7:30pm: General manager Brian Cashman also tells Ken Davidoff of the New York Post that he has yet to engage in extension talks, though he of course wouldn’t broadcast the fact if the two sides to sit down to talk dollars and years. “[O]bviously if we did start any negotiations with anyone at any time absent of free agency, we would always try and keep them private, to the degree that is ever possible,” said the GM.
Davidoff also spoke to manager Aaron Boone about LeMahieu’s fit with the club, and the skipper unsurprisingly sounded like someone who’d be on board with LeMahieu continuing to don pinstripes for the foreseeable future: “[T]here’s just something a little bit different that he brings to the room that I think guys are drawn to. Even though he’s not the most vocal guy, I think guys look up to him and enjoy him.”
As Davidoff points out, any new contract for LeMahieu wouldn’t impact the Yankees’ luxury line, so long as it is structured as a new deal beginning in the 2021 season.
9:20am: Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu says he hasn’t yet held any talks with the club about a new contract, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch reports on Twitter. He also reiterated his affinity for the organization after one golden campaign.
LeMahieu’s contract situation isn’t necessarily a hot topic in Yanks’ camp, but it is fair to wonder whether he’ll ultimately be approached about an extension. The free agent deal he signed last January covered two seasons, meaning DJLM is presently slated to return to the open market next winter.
The Yankees have already made out like bandits on this signing. LeMahieu racked up a .327/.375/.518 batting line with a career-high 26 home runs in 655 plate appearances last year, easily topping expectations. He placed fourth in the American League MVP vote. Suffice to say, LeMahieu earned the entirety of his contract and then some in the first year.
Whether LeMahieu can repeat anything approaching that output is an open question. He did have one other high-grade offensive campaign under his belt, 2016 with the Rockies, but has otherwise typically checked in with below-average overall numbers with the bat.
LeMahieu is already 31 years of age, so it’s not as if he’s an exceptionally youthful player. But his history of high-contact hitting presents a decent floor with the bat even if his power recedes. And LeMahieu is an excellent infield defender who can move around as needed.
So, will the Yanks ride out the deal and hope it keeps paying off? Or will they double down on their initial faith, which was proven wise the first time around? The team could go in either direction, but it’s certainly not difficult to imagine the Yankees deciding to pursue talks. If anything, it’s a bit of a surprise that they haven’t yet kicked off a conversation.
Oh, ok.
F Rob Manfred!
What’s the rush? Let it play out.
The rush is that he’s entering free agency next year and is going to get a fat deal if he repeats. Considering he’s already 31 years old and only has 2 above average offensive season—he may be open to a smaller deal right now.
That’s per WRC+ or OPS+. I can already see someone coming in and telling me he’s batted .300 4 times.
The whole market is up in the air with MLB juicing the baseball. No team should be paying a player based on last year’s stats when there is no certainty that they’ll be using the same baseball over the length of a long term contract.
Should get those analytics ready in case they announce that they’re scrapping the juiced ball… be ready to buy low and sell high on players that have been affected the most. Could get some great deals on pitchers.
That’s a good point. Has there been any news on if they will use the juice ball this season? They definitely took out the juice ball for the post season.
He’s batted over .300 4 times!
Joke aside, he obviously brings more as his WAR to date suggests. He was awesome for the Yankees last year. Their MVP.
Agree no rush at all. He is at peak value right now. Would be stupid to sign him now. Buy low sell high is how you get ahead in business. What are the odds he has a better year this year? What is he going to hit .350 with 40 hrs? I will take those odds he doesn’t. A lesser year stat wise and another year older = a cheaper shorter contract. Worst case give him qualifying offer and get your draft pick.
I remember seeing DJ play a few innings for the Cubs during a blow out game at the end of the season.
Didn’t seem like anything special, so when the Cubs traded him for Ian Stewart, I thought nothing of it.
Wow. He has had a really nice career that is still going. Good for him.
A really nice career? According to the article, hes been a below a average player. 2 years with a positive ops. Personally, I think hes fine. Great defense, very good obp. A .300 average. Very solid. But today’s stat geeks frown on this type of player.
I don’t think anyone frowned on him. You just again prefer to be an idiot about things. Being a near average hitter who is extremely good with the glove is valuable. No one was telling you it wasn’t.
“He did have one other high-grade offensive campaign under his belt, 2016 with the Rockies, but has otherwise typically checked in with below-average overall numbers with the bat.”
Jeff Todd told me.
DJ is overrated just like the rest of the Yankees
You’re an idiot…go away! thors_ss is more like it!
Geez man calm down
Let’s be real guys if they want him they’ll keep him and everyone else. Yanks will be fine. Keep the team winning and the money will keep on coming
Hitting home runs at a rate twice as high as his best for Colorado. But nothing suspicious.
The fact that we saw hitting excel at a higher clip than ever before makes me think it wasn’t DJ doing anything illegal, it’s just the league changing the make up of the ball and leading to higher offensive production whether inadvertently or on purpose
Hit more balls on the barrel. Changed his launch angle. You know some organizations are better than others at getting the most out of their talent. Really no comparison between the Yankees organization and Colorado.
But yeah, let’s imply something else!
There was no launch angle change with LeMahieu last season. He has always been somewhere between 8-12 degrees. What you did see was a near double HR/FB rate which most likely came from a combination of luck and the juiced ball. That and an inflated babip caused a career season.
maybe he’s just a good pure hitter, which im pretty sure he was in the Chicago system as well
I’m not sure why that would particularly be suspicious. The ball was juiced, he went from a ballpark known for it spaceous insane OF to a smaller ballpark, a division of smaller parks, smaller tweaks but not really worth a conspiracy theory.
Juiced ball. Smaller parks.
Juice ball yes, but the park factor for Coors still leads all of MLB. It would follow that he would see a downturn moving from Coors to another field, all things being equal. He is making better contact than ever before, though, not just like the ball is carrying better.
Not chalking that up to cheating automatically, but he did improve noticeably beyond just the park he’s playing in.
Line drive/finesse hitters have seen some success outside of Colorado (Juan Pierre). Lemahieu wasn’t a power-first guy. It makes sense that he swung the bat well outside of Coors.
I believe Yankees Stadium ranks ahead of Coors Field in HRs allowed over the past 5 seasons. The top 5 usually are (not in order):
1) Toronto
2) Cincinnati
3) Yankees Stadium
4) Baltimore
5) Colorado
So 3 of the top 5 are in the AL East. Couple that with a juiced ball and it makes perfect sense DLM had a career year in power numbers.
That still would not cause a guy’s OPS+ to jump from 88 to 136, lol, but sure it can be a part of it. His AVG was also up 50 points. So I really do think he changed for the better in some way that goes beyond the park he’s in.
Buzzers probably helped.
Short porch bruh
He’s seeing better pitches hitting in between absolute MONSTERS
You should try posting something that isn’t absurdly biased against the Yankees or in favor of the Red Sox. It might lend some credibility to something you say at some point on this site. We get it, you hate the Yankees; that doesn’t make every one of their players awful or on steroids…
You clearly didn’t watch Baseball.
EVERYONE Homered thanks to a ruined baseball!
Christ davis might argue that.
wayhazy back with more lazy conspiracy theories. How predictable. Sad to see. His Yankee hate is all he has left in this world.
What if …. he just had a good year?
The Yankees are smart. They are going to monitor the situation and see how he plays in the first half of the year. I don’t think he is a trade candidate at the deadline because they will keep him just for his versatility even if his bat falters… and hope that his Bat would regain the steam from last year. just based on his team friendly contract it’s a win-win. The teams interested in him are the teams that are going against the Yankees so if he has another productive year, consider him a well-paid Yankee for the next four years at 25 million a year
Age is the one thing hold him back from a massive deal. Strong defender and a perennial line drive hitter who snuck a few out of Yankees Stadium because he knows how to hit to all fields. 2018 he was hurt and that hurt his stock. Dude can hit. Could see him in Boston next year.
“He did have one other high-grade offensive campaign under his belt, 2016 with the Rockies, but has otherwise typically checked in with below-average overall numbers with the bat”…for a guy with a .302 career batting average, batting from the top of the order, with good gap power as evidenced by his consistency in all departments except for the almighty HR’s….that’s quite a statement Jeff! Many, and probably more so on the Yankee side of things, might differ with that comment!
The statement is exactly correct. LeMahieu has had one above above (by park adjusted statistics) season, 2016, before last year. If you’re depending on batting average for evaluating a hitter, you’re doing it wrong. And yes, LeMahieu’s 2019 is deeply suspicious.
Disagree….the point is getting on base which is why the Yankees signed him…batting average is a good statistic to judge, aside from walks and errors to achieve getting on base, exactly what you’ve got at the top of the order. And I never said batting average is the only tool for evaluating a hitter….your words friend!
And exactly who said his 2019 is “deeply suspicious” except for you! If that’s the case, then 2019 is “deeply suspicious” for every hitter and player in the league….guess you a big analytics guy right!
Batting Average accounts for over 91% of OBP, but, yeah, according to some neophytes it’s a useless stat that only idiots pay attention to.
Where’s your tin foil hat, Mr. suspicious?
Which other ones were above average? 2017 you can maybe make an argument, but he almost had no power whatsoever that year.
There’s no reason to take this the wrong way. It just makes it more impressive that he was so impressive and valuable in Colorado, despite the weak bat he had.
Weak bat only in the sense of today where everything is judged by exit velocity, launch angle and how many HR’s you hit….
Get, .239 hitters are hitting 30 HR’s these days….hitting .302 really does mean that he’s getting a hit every 3 times at bat….and that means that there are ducks on the pond for the guys being paid to drive in runs any way they can….and DJ isn’t and never was that kind of hitter from what we can tell.
Guys can be .240 hitters and still walk their way on base a ton. Dee Gordon is a career .288 hitter but has an OPS+ of 90.
If you hit .300 with all singles and no walks you are by all accounts a below average offensive player.
@Steve
I agree that in the modern game, statistically, singles don’t offer much value. But, I think if a player were to hypothetically hit 200 singles in a year, that player would actually be quite valuable, yet would not wow any of the modern metrics
He truly earned hes money but the yankees last 2 extentions went real bad we dont need him to miss most of the season. If he has a another great season then the yankees will treat him good if he goes back to his Colorado average days then the yankees could move on or keep him at a similar deal as he currently has.
id let it play out. he’ll probably have another strong year, but not quite what he did last year. still, who knows. lets find out.
Agree, but if anything can be said, and if you watched the Yankees, their hitting approach was totally different last season than in previous campaigns where they sat back and waited for the 2 or 3 run HR!
Once everyone saw that hitting for higher average, not pulling everything they saw, and getting on base and keeping the line moving was a more effective style to score….it caught on big time!
The guy who lead the way was DJ…here’s hoping he continues his effective and contagious style of play for the Yankees!
Torres, Stanton, Gardner, Urshela, Voit, Tauchman, and even LeMahieu himself saw an increase in pull rates last season. Judge and Sanchez’s were nearly identical. What are you even rambling about? The yankees hit more home runs last season than in any season before (like almost every other team in baseball). Literally every thing you said was dead wrong.
They should see what he does over the course of a full season of non-juiced balls first
We have seen that. It is called the rest of his career.
Somebody must have been bursting at the seams to write something about the suspicious yankees when the article headline includes Haven’t Yet Discussed Extension. How is THAT a rumor?!?
What a sorry chump you are. Retired and this is what you’re doing with your life. This is your legacy. Third-rate Yankee hater.
When are we going to hear about judge’s injury? Right shoulder “crankiness”. No wonder their players go down constantly. Pretty sure “crankiness” is not a medical term. My boo boo hurts.
Tests were negative. Every player experiences soreness when they ramp up workouts. Some will play through it (with a cortisone shot when needed) trying to win a job. Non-story. You’re trolling game is injured.
Whyhayzee means slimeball.
Why everyone hates on this guy blows my mind. He’s is a heck of a ball player. He hits for avg, he has enough power to be satisfied, he plays the fried good enough, but most importantly he’s an on base machine. He checks all the boxes. Sure, no mega contract, but the guy deserves to get paid and there isn’t a true indication that he’s slowing down
He is a good ball player. But the yankees save the big bucks for their greedy cheaters and go cheapskate on everyone else.
Silly comment
Aren’t the Yankees trying to cut some payroll? Why would they throw money at DJ when they finally aren’t overpaying for someone?
They cut payroll in 2018 to reset the luxury tax. No, they are no longer looking to “cut some payroll.”
third-rate troll.
L
L
He and Michael Brantley were maybe the two best signings last offseason. Crazy how things turn out when the media hype dies down.
The Yankees have a potential star-in-waiting named Thairo Estrada, who was up for a taste last season. He’s turning 24 this week & showed athleticism in the field & didn’t look overmatched by MLB pitching. But his real position is as middle infielder. So I would just let the season play out unless Estrada falls flat. If so I would negotiate an extension with DJ at the AS break.
Dude has a .722 OPS in the minors the past two years. Not exaction a “star-in-waiting”.
He is, potentially, at least. He went very quickly through the Yankees’ minor league system and would have been on the roster in 2018 except he was shot in an attempted robbery prior to the 2018 season. So 2018 became a lost season for him. He has matured quickly.
Look, I’m not saying he’s a sure thing, but he does have star potential.
Don’t think a 24 year old rookie can be considered as “moving quickly.”
Estrada is likely no more than a nice role player for a contender. Maybe could be a starter for a second-division club. He’s the guy you snap in for a couple of weeks when the starter is injured, but you don’t plan around to be a starter. I like him. Has value, but careful not to overrate him.
Ol Cash will throw 5/100 at him. No worries.
“Ol Cash” already threw 2 years, $24 million at him. It was a smart deal. Makes you wonder why other GMs let DJ slip through.
To be fair, if they anticipated that he would break out I think he would have gotten shown more love. Same deal with Brantley going back to the Indians, Chirinos back to the Rangers, Morton back to the Astros, and so forth.
So what? Point is, the Yankees made the deal.
BTW, I realize DJ will probably fall back a bit this year. The HR total was ridiculous, probably assisted by the HR ball that MLB used last season. Still, I watched every game – DJ is a very smart hitter and his situational hitting is superb.
It’s incredibly easy to say that after he had by far his best year.
People forget in 18 he posted only 88 OPS+ in 128 games. Not a no-brainer that the Rockies would want to shed him, to be honest.
Yes it ended up paying for itself in its first year, but going into it other GMs would not have predicted him to be a top 10 player.
In 2018 he had a 3.0 WAR, that’s a solid number. His OPS went down mainly because his OBP that year dropped 30 points lower than his career number. I also note that he was DL’d twice in 2018. He was also the Gold Glove recipient at 2B. A big reason Cashman is successful is that he looks past the obvious numbers and finds bargains. Every year there are multiple examples of that on the Yankees roster. I have a lot of confidence in his decision-making.
He had 11 UZR at 2B in 2018, which helps, but again that wouldn’t really scream at GMs to scoop him up if he posted two below-average years with the bat and then had a few DL stints. Obviously Cashman made a good move but it wasn’t a slam dunk, is all I mean. There was good reason not to throw money at him, and for that the Yankees got a steal. I compare it to Brantley on the Astros.
The Yankees should just let him play out the deal. With his age, it’s doubtful his price goes up that much even if he has another great year. If he regresses r gets hurt, they could get him for less or decide to go with someone else.
Let it play out. Fine player but he’s coming off a career year. Unless he’s willing to take a discount, there’s little to be gained by signing him now. He’s an elite defender at second, but his real value to whatever team signs him is in the multi-position role he played so well in 2019. That has a lot of value to teams today.
Or trade for Arenado. The Yankees can do whatever they want.
Why not just trade for Mookie, Dodger pull off a major flip!
Eff it, why not trade for Trout? lmao
DJLM had an MVP-caliber season last year, and if he has another one this year, he’ll be hitting the market as a 32-year old and probably knock down $125M over 5 years.
That’s pretty far off. He wouldn’t even come close to that if he was a FA in ’19. I love DJ but he’s not a younger version of Josh Donaldson.
He turns 32 in July so the Yankees should let him play it out. If he’s having another great season, offer something like 2/$32M in September. Either a handshake agreement gets put in place or QO him at the season’s end if he turns down the offer. The Yankees still have a policy of not extending players in-season although rare exceptions have been made. Wouldn’t be surprised to see DJ hit FA really.
If he has a typical year by his recent standards, an extension will be more like 4/60M. Just look at his WAR since 2015. Yanks need him more than he needs them.
Not necessarily sure at this age they want to do a high dollar extension, especially if he wants to be paid as if 2019 was his true talent level. What they could do is wait it out, see how he performs, if he’s terrific, make him a QO, and, if they still want him, try to negotiate then, or pick up a draft pick. Torres and Judge are arb-eligible in 2021, plus the other monster contracts the Yankees will be carrying.
I remember so many Yankees fans complaining about this signing last year
I was one of them. I thought he was excessive with Tulo (in semi-retirement), Anduljar (before he went down), and Bird (who??). Boy was I wrong.
Its one of those situations where it’s good to be wrong. I was critical of the Donaldson signing and I was wrong about it
Yankees have a lot of guys that are going to start getting more and more expensive. Maybe they re-sign him but not even the Yankees have unlimited money.
While they are stacked on paper, I have a feeling that the Yankees might underperform this season. They will make the playoffs but I just can’t see DJLH, Urshela, Tachman, Voit, Andujar and even Gardner having close to the same seasons they did last year (Andujar-2018). Gerrit Cole is a huge addition though, so they can show up and win 90 games this season, but not sure they’ll exceed the 100 win total unless there are some repeat surprising performances and a bounce back year from Stanton. Another thought is that this is Sanchez’s last season as catcher. They’ll need to move him to 1B or DH.
Commissioner Manfred: Do the right thing and ban the Houston Astros from 2020 post season!!!
DJ perfect #2 hitter if Yankees ever get a dominant lead off hitter. Judge should be batting 3rd
Lineup construction doesn’t matter as much anymore. Ideally you want your best hitters to get as many ABs as possible. Over the course of a season, each lineup spot up gets about 18 more plate appearances than below. Mike Trout hits second a lot for LA.
Let’s be real guys if they want him they’ll keep him and everyone else. Yanks will be fine. Keep the team winning and the money will keep on coming
Cashman probably wants to see a full season of Gleyber at SS before committing to LeMahieu. Yankees could be in the market for a SS if Torres struggles at the position.
the yankees need to sign him to a contract extension now this is a player they don’t want to lose