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Yankees, Giants Expected To Pursue Jung Hoo Lee

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South Korean outfielder Jung Hoo Lee is one of the more intriguing players who’ll be available in this year’s free agent class. The Kiwoom Heroes will make him available to MLB teams via the posting system at some point in the next few weeks.

In an appearance on the MLB Network this afternoon, Jon Morosi suggested the Yankees and Giants are likely to pursue Lee once his free agency opens (X link). It’s not surprising that either team would have interest. Previous reports have indicated San Francisco and New York had done scouting work on Lee during his run in the Korea Baseball Organization. He fits the profile that both teams are known to be targeting this winter.

Lee, 25, is a left-handed hitting center fielder. A hit-over-power offensive player, Lee posted an OPS north of .900 in each season between 2020-22. He won the KBO MVP award with a .349/.421/.575 showing in ’22 but had a disappointing platform year. Lee’s power production plummeted; he hit only six home runs while slugging .455 over 86 games and 387 trips to the plate. His season ended in July when a left ankle injury required surgery. That came with an estimated three month rehab process, so it’s not expected to affect his availability for Spring Training.

While that’s clearly not the season Lee envisioned preceding his jump to the majors, he’ll still be a target for various teams. He’s atypically young for a free agent. Evaluators praise his pure contact skills and strike zone awareness, although there could be some division among teams about whether he projects as an MLB center fielder. Lee’s fringe power would be more alarming if a club feels he’s a better defensive fit in the corner outfield.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told reporters at the GM Meetings they’d like to add two outfielders — ideally ones who hit from the left side. Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has suggested that adding athleticism to their outfield is an offseason priority. Not coincidentally, those clubs are generally speculated as strong fits for Cody Bellinger. Lee is a riskier bet without a body of work against big league pitching but isn’t going to approach Bellinger’s contract.

Of course, there’ll be more teams involved once the posting process gets underway. The Padres have previously been tied to Lee, while teams like the Mariners, Nationals and Royals make sense on paper. Seattle needs corner outfield help and is looking for high-contact hitters. Washington and Kansas City have short-term uncertainty in the outfield and could view Lee as a candidate for a free agent strike as they look to pull out of rebuilds. Given his youth, he’d align better with their competitive timelines than would most free agents.

Zack Britton Announces Retirement

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Two-time All-Star Zack Britton is retiring after a 12-year career in the Majors. The left-hander himself announced the news in a terrific interview with The Athletic’s Britt Ghiroli that fans of Britton, the Orioles and the Yankees will surely want to read in full. Within, Britton discusses the difficult decision to walk away, the toll that the game can take on a young family (and his subsequent appreciation for the support of his wife), some of the low points of his career, the best advice he ever received from Buck Showalter and much, much more.

A third-round pick of the Orioles back in 2006, the now-35-year-old Britton didn’t have a straightforward path to stardom. Though he ranked among the game’s 100 best prospects on most lists heading into the 2010 and 2011 seasons, Britton’s rookie campaign in ’11 featured 154 1/3 innings of 4.61 ERA ball. He struggled as a starter in each of the next two seasons, pitching to a nondescript 4.77 ERA from 2011-13.

After logging 254 2/3 innings of shaky work with sub-par strikeout and walk rates out of the rotation, Britton was moved to the Orioles’ bullpen. It proved to be a career-defining decision. Britton excelled immediately, and before long he’d cemented himself not as just one of the very best relievers in the big leagues, but as one of the most dominant lefties in recent MLB history.

Britton’s peak in Baltimore was the stuff of legend. His 2014-16 run, in particular, stands as one of the best three-year stretches you’ll ever find from a reliever. In that span, the southpaw logged 209 innings with a minuscule 1.38 earned run average, fanning 27.1% of his opponents against a 6.9% walk rate.

In addition to those strong strikeout and walk rates, Britton was perhaps the greatest ground-ball pitcher in our lifetimes (if not longer). Since batted-ball data began being tracked in 2002, Britton owns five of the top 14 single-season grounder rates of any qualified pitcher in baseball — including Nos. 1 and 2. Britton’s 80% ground-ball rate in 2016 and his 79.1% ground-ball rate a year prior are the top two marks of any qualified pitcher since the advent of batted-ball tracking. Opponents were simply unable to elevate the southpaw’s 96-98mph bowling ball of a sinker, and it showed. After moving to the ’pen in 2014, Britton allowed just 0.39 home runs per nine innings pitched for the remainder of his career.

Britton made the All-Star team in both 2015 and 2016, leading the league in games finished in both of those seasons and topping the American League with 47 saves in ’16. He picked up another pair of saves and a hold with the O’s during their 2014 run to the ALCS. Fans will no doubt remember the now-infamous Showalter decision to pitch Ubaldo Jimenez over Britton in the 2016 Wild Card game, but Britton effused praise for his former skipper, crediting Showalter for helping make his career what it was and noting that such an esteemed managerial career shouldn’t be defined by that decision.

As the Orioles’ run as one of the American League’s top teams tailed off, Britton found himself changing uniforms in a rare intra-division swap of significance. Baltimore shipped him to the Yankees in return for Dillon Tate, Cody Carroll and Josh Rogers at the 2018 deadline — one of former GM Dan Duquette’s final moves atop the baseball operations hierarchy. Though Britton was a rental at the time, his foray into free agency led him right back to the Bronx; he signed a complex three-year, $39MM contract that contained a club option for a fourth season but required the Yankees to make the decision on that option after just two years — lest Britton be afforded the opportunity to opt out of the deal. The Yankees wound up exercising the fourth year, though injuries derailed much of Britton’s final few seasons.

While Britton’s time with the Yankees wasn’t necessarily as dominant as his time in Baltimore, he was nonetheless an excellent bullpen weapon for them when healthy. The lefty appeared in 136 games for the Yankees during regular-season play, piling up 53 holds and a dozen saves while recording a 2.75 ERA.  His strikeout and walk rates weren’t close to their peak levels, but Britton’s power sinker continued to produce ground-balls at historic rates throughout his time in pinstripes. The lefty notched sub-2.00 ERAs in both 2019 and 2020 before struggling to a near-6.00 ERA in an injury shortened 2021 campaign that culminated in Tommy John surgery. He returned to face nine hitters in 2022 — the final nine opponents of his excellent career.

All told, Britton will walk away from the game with a career 3.13 ERA, 154 saves, 61 holds and 35 wins. He pitched 641 innings during that time, adding another 23 postseason frames with a 3.13 ERA, two saves and seven holds. It could be years, if not decades before we see another reliever season quite like Britton’s career-best 2016 campaign: he logged a 0.54 ERA that year, saved 47 games, struck out 29.1% of his opponents (against a 7.1% walk rate), induced grounders at that best-ever 80% clip, made the All-Star team and finished fourth in American League Cy Young voting. He earned more than $87MM over the course of his dozen seasons in the big leagues.

While Britton indicated to Ghiroli that he isn’t ruling out a return to baseball in some capacity in his post-playing days, his immediate plans are to spend time with his wife and four children. Best wishes to Britton and his family in whatever the future holds.

American League Non-Tenders: 11/17/23

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The deadline to tender a contract to arbitration-eligible players is tonight at 7:00pm CT. Here’s a rundown of the players on American League teams that have been non-tendered today. This post will be updated as more decisions are revealed. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected salaries for all players eligible for arbitration last month. All players who are non-tendered before this evening’s deadline go directly into free agency, where they’re eligible to sign with any of MLB’s 30 clubs.

Onto the transactions…

Latest Moves

  • Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports that the Rays non-tendered righty Cooper Criswell. He’d been designated for assignment on Tuesday.
  • The Mariners announced this evening that the club has non-tendered first baseman Mike Ford. Ford hit well (.228/.323/.475) in 83 games with Seattle this season but had already been designated for assignment earlier this week.
  • The Yankees announced this evening that the club has non-tendered right-handers Albert Abreu and Lou Trivino in addition to left-hander Anthony Misiewicz. Trivino didn’t pitch in the majors this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery back in May. Abreu pitched to a 4.73 ERA and 5.26 FIP across 59 innings of work while Misiewicz posted a 7.36 ERA across 11 innings of work for the Diamondbacks, Yankees, and Tigers.
  • The Twins have non-tendered left-hander Jovani Moran and right-hander Ronny Henriquez, per Dan Hayes of The Athletic. Moran finished the season on the injured list and, per Hayes, will require Tommy John surgery this offseason. Henriquez did not appear in the majors this year and struggled to a 5.68 ERA in 37 appearances at the Triple-A level.
  • The Angels announced this evening that they have non-tendered right-hander Jose Marte. Marte had gotten brief looks out of Anaheim’s bullpen across the past three seasons but struggled to a 8.14 ERA in 24 1/3 combined innings of work over those cups of coffee.
  • The Red Sox have non-tendered right-hander Wyatt Mills, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Mills, 28, did not appear in the big leagues this year and underwent Tommy John surgery over the summer.

Earlier Moves

  • The Rangers announced this evening that they have non-tendered right-hander Matt Bush and left-hander Brett Martin. Bush, 37, struggled to a 9.58 ERA with the Brewers this year and did not make an appearance with Texas. Martin missed the entire 2023 campaign with shoulder issues.
  • The Royals announced this evening that they have non-tendered outfielder Diego Hernandez, left-hander Austin Cox, catcher Logan Porter and right-hander Josh Staumont. All but Hernandez had already been designated for assignment by the club earlier this week. Hernandez has yet to appear in the majors during his career and slashed .245/.302/.291 in 60 games at the Double-A level this season.
  • The Athletics announced today that they did not tender a contract to infielder Kevin Smith. Smith joined the club in the trade that sent Matt Chapman to Toronto and slashed just .182/.218/.314 in 297 trips to the plate with Oakland over the last two seasons.
  • The Blue Jays are expected to non-tender right-hander Adam Cimber this evening, per Ari Alexander of Houston’s KPRC-2. A veteran of six MLB seasons, the 32-year-old Cimber struggled badly in 2023 with a 7.40 ERA in 22 appearances despite a strong 2.53 ERA in 149 appearances with Toronto between 2021 and 2022.

Brewers Acquire Jake Bauers From Yankees

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The Brewers have acquired infielder/outfielder Jake Bauers from the Yankees, per announcements from both clubs. Minor league outfielders Jace Avina and Brian Sanchez are headed to the Yanks in return.

Bauers, 28, signed a minor league deal with the Yanks prior to the 2023 season and ended up getting into 84 big league games on the year. He struck out in 34.9% of his plate appearances but walked at a 9.9% clip and hit 12 home runs. His final batting line of .202/.279/.413 translated to a wRC+ of 89. He’s out of options and has qualified for arbitration for the first time, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting a salary of $1.7MM next year. Tonight is the deadline for clubs to decide whether or not to tender contracts to arb-eligible players and it seems the Yanks preferred to exchange Bauers for some prospects as opposed to making him part of the 2024 club.

Though the results weren’t outstanding in 2023, Bauers has generally hit well in the minors and has continued to intrigue clubs around the league. Drafted by the Padres back in 2013, he was traded to the Rays as part of the Wil Myers deal, with Tampa later flipping him to Cleveland in the three-team deal that also involved Edwin Encarnación, Carlos Santana and Yandy Díaz. Bauers was dealt a third time, going to the Mariners in 2021, but couldn’t thrive at the big league level with any club.

He has hit .211/.302/.361 in his career as a major leaguer but has a much more impressive line of .257/.363/.438 at Triple-A. The Brewers will be the latest club to take a chance on him finally putting it together at the big league level, perhaps as a Rowdy Tellez replacement. Tellez hit just .215/.291/.376 this year and is projected to make $5.9MM in his final arbitration year, making him a speculative non-tender candidate. With Bauers projected at less than a third of of that price and also having two more seasons of club control, the Brewers are taking a bet that he will be better value for money.

The tender deadline is at 7 pm Central tonight, so the Brewers still have a few hours to work out a trade of Tellez or decide whether to keep him around. In addition to first base, Bauers has also played some corner outfield. That perhaps allows them both to fit on the roster but the club is fairly loaded with outfield options, having Christian Yelich, Tyrone Taylor, Joey Wiemer, Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick and Blake Perkins, with prospect Jackson Chourio charging hard towards a major league debut.

In exchange for a player that likely wasn’t in their plans anyway, the Yanks will add a couple of pieces to their farm system, both long-term plays. Avina, who turns 21 in June, spent 2023 in Single-A. He hit .233/.373/.442 at that level for a wRC+ of 134. Sanchez is just 19 and was in the Dominican Summer League this year, hitting .297/.414/.446 for a wRC+ of 129. Neither are Rule 5 eligible at this point and won’t need a 40-man roster spot for the time being.

Diamondbacks, Tigers Interested In Yoshinobu Yamamoto

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Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto has garnered the attention of many clubs around the league and Jon Heyman of The New York Post adds the Tigers and Diamondbacks to the list.

The incredible popularity of Yamamoto is due to a couple of factors. Primarily, he has utterly dominated hitters in his career in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He has an earned run average of 1.82 over his seven seasons, including a ridiculous 1.21 mark in 2023. He struck out 169 of the 636 batters he faced this year, a rate of 26.6%, while his 28 walks led to a rate of just 4.4%.

In addition to the results, teams will be incredibly interested in the fact that Yamamoto is just 25 years old. Players that come up through the affiliated ranks need to get six years of major league service time before reaching the open market, meaning they usually are close to or beyond their 30th birthday by the time they become free agents. That makes it extremely rare to have an opportunity to sign a player that is both this talented and this young. MLBTR predicted him for a contract of $225MM over nine years.

A projected contract of that size would normally restrict a player’s market to the top spenders but his age might open the door to some surprise bidders. Yamamoto has indeed been connected to plenty of moneyed clubs such as the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Giants and others. But even teams that don’t usually come up in these rumors could perhaps be willing to stretch their usual spending habits and take a chance on Yamamoto since the chance of him suddenly succumbing to the aging curve would be far lower than other free agents.

The Diamondbacks clearly need starting pitching, despite having just gone on a run to the Fall Classic. Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt give them three arms for next year’s rotation but they clearly have a drop-off after that, as demonstrated by the fact that they deployed a bullpen game in the fourth contest of the World Series, allowing 11 runs that night. Slade Cecconi, Ryne Nelson and Tommy Henry are on the roster as options for the back end but a rotation upgrade would surely help them build off the momentum of this year.

Their track record doesn’t give a lot of optimism of them getting this kind of deal done, however. They gave a mega deal to Zack Greinke going into 2016 but that was under a different front office and seems to be the exception more than the rule. Leaving that deal aside, their largest free agent contract is the $85MM they gave to Madison Bumgarner. They would likely have to more than double that to land Yamamoto. The Greinke deal was for $206.5MM, though, so landing Yamamoto wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. And as mentioned, some teams may be willing to go beyond their comfort zones for an exceptional case like this.

They are currently projected for a payroll of $104MM next year, per Roster Resource. They have gone a bit beyond that in the past, with Cot’s Baseball Contracts listing their franchise high as $132MM. Teams sometimes spend a little more after a strong postseason run, with some extra cash on hand after hosting some lucrative playoff games, perhaps giving the Snakes a bit of money to spend this winter.

The Tigers have struck plenty of big deals in the past but Scott Harris has kept things on the modest side since taking over as president of baseball operations a year ago. Last winter, they kept themselves to one-year deals for Matthew Boyd and Michael Lorenzen.

There is perhaps an argument that the club is ready for more aggression, as they were above .500 after the All-Star break in 2023 and were able to climb into second place in the American League Central. With Miguel Cabrera’s onerous contract off the books, perhaps they could feel it’s time to make a splash. However, that was thinking a couple of years ago when the club tried to surge back into contention by signing Javier Báez and Eduardo Rodriguez, which didn’t work out.

“This game has taught us time and time again,” Harris recently said, per Chris McCosky of The Detroit News, “Sometimes, teams overestimate their proximity to being a team that’s right on the verge of the playoffs, and they spend a lot of money and it doesn’t push them forward. It pushes them back.” He then said that the club is going in the right direction but “can’t do anything in free agency or in trades that sets us back. If we find an opportunity that’s going to push us forward and we’re confident of that, we’re going to do it.”

The club is only projected for a payroll of $79MM next year, per Roster Resource, with a couple of non-tenders likely dropping that even further. They have been way beyond that in past, per Cot’s, so there’s room for them to make a bold strike on Yamamoto financially. But given the comments from Harris, it seems there are things beyond the money that would have to align for something to come together.

As for the Yankees, there were reports this week that suggested that club’s chances of signing Yamamoto took a hit in a strange way. Cashman alluded to the injury history of Giancarlo Stanton in a manner that was apparently viewed as disrespectful. Since Stanton and Yamamoto both have Joel Wolfe as an agent, some worried that the kerfuffle with Stanton would have the domino effect of spilling into their pursuit of Yamamoto. However, Andy Martino of SNY recently reported that the Japanese righty wasn’t even aware of the squabble.

In addition to the sum guaranteed to the player, a signing team will have to send money to the Orix Buffaloes, his NPB club. The MLB team will pay a fee to the Buffaloes in proportion to the size of Yamamoto’s contract. They’ll owe the NPB club 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. Once he is officially posted, there will be a 45-day window for him to work out a deal.

Latest On Cody Bellinger’s Market

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As the clear #2 position player available in this year’s free agent market, Cody Bellinger is a sensible fit for a handful of teams. The Yankees and Giants were the most common speculated suitors going into the offseason, and that buzz has continued in the first couple weeks.

Bellinger is on the Yankees’ radar as they look for one or two lefty-hitting outfielders. Meanwhile, San Francisco president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi has made clear the team is looking to upgrade its outfield defense, calling center field a priority. Each of Jon Heyman of the New York Post and Jesse Rogers of ESPN wrote yesterday that Bellinger is indeed on San Francisco’s radar.

While the links to both franchises are expected, it’s unclear how aggressively Bellinger’s incumbent team plans to pursue him. Heyman lists the Cubs alongside the Yankees and Giants as early favorites to land the two-time All-Star, while Rogers is more pessimistic, writing that the Cubs are unlikely to engage in a bidding war for the 28-year-old outfielder. Rogers unsurprisingly suggests that Chicago will be involved in the Shohei Ohtani pursuit, noting that some believe the Cubs are likelier to land the two-way star than they are to re-sign Bellinger. Ohtani is obviously the more desirable player, but is also likely to sign for at least double (quite likely more) the amount of guaranteed money.

At the same time, it’d be logical in some sense for the Cubs to allow Bellinger to move on. Top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong is viewed as the organization’s center fielder of the future, and he reached the majors late in 2023 after hitting .283/.365/.511 between the top two minor league levels. Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki are on multi-year commitments in the corner outfield. While Bellinger can play first base, much of his value is tied to his ability to play strong defense at the outfield’s most demanding position.

The left-handed hitter had a strong season at Wrigley Field. After his dismal 2021-22 numbers led to a non-tender with the Dodgers, Bellinger inked a $17.5MM guarantee with the Cubs. He hit .307/.356/.525 with 26 home runs and 20 stolen bases through 556 trips to the plate. Bellinger cut his strikeouts to a personal-low 15.6% clip, although his batted ball metrics figure to give some teams pause. His 31.4% hard contact percentage only ranked in the 10th percentile among qualified hitters.

Bellinger rejected a qualifying offer after declining his end of a mutual option for 2024. Were the Cubs to let him walk, they’d land a compensatory pick between Competitive Balance Round B and the third round (roughly 75th overall). A signing team would have to forfeit draft and potentially international bonus space to add him.

Yankees, Mets Have Discussed Manuel Margot Trades With Rays

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The Yankees have “engaged the Rays in multiple conversations this offseason” relating to outfielder Manuel Margot, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. It has recently been reported that the Rays have been discussing Margot with multiple clubs and Rosenthal reiterates that. Joel Sherman of The New York Post adds that the Mets are interested as well.

Margot, 29, has been a solid contributor to this point in his career, largely serving as a strong defender with offense just a bit under league average. Since getting traded from the Padres to the Rays prior to 2020, he has hit .264/.317/.375 for a wRC+ of 97. He also stole 41 bases in that time while generally producing above-average defensive grades: +16 Defensive Runs Saved, +21 Outs Above Average and a grade of +1.9 from Ultimate Zone Rating. Those numbers slipped a bit in 2023 but they can often be inconsistent on a year-to-year basis and Margot was recovering from a significant strain of the patellar tendon in his right knee in 2022.

Going into the 2022 season, Margot and the Rays agreed to an extension that runs through 2024. He’ll make a salary of $10MM next year and there’s a $12MM mutual option for 2025 with a $2MM buyout. Since mutual options are almost never picked up by both sides, teams will consider Margot to have one year and $12MM remaining on his deal. That’s a perfectly suitable price point for a decent regular. Jackie Bradley Jr. got two years and $24MM from the Brewers a few years back. Kevin Kiermaier got one year and $9MM from the Jays despite being 33 years old and coming off hip surgery. Eddie Rosario got two years and $18MM from Atlanta.

But the Rays have often traded away players as they approach free agency, both as a way to keep costs down and to perpetually restock their farm system. The club’s payroll for next year is currently slated to be $126MM, per Roster Resource. They’ve never gone beyond the $80MM range, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. A few members of their arbitration class will likely wind up non-tendered and the club seems to have some willingness to push payroll upwards next year, but it seems like some cuts are still going to be necessary.

There have been some rumors about Tyler Glasnow trades of late, unsurprising given his talent and $25MM salary in 2024, but a Margot trade would surely be more palatable from Tampa’s perspective. Their rotation suffered a large number of injuries in 2023, with each of Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen set to miss some or all of 2024 while rehabbing from surgery. Subtracting Glasnow would leave the club with a rotation of Zach Eflin, Aaron Civale, Shane Baz, Zack Littell and Taj Bradley. They might be able to get by with such a group but it’s much stronger with Glasnow in it and the club is surely aware how quickly depth can evaporate due to injuries.

Subtracting Margot from the outfield, on the other hand, would not appear to be as risky. They would still have Randy Arozarena, Jose Siri and Josh Lowe as regulars, with players like Luke Raley, Greg Jones, Jonathan Aranda, Vidal Bruján and Harold Ramírez having varying degrees of outfield capabilities as well. Even if the club considers that group unsatisfactory, they could patch together some extra depth via minor league deals and waiver claims. The cost savings of flipping Margot would be less than half of a Glasgow deal but the former would be more appealing in terms of roster construction.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has frankly admitted that they need a couple of outfielders to be slotted next to Aaron Judge. They recently tried to insert Harrison Bader into their center field gap but he didn’t hit much and was often injured, eventually being placed on waivers as the 2023 season was winding down. Jasson Domínguez made his major league debut in Bader’s absence but required Tommy John surgery, leaving the club looking for answers there yet again.

Players like Jake Bauers and Estevan Florial are some of the options currently on the roster but the Yanks would surely like to upgrade there. Bauers hit .202/.279/.413 in 2023. Florial shows some exciting tools at times but he almost always strikes out around 30% of the time wherever he’s playing. Oswaldo Cabrera hit .211/.275/.299 last year in a utility role. Everson Pereira has similar strikeout concerns to Florial and hit .151/.233/.194 in his first 27 major league games.

Trades between division rivals can be tricky and the Yanks might also have caution about Margot’s injury history, something Rosenthal points out. The Yanks have been snakebit in recent years by seeing many of their acquisitions hitting the injured list, such as Frankie Montas hardly being able to pitch for them after being acquired from the A’s. Margot has gone to the injured list in each of the past four years, with his 125 games played in 2021 the only time he got into triple digits during that stretch.

As for the Mets, Starling Marte battled groin issues that kept him to 86 games of subpar production, making him an unknown going into 2024. Mark Canha and Tommy Pham were traded prior to the deadline and are no longer in the mix. Acquiring some outfield help to bolster the group around Brandon Nimmo makes plenty of sense. DJ Stewart went on a torrid hot streak late last year, hitting 11 home runs in 58 games, but he’s generally considered a poor defender. Acquiring a glove-first outfielder like Nimmo could push Stewart into a bench bat/designated hitter role.

The Yankees, Mets and other clubs with interest in Margot could also look to the free agent market for outfielders, but that would likely mean forking out more money than what Margot is set to make. Cody Bellinger is going to require a nine-figure guarantee while players like Teoscar Hernández and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. should get sizeable eight-figure deals. Even players somewhat similar to Margot, such as Kiermaier and Bader, are likely going to find multi-year deals somewhere.

Gerrit Cole Wins American League Cy Young Award

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As expected, Gerrit Cole is the 2023 Cy Young winner in the American League. The Baseball Writers Association of America announced the Yankee star has won the award. Former Minnesota right-hander Sonny Gray was the runner-up, while Toronto’s Kevin Gausman took home third place.

There wasn’t a ton of intrigue, as Cole received all 30 first-place votes. While he’s a six-time All-Star and two-time ERA champion, this is his first career Cy Young. No AL pitcher topped Cole’s 209 innings, while he led Junior Circuit pitchers (minimum 150 innings) with a 2.63 ERA. He was sixth among that group with a 27% strikeout rate and trailed only Gausman and Pablo López with 222 punchouts overall.

That well-rounded dominance made Cole an easy call as the AL’s best pitcher in the eyes of voters. It’s his sixth top five finish and the third time he has been a finalist, as he’d twice before finished as runner-up. Having at least one Cy Young on his résumé could go a long way towards burnishing an eventual Hall of Fame case.

For now, the 33-year-old will look to replicate this year’s success in hopes of leading the Yankees back to the postseason. Despite Cole turning in one of the best seasons of his career, New York floundered midseason and finished barely above .500. Cole will be in the Bronx for at least one more year. He’s headed into year five of a nine-year, $324MM free agent contract. He has the ability to opt out after next season.

Gray received 20 second-place votes to earn the highest Cy Young finish of his career. It was well timed for the three-time All-Star, who hit free agency a couple weeks ago. Gausman secured seven second-place votes and was the most common selection for third. Stray second-place votes went to Luis Castillo and Zach Eflin, although Baltimore’s Kyle Bradish edged out that duo for fourth in overall balloting.

Others to receive at least one vote: López, George Kirby, Framber Valdez, Chris Bassitt, Félix Bautista and Chris Martin. The full results are available at the BBWAA website.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Yankees Select Agustin Ramirez, Clayton Beeter

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The Yankees announced that they have selected the contracts of right-hander Clayton Beeter and catcher Agustin Ramirez. Today is the deadline for a club to add players to its 40-man roster in order to protect them from being eligible in the Rule 5 draft.

Beeter, 25, was selected by the Dodgers with the 66th overall pick in the 2020 draft. He came to the Yanks in the 2022 deadline deal that sent Joey Gallo to Los Angeles. Beeter split the 2023 season between Double-A and Triple-A, tossing 131 2/3 innings over 27 appearances, 26 starts. He struck out an impressive 28.8% of batters faced on the year but also issued walks at a 13.1% clip. That lack of control is nothing new, as he has walked 12.6% of batters faced in his minor league career overall.

Ramirez, 22, was signed as an international amateur out of Venezuela in 2018. In 2023, he spent time in Single-A, High-A and Double-A, getting 492 plate appearances in total. He launched 18 home runs in that time and also stole 12 bases. He walked in 12.4% of his trips to the plate while limiting his strikeouts to a 17.3% clip.

Baseball America currently lists Beeter as the club’s #20 prospect and Ramirez at #24. The former will give club some optionable pitching depth on the roster while Ramirez will add to a catching mix that is already somewhat crowded. Jose Trevino, Kyle Higashioka, Austin Wells, Ben Rortvedt and Carlos Narvaez are also on the 40-man, giving the Yanks six backstops on the roster, an unusually high number. It was reported last month that the club is signaling that they are willing to trade from their surplus in that department.

Agent Joel Wolfe Responds To Brian Cashman’s Comments On Giancarlo Stanton

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Yankees general manager Brian Cashman held a fiery session with the media at last week’s GM Meetings in Arizona, speaking with a level of candor that’s not typical for himself nor for baseball operations leaders at large in today’s game. A fired-up Cashman at times took a combative tone, defending his organization’s processes, his scouts, his baseball operations personnel and his analysts — all while pushing back on the notion that the Yankees are driven primarily by data and analytics at the expense of conventional means of scouting and player evaluation.

Cashman wasn’t shy about acknowledging blame for the state of the Yankees’ 2023 roster. “We lost way too many games last year,” he said (video link via SNY). “…That’s my fault. I’m responsible as the baseball operations GM. If the owner wants to tag me out at any time, he clearly can do that.”

Among the many contributing factors to the Yankees’ playoff miss in 2023 was an unusually weak season from Giancarlo Stanton at the plate. Injuries are nothing new for the towering slugger, but Stanton’s .191/.275/.420 batting line was uncharacteristically feeble. Cashman plainly acknowledged as much during his broad-reaching address with the media.

“We’ve got to get Stanton up and running again,” the GM said (link via Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News). “He’s injury-prone. We all have lived and known that, but he’s never not hit when he’s playing, and this year is the first time that that’s happened. … We try to limit the time he’s down, but I’m not gonna tell you he’s gonna play every game next year because he’s not. He’s going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game. But I know that when he’s right and healthy — other than this past year — the guy’s a great hitter and has been for awhile.”

Given Stanton’s frequent trips to the injured list, nothing Cashman said stands out as especially unfair. Certainly, it’s uncommon for any top baseball ops exec to speak so candidly, but with the possible exception of calling injuries “a part of [Stanton’s] game,” it was a fairly measured characterization of the situation. Cashman noted that Stanton himself has been frustrated by his injuries and declining mobility and has worked to get some answers. On multiple occasions, he referenced what a typically productive hitter Stanton has been.

Nonetheless, it seems at least part of Cashman’s comments struck a chord with Stanton or his representatives at Wasserman — likely the characterization that future injuries are an inevitability. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic spoke with agent Joel Wolfe about the surprisingly frank comments from Cashman.

“I read the context of the entire interview,” Wolfe tells Rosenthal. “I think it’s a good reminder for all free agents considering signing in New York, both foreign and domestic, that to play for this team you’ve got to be made of Teflon, both mentally and physically because you can never let your guard down — even in the offseason.”

Wolfe slipping the “both foreign and domestic” qualifier into his quote surely piques the interest of Yankee fans — and not in a good way. Wolfe is the agent for star Nippon Professional Baseball pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who will be posted for MLB clubs in the near future. The Yankees are known to have interest in signing Yamamoto, who will be one of the most sought-after players to ever make the jump from NPB to MLB. The 25-year-old ace has won NPB’s Cy Young equivalent, the Sawamura Award, in each of the past three seasons and just wrapped up a season that saw him log a 1.21 ERA, 26.8% strikeout rate and 4.4% walk rate.

Understandably, Wolfe’s comments have created some angst among an already frustrated Yankee fan base that has been hoping for broad-reaching changes on the heels of a disappointing season. It’s already clear that there won’t be any sweeping changes to the organizational hierarchy, and any instance that comes with the perceived possibility of hindering the chances of augmenting the roster aren’t well received.

That said, it still seems unlikely that the comments regarding Stanton will ultimately present any real impact on the team’s negotiations with Yamamoto. The expectation has been and should continue to be that the right-hander will sign for the best offer. Perhaps if the Yankees’ best offer is identical or only narrowly separated from a competitor, something along the lines of the Stanton/Wolfe comments can tip the scales away from the Yankees, but there are numerous small factors that can sway negotiations when things are that close.

It’s hard to envision a scenario where Yamamoto leaves an extra year or significant per-annum dollars on the table over Cashman’s candid comments regarding a player who’s not even Yamamoto’s own teammate at present. Yankee fans will surely point back to the comments from Cashman and Wolfe’s reply if Yamamoto lands elsewhere — and perhaps that’s the true motivation behind making them, to increase pressure on Cashman — but the Yamamoto bidding was always going to be fiercely competitive. In the grand scheme of determining factors for where Yamamoto lands, this seems like little more than a footnote. Nevertheless, it also offers a glimpse at why so many executives defer to boilerplate speak and generalities in media sessions like the one held by Cashman last week.

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