fans* are nearly as aggrieved.
Who’s crying? Craig is just saying it’s a curious move for the Yankees. The article is an evaluation of the move from a Yankee team perspective, not a comment on labor relations. Unless you’re a Yankee fan, why would you cry?
What’s absolutely certain is that this is article *not* “from a Yankee team perspective,” because this article is all about how this signing does not make sense, and the Yankees’ perspective, obviously, is that DJLM makes sense for them, because, I dunno… they just signed him?
So clearly this article does not come from a place of supporting the Yankees. In fact, this article goes out of its way to diminish the accomplishments and abilities of DJLM while glossing over the questions about Machado, because it has a clear bias. DJLM has been an accomplished defender, but his fit, defensively, is somehow more questionable than Machado’s, when we know that Machado doesn’t even want to play 3rd and is not a Gold-Glover at his preferred position of SS? And Machado can be penciled in as a 5 WAR player despite his strangely down (by that standard) 2017 season and without the motivation of the impending big contract (he does have some questions about motivation, after all)? But DJLM, despite his excellent contact skills, and despite the efforts he’s made to tap into power, as written up by other authors on this site, “probably isn’t getting any better”?
Craig is not writing this from the perspective of the Yankees, nor from Yankees fans. He’s crying on behalf of the Union and the agents (as he so often does), who expect the Yankees to bid against themselves, or at least remain in the bidding against other teams, just to drive up player salaries. And not because they need to in order to be successful. Cashman and Co. have shown that they don’t have to go out and outbid everyone for all the (so-called) can’t-miss FAs in order to build a super team. They already have a super team! They can actually be smart about free agency, like the other smart teams.
Pretty much every 10+ year free agent deal in MLB history has been, or is in the process of becoming, a disaster for the team. The big outlier is A-Rod’s 1st deal, and neither Harper nor Machado are anything close to that A-Rod, in terms of consistency, attitude, or, in Harper’s case, health. A-Rod put up 9.5 fWAR in his walk year. Machado and Harper have each produced fewer than 9.0 fWAR over their past two seasons combined. A-Rod went into free agency as an MVP caliber player, while it’s been 4 years since Harper has been that guy, and Machado has never been that guy, always being a tier or so below. But the Yankees are supposed to keep jumping into the breach, offering record-breaking contracts, just because they have the revenues to “afford” it? I get that plenty of fans want to see their team, if possible, buy up everyone and field a super-super team. But there are a lot of other fans who want to see their team be smart.
And, quite frankly, it’s bad for the sport if the large market teams just buy up all the good players in free agency and win every year. The sport needs nationwide popularity in order to compete with the other major league sports, and a great way to defeat that is to have a majority of small market teams be perennial losers while the big markets field super-super teams stacked with free agents the other markets can’t afford. You need fan interest in all of those markets. We’re probably never going to see the widespread revenue sharing and hard salary cap that the NFL has implemented, but perhaps we can cut the big markets a break if, for once, they don’t satisfy the player agents’ egos by handing out record-breaking deals to guys who actually do have some questions surrounding them?
Best post Ive seen so far this year! Craig always seems to have an agenda in his writings
The A-Rod mega deal was a learning experience and cautionary tale.
ARod’s mega-deal with the Rangers, which the Yanks got the last 4 years out of, was one of the best megadeals ever. If the Yanks had just let him walk after that instead of giving him another megadeal, well…
What? They would have one less World Series ring and Hal’s pockets would be even fatter?
is there something to be said that the traditionally “more analytically inclined” teams aren’t in on the big guns in harper and machado? i mean, all teams are analytical these days, but it just seems odd to me
fuck steinbrenner and cashman
Last year, they signed Neil Walker for this role… for $4.5M. They also traded for, and traded away Brandon Drury last year.
I’m not sure why they think DJ will fare any better than those two did.
Mostly because it would be tough to be as bad as those two last year. As someone who thinks this deal is kind of silly for the Yankees, I also think that this guy will definitely be replacement level or better.
At a minimum, LeMahieu is a much better defender than either player, and don’t be surprised if he doesn’t pop 20 Hrs playing in Lil’ Tykes FunZone Stadium. He shoots to right field more than almost any player in baseball.
The article, and several posters, seem to think that signing Tulowitzki, not signing Machado and signing LaMahieu are connected. Probably they aren’t.
1) Tulowitzki was too cheap to pass up, and the club needs someone at SS until Gregorious returns.
2) They were never in on Machado. The goal was to build a cheap core, they added their middle of the order bat last year, and at a discount, in Stanton. They stayed engaged in case his price fell to the point they couldn’t pass on it.
3) They seem to feel the need for a utility IF, to play 3b, 2b, 1b as needed. La Mahieu fits.
4) If things go as expected they could easily trade La Mahieu after Gregorious returns.
The funny thing about money is that if you don’t spend it in one place you can still spend it somewhere else.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see Andujar and Gray as part of a package to get a starter (Kluber?), thus freeing up the 3b position for Machado. But really, does Machado even want to play third? I thought he viewed himself as a shortstop first and foremost. Maybe the Yanks have told him he’d be the primary 3rd baseman, and Machado said nah.
There is still a way the Yankees can get under or very close to under the CBT threshold – trade Sonny Gray for minor leaguers.
Yes – if they really want to get under it, they can do it pretty easily. That said, I don’t think their tepid interest in Machado means they are desperate (or even intending) to stay under the cap – just that they understandably don’t want to give the biggest contract in baseball history to great but not superstar-level player who only hustles when he’s trying to hurt opposing players.
Simply put – if a guy’s going to get $300M plus he should not have issues with his attitude, leadership, or other intangibles. He doesn’t necessarily have to be the single best player in the game, but he better be damn close. In Machado’s case that means being much better than 36th (?) in wRC+ over the past 3 years. In Harper’s case that means having more than one megastar-level season out of 7 in the majors.