Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. is open to extension talks but still hasn’t been approached by the club in that department, he tells Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. Chisholm is entering his final year of club control before he’s slated for free agency.
It’s a similar situation to last year, when it seemed Chisholm was more open to talks than the club. Spring training is a common time for clubs to approach players about extensions, so it’s notable that there’s still no momentum in that department.
The Yankees don’t do many extensions in general and may prefer to wait things out in the middle infield. A year from now, it’s possible that prospect George Lombard Jr. has joined Anthony Volpe and José Caballero in the mix. If the Yanks can cover their middle infield spots internally, then they could focus next winter’s resources elsewhere. If not, they could pivot back to Chisholm as a free agent.
Some more camp notes from around the A.L. East…
- The Rays are going to get Richie Palacios some third base reps this spring, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. Palacios has mostly played second base and the outfield corners in his career. His third base experience consists of ten innings in 2024. Adding some more versatility could help him carve out a bench role, though he does have an option remaining. Junior Caminero will be Tampa’s regular at third but his defensive grades weren’t great, so it could make sense for him to occasionally serve as the designated hitter or be replaced by a better defender late in some games.
- The Red Sox are going to have Isiah Kiner-Falefa play some first base in spring, reports Sean McAdam of MassLive. Kiner-Falefa has loads of experience at every position on the diamond except for first base. The Sox have Willson Contreras as their regular first baseman but the depth is banged up. Triston Casas ruptured his left patellar tendon last year and may not be reading for Opening Day. Romy González is also questionable for the opener due to a shoulder injury that recently required a platelet-rich plasma injection. Kiner-Falefa may not be needed there much due to the presence of Contreras but injuries can happen at any time and Kiner-Falefa also mentioned the possibility of pinch running for Contreras on occasion.
- The Blue Jays may be getting Shane Bieber back sooner than expected, according to manager John Schneider (link via Keegan Matheson of MLB.com). Schneider said that Bieber is “feeling good” throwing from 120 feet and might throw off a mound within two weeks. Last week, it was reported that Bieber would begin the season on the injured list out of an abundance of caution due to forearm fatigue. This update may not change that timeline, but the team has enough rotation depth to take it slow with his ramp-up regardless. A healthy Bieber would slot in behind Dylan Cease, Trey Yesavage, and Kevin Gausman in the Jays’ rotation. For now, Cody Ponce and Jose Berrios round out the group.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
A past Cy Young winner slotted in as a #4….sheesh! I’m a Belieber.
I don’t see the Yankees spending big on Jazz which is why they should have traded him last winter. However Cashman wants to run it back
Or they got 4.2 war last year and are gonna get a similar total this year and that’s worth having around even if you don’t want an extension
They will extend him a warm farewell or they will extend him an offer in free agency.
Kyle gets it. Jazz is great to have for his contract year. Not so much on a 5 or 6 year deal.
The chances of Jazz getting an extension are about 0.00%
With the CBA looming extended contracts are not happening till it’s renewed.
That’s nice what does that have to do with Biebs?
Just keep Diddy away from him and he’ll be fine.
Too soon wade, too soon…
Poor lil guy
Why would Jazz party with Diddy? This doesn’t make sense
Bieber. Same last name as another Bieber. The original comment was about Bieber and bigdaddyt was trying to un-hijack it.
Unfortunately when shortened the ie gets flipped if so facto
P Diddy is in jail? Did he make bail? Did they give him parole? I wish my Angels had Chisolm at Second Base.
@mlb
I get frustrated when fans and media act surprised the Yankees won’t extend Jazz Chisholm. The organization rarely extends players before free agency—I can count on one hand the exceptions (Severino, Hicks). They didn’t do it for Judge, Jeter, or Rivera, so why would they change course now?
Cashman has praised Chisholm as “part of the solution,” calling him an All-Star second baseman who provides needed athleticism, power, and speed. After a 30-30 season (31 HR, 31 SB) and a Silver Slugger, Cashman acknowledged Chisholm “made us better.”
However, Cashman remains “open-minded” on trades, stating in December 2025, “We will be open-minded… my default is these are all individually good players. We acquired them for a reason.” He confirmed no serious extension talks as of November 2025, noting the Yankees’ preference to let contract years “play out.”
Bottom line: Cashman values Chisholm’s production but won’t commit long-term before free agency. With 2026 free agency looming, he’s keeping all options open to maximize organizational flexibility—classic Yankees front office behavior.
Yeah, I don’t think a healthy, in form Bieber is the #4 there. Maybe not #1 anymore, but not 4.
Who cares where he slots in. They have 6 guys who can be legitimately slotted in as a top 3 starter.
I think Gausman should be 1.
Gausman
Cease
Bieber
Yesavage
Ponce/Berrios
Over the last 15-20 years which positions have the Yankees been able to cover internally? Did the front office change? Are they magically going to start developing prospects?
The Jets are going to draft a QB and turn him into a hall of famer too. And the Giants are going to win the superbowl in the next 5 years. Glad we aren’t living in fantasy land in NY these days….
Well I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Judge?
Starting in 2005: Gardner, Austin Jackson (used to get Granderson), Kennedy, Joba, Betances, DRob, Judge, Nestor, Monty, Whitlock and Kahnle (both lost to rule 5 draft), Wells, Volpe, Warren, Rice, Schlittler, Jasson, Sevy, Gary, Andujar (pre-injury).
This doesnt include every prospect used in a trade, either.
Not easy to do when they draft as late as they do every time.
I’d say you need to hold down a position for a few years to consider successfully claiming they filled a position. So since 2005 they have been able to internally cover CF/LF once (Gardner), RF once (Judge) and SS once (Volpe). That’s 3 players in 20 years. That’s bad….thats really bad.
The Volpe, Wells, Rice and JD group is probably the best offensive group they’ve had in the last 20 years. Not great so far but all have average regular potential. One of the biggest issues has been developing offensive IFA talent. Other than JD, who has his issues, they gotten nothing out of decently ranked IFA prospects for years now.
I mean you seem to be trolling if you’re gonna cherry-pick and leave out Robertson lol
The claim that the Yankees haven’t developed in-house talent over the last 20 years doesn’t hold up when you examine the last decade.
Recent homegrown players holding positions:
Aaron Judge (2016) – MVP, franchise cornerstone
Gleyber Torres (2018) – Two-time All-Star
Anthony Volpe (2023) – Starting shortstop
Austin Wells (2023) – Starting catcher
Ben Rice (2024) – First base option
They’ve shown patience with their prospects:
Miguel Andújar, Clint Frazier, Oswaldo Cabrera, Oswald Peraza, and Brett Gardner (14-year career) all received extended opportunities to develop at the major league level.
Not every prospect becomes a 10-year player – and that’s normal:
Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andújar, Luke Voit, Joba Chamberlain, and Phil Hughes all posted strong early numbers but couldn’t get past the 5-year mark due to health issues or performance decline. This isn’t a Yankees problem – it happens throughout MLB. Development doesn’t guarantee longevity.
They’ve passed on expensive free agents to stick with their guys:
Ben Rice over Pete Alonso and Christian Walker
Anthony Volpe over Carlos Correa, Xander Bogaerts, and Trea Turner
Austin Wells over J.T. Realmuto and other premium catchers
Retained Trent Grisham on a 1-year deal with Jasson Domínguez and Spencer Jones waiting
They’ve leveraged mid-tier prospects in trades for controllable talent:
Jazz Chisholm Jr., Harrison Bader, and Andrew Benintendi were all acquired using prospects outside the organization’s top 10.
The Yankees have graduated multiple All-Stars from their farm system and maintained a highly productive pipeline that’s allowed them to trade 20-30 prospects for players useful at the MLB level. The organization has consistently chosen development over free agent spending – the approach has clearly shifted over the last decade.
You named 5 players in 20 years that have been developed. Like I said…BAD
Gleyber was from the Cubs. Jury is still out on Rice (I like him a lot but anything can happen still) and Wells is a middle of the pack catcher who can easily be replaced.
The Yankees DO NOT develop talent. Their prospects stay stuck at levels in the minors twice as long as other systems. They do not advance from A to AA, AA to AAA on the same timeline other prospects do in other system. Guys are like 25 by the time they make it to the MLB in the Yankees system .
Rays also picked up Ben Williamson for third base, so they must really not like Caminero’s defense.
Chislom is trying to be in the 50/50 club. Good luck.
Let’s hope he gets there!
Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Jazz hands. And cut.
Jazz is going to have to prove he won’t invoke ABS challenges on every strike against him before he gets an extension. I’ll be happy to see him go elsewhere because he’s a fun player and j don’t like that he’s on my enemy team xD
Does that mean you’re willing to trade Roman Anthony for him?
Yankees. I’m not saying I’d do it for either team but would you consider one for one, Judge for Roman? As a Sox fan, I would not, primarily not because of Judge’s age but because of his contract as the way Henry runs things, it would likely mean he’d be traded after a year. it is an interesting question though. The best hitter for one of the best young players in the game. How many more years does Judge really have? Even if he declines, to what level? As for Anthony, he’s got perhaps the most fluid lefty swing I’ve seen in years. My dad died in 84 and before he went, he told me Strawberry had the best lefty swing he saw since Williams. To me, the best lefty swing I’ve seen is either Anthony or Griffey, Jr.
dbith
BTV
Judge $138 million
Anthony $63 million
Juan, it’s not all about alleged trade values.Us fans probably use the tool for fantasy deals far more than teams actually use them.
I just used a calculator for an example and the recent Sox -Brewers deal came back Boston +19, Brewerz +13, a 58% rating, far below the 80% needed for a supposed “fair” deal.
dbith
“values.Us fans probably use the tool for fantasy deals far more than teams actually use them”
Wut?
That makes no sense
1) BTV doesn’t measure fantasy value. At all.
2) Of course teams don’t use BTV
What [on earth] are you talking about?
Do you mean this one
baseballtradevalues.com/trades/210204
Nope. It doesn’t meet the criteria.
But
“How did our model do at the 2025 deadline?
…
Number of trades: 64
Number accepted by the model: 57
Acceptance rate: 88%
Average value variance per deal: 3.5
We’re pretty happy with that. The trade market is inherently inefficient, and there are multiple variables involved, so to go 57-7 feels good.
Also, it’s a bit of an improvement on last year, where our acceptance rate was 83% and the average variance was 3.7.”
baseballtradevalues.com/articles/2025-trade-deadli…
Fantasy is what they’re for. What else if not used by actual teams?
Dewey, gambling is a vastly larger market than baseball, probably unmeasurable, but it just keeps growing. Now we have prediction markets which are nothing more than simple gambling. They are huge and fraught with moral hazards (that’s also an insurance concept). One problem is that people describe things like investing and insurance as gambling (they’re not) and then insist that other things aren’t gambling. Talking out of both sides of their you know what. So imagine that with the size of the gambling market, companies are going to spring up all over the place and make the financial analysis market look miniscule. Gambling swallows up every economic class, investing simply does not. So a massive portion of sports analytics is now centered on the gambling market and it is here to stay, Personally, I don’t gamble, never have, never will. So it’s wasted on me. But in terms of prediction, I am an actuary, FCAS. So predicting is what I do all the time. I just won’t put any money on it. It’s a fools’ game. And even though I am mathematically smarter than 99+% of the population, it’s a pathway to our economic demise.
dbith
“Fantasy is what they’re for”
False
Here’s how they come up with their values. It has nothing to do with fantasy.
baseballtradevalues.com/valuing-major-leaguers
Why, for example, would salary or years of control, be part of the valuation if it was for fantasy?
Why do none of their articles talk about fantasy?
Why do their podcasts not talk about fantasy?
Why do you think it’s for fantasy?
Injury risk
This is a big one. In case you haven’t noticed, baseball players get injured. A lot. Some are minor, some major, some catastrophic. We noticed that many popular projection systems do not properly account for this (they do account for it a little, baked into playing time estimates, but not nearly enough, in our view).
Mind you, we’re not doctors or insurance actuaries. But we know this is a thing that baseball front offices care about a great deal, so much so that they’ve baked in a significant margin of safety in their valuations, which appears in the on-paper gap you might see between a projection system’s WAR estimate and the contract the player received.
So we’ve tried to approximate that amount, which tends to vary both by position and player. In this area, the riskiest players are starting pitchers. And we also know that as players get older, their injury risk increases – and it’s not a straight line. The risk adjustment just gets bigger and bigger each year.
Ha! They even admit they’re not insurance actuaries!
wh
“Ha!”
Ha!
???
Best I can do is a lightly used Masa Yoshida
Go get him yourself: fun motivated player seeking revenge best served cold on your rival? Jes plz
I don’t think the Yanks FO believes Jazz’s profile is one that’s gonna hold up well long term. Would be surprised if that’s an extension that ends up happening
They very rarely do extensions per club policy. Jazz will be getting the same question from reporters all year even after Cashman touts how great of a player he is and that they want him to be back and are “exploring all options” in vague terms to retain him.
YBC
“per club policy”
This policy seems to make as much sense as the no facial hair policy
@Juan
Historically it’s been “We’re the Yanks. We can offer any player a blank check and outspend any other team to keep the guys we want so why commit to an extension sooner than later. With the Mets in particular looking to swallow up ex Yanks, a smartish policy because it removes the “can they handle NY” question, coupled with their financial might, that might give Cashman trains to rethink their approach with their extension policy. But Yanks also have Lombard and Dax Kikby in the pipeline and having 1 more year to evaluatethem might be worth the risk. They’re is still an inherent advantage to bring a Yankee vs a Met.
Has a history of missing quite a bit of games. He’s coming off a career year. Lots of players go all out for their contract year. Seems on paper to be best to just let him play the season looking for a big deal. If he gets hurt or underperforms you get a discount if you want him. If he’s great there is competition to sign him but it’s not like he doesn’t probably want a huge deal now.
@Rishi I think you may be underestimating the market demand for 30/30 or 25/25 potential players which can play defense and has good clubhouse presence even if they’re not a beacon of health.
Maybe the wording made you think that
Simply mean he’s gonna want a ton of money anyway and another injury plagued season or underperformance would have teams questioning him more because most of his career has been injuries and lack of meeting the heights people expected of him. First time I’ve ever heard him mentioned as a great clubhouse guy. Saw him regularly for years with MIA. If anything most people seemed to think he was immature. Not saying I know
@Rishi Makes sense. He missed 214 games in 2022-2025. He’s been more durable in the last two seasons, but still missed 32 in 2025.
His projections have a very wide range. Still, he’s young enough to have a couple more peak years in him, but those aren’t going to be 6-win years, more like 3-4 wins apiece, and that’s only if he can stay on the field.
Is he looking for $200m? I’d be in for 5/100m, but he’s not likely to accept that for his age 29-33 seasons.
I’m not sure a truly healthy Bieber is the #4 of that group.
The way Jazz talks, he’d likely sign for $5M less per year or an even steeper discount than that just to stay a Yankee and the Yankees know that, so they must really feel he’s a candidate to drop off sooner rather than later, no matter how good he is now.
I bet, right now, even if he was a 50 HR/50 SB 135 RBI 11 WAR MVP winner type player in 2026, Yankees would low ball him like 5 years/$90M and hope he rejects it.
Right now I think his market is like 6 years/$165M give or take a couple mil per season and a season or so of guaranteed years.
I bet the Yankees would only take him back on that Trent Grisham deal of 1 year and, lets say next year the QO is $23.5M.
They clearly do not want to commit to him long term. Something about his numbers/body type/player profile gives them the ick long term.
Compares favorably to Dantes brood or Semien no? Go get him Jays or spitballin Dodgers (ducks)
Wouldn’t be surprised to see Palacios have a .720-.740 ops across a full season, mostly obp driven. Then get traded.
Personally, I like Jazz a lot and think the Yanks are better with him this year than without him, so all the talk of trading him to me was foolish. The dude is a 30/30 guy and could be more. Those don’t exactly grow on trees. That said, I don’t think he’ll be extended. If the Yanks are contending he’s not going anywhere at the break either. It’s just going to be one of those things where he’ll reach free agency and his worth to the Yanks will hinge on how he does this year.
I don’t think Lombard will weigh heavily into it as the Yanks usually don’t operate like that. Yanks only start committing to young players based on how they do at the MLB level in any shot they get. If that comes this year for some reason and he impresses that’s a different story.
Cease shouldn’t be given the #1 slot. It should go to Gausman who’s been consistently better the last few years and led the team last year too. And yesavage shouldn’t be above him either.
Gausman
Cease
Bieber
Yesavage
Ponce/Berrios
Love Yesavage (same high school as my wife) but let’s not get ahead of his career here.
First question that EVERY free agent on the market is asked by the Red Sox:
“So … How do you feel about playing first base?”
Why – lol
I thought it was “Say ‘Park the car in Harvard Yard’?”
Hey! You can’t park there!
IKF will be the opening day second baseman. Marcelo starts the year AAA.
You want an athletic infielder with wheels and beginning to mature to the point he enjoys walks just to get on base. Has Boone ever mentioned Jazz as their leadoff hitter. I woukd love to see him as slotted right in front of Judge in the Yankees lineup,especially if he improves his on-base average. They should see how Jazz begins the season. Geez! With Bellinger so good against Lefties this this lineup will remain as one of the best lineups in baseball. Their biggest problem is baserunning. They run into too many outs. They need to tweak their strategies on Offense in order to win the East. I still feel that this team can get back to the world series.
After youse kids get home from kindergarten class and finish your homework, look up Mark ‘the bird’ Fidyrich
You’ll see some fun antics and someone who also had great ‘grit’ to them.
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-baaaa
Will Jazz get an extension? “From the movie animal House““ Zero point Zero
Only Boston could envision a 5’10” first baseman who has 36 HRs in 8 seasons.
Your comment is ridiculous. He won’t be the every day first baseman. He won’t be the platoon option at first base.
Only haters gonna hate.
For all the guesses and interviews, nobody has any idea what version of Casas shows up from a performance or health standpoint.
The time away did nothing to diminish from the sideshow aspects, which, I was at least hoping would come out of it as a positive change.
Now do I think Cora (and by extension red sox) attempts at ‘versatility’ are a bit much? You betcha. But theres no harm in getting a utility piece like IKF a few reps over there from time to time and seeing how he does. Could be in-game situations where someone needs to pick up a glove and head over there.