December 18th, 2023: Yamamoto, Imanaga, McKinney, Minor League Signings

First Juan Soto held up the trade market, then Shohei Ohtani held up the free agent market, and now Yoshinobu Yamamoto is holding up the pitching market. I feel frozen. I have a bunch of stuff on my to-do list but I don’t want to write anything without knowing where Yamamoto is going. I’m sorry today’s post is shorter than usual. I hope you know I’m good for it and will make it up later, once we get word on Yamamoto’s decision. Here is Tuesday morning’s post Monday afternoon just in case Yamamoto’s decision comes down tonight or early tomorrow.

1. Latest hot stove rumors. It is pretty quiet out there, which leads to small rumors becoming big talking points – Ken Rosenthal (subs. req’d) says the Yankees are “monitoring” the trade market and I’ve seen that twisted into “the Yankees are interested in Dylan Cease” – and that’s my least favorite part of the offseason. Anyway, here are the latest Yankees-related and Yankees-adjacent hot stove rumblings.

The latest on Yamamoto

For the first time, there was a significant unexpected development in Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s free agency over the weekend. Yamamoto met with the Yankees in New York on Sunday at his request, according to Jon Heyman. That came one day after he had dinner at Steve Cohen’s house in Connecticut with the Cohens and members of the Mets’ front office and coaching staff.

Yamamoto was not expected to be in New York this weekend, so Sunday’s meeting with the Yankees was not planned and put together at the last minute. Who was there? We don’t know. Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge, the two active players you’d expect to be involved in a meeting like this, were at Mike King’s wedding Saturday. Not sure they made it back to town in time for Sunday’s meeting. I don’t even know if the meeting took place at Yankee Stadium.

What does it all mean? I wish I knew. Getting a second meeting is certainly better than not getting a second meeting, but is Yamamoto sincerely interested in joining the Yankees, or is this all a song and dance to get Cohen and/or the Dodgers to up their offer? The fact Yamamoto came to New York to meet the Mets, and only then tacked on the meeting with the Yankees because he was in town, seems not great, but man, who knows? This is all a mystery.

In a way, the Mets are helping the Yankees and vice versa, because Yamamoto has two teams trying to sell him on New York. If you have to woo him away from the West Coast, you have double the efforts – hopefully he's not basing his decision on weather after these last 18 hours or so – and then once he’s agreeable to New York, you just have to sell him on Yankees over Mets. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Yamamoto’s free agency has put my brain in a blender.

“I think we have a lot of things to be proud of and a lot of things that we can count on as allowing us to be an attractive destination,” Brian Cashman told Greg Joyce two weeks ago. “Not just for players coming from Japan, but yeah, we’ve had players come here, thrive here, enjoy it here. And obviously them carrying those types of messages back, whether it’s directly through us or indirectly already because they’re asked questions by players over there, what’s it like and stuff, I think it’s all helpful.”

Over the weekend Jim Bowden (I know, I know) said the Giants and Red Sox have both offered Yamamoto over $300M, which tells me we are now in the “leak the biggest rivals made an offer to get the finalists to up theirs” stage. I mean, come on. You leak the Giants made an offer to get the Dodgers to ante up, and you do the same with the Red Sox to push the Yankees.

It seems inevitable that Yamamoto will get a $300M contract, and I wonder if things have gotten to the point where we’re talking 12+ years. A complicated 12-year contract with opt outs and the like. Yamamoto will play most of next season at age 25. A 12-year deal takes him through age 36 and, importantly, lowers the average annual value for luxury tax purposes.

Maybe the Julio Rodríguez contract is a template? That sucker is extremely complicated. Julio’s contract is, officially, 12 years and $209.3M, but it breaks down like so:

• Seven years and $119.3M covering 2023-29. This is the only portion of the contract guaranteed to be paid out.
• The Mariners have an 8-10 year club option worth $200M to $350M they must decide on after 2028. (The exact value of the option is tied to awards voting).
• If the club option is declined, Rodríguez has a five-year player option worth $90M to $150M (again tied to awards voting). He must decide on that after 2029.
• There’s also a seven-year, $168M mutual option after 2029. I have no idea what the point of that is, but it’s in there.

Rodríguez could make as little as $119.3M across seven years (if every option is declined, which seems unlikely) or as much as $470M across 18 years. Maybe the path for Yamamoto is a five-year contract with a seven-year club option you have to pick up after Year 4 (his age 29 season) or a five-year player option? I gave myself a headache. Let’s worry about the contract details later.

Joel Sherman says the “actual bidding process is supposed to intensify this week with the expectation of a deal being finalized before the new year.” Hopefully “before the new year” means sometime this week and not next week, the week between Christmas and New Years. No one wants to work that week. I am ready to get this over with and move on with the rest of the offseason, with or without Yamamoto.

I’m not sure how much longer Yamamoto plans on staying in the United States, but I assume he will stay here long enough to sign and then have a press conference rather than return to Japan, come back for the press conference, then return to Japan for the rest of the offseason. Hopefully Sunday’s meeting did the job and sold Yamamoto on wearing pinstripes. Now that offers are being leaked, it feels like we’re getting close to the endgame.

Yankees will aggressively pursue pitching

With or without Yamamoto, the Yankees will aggressively pursue pitching, according to Rosenthal (subs. req’d). This isn’t anything new or groundbreaking, but it is nice to hear again. If the Yankees sign Yamamoto, they’re going to add more arms around him. If they don’t, they will pivot to another impactful pitcher. (Rosenthal reiterates their interest in Jordan Montgomery.)

If Yamamoto signs elsewhere, I think the first thing the Yankees should do is call up Jerry Reinsdorf, and see how much of a discount he’ll give them on Dylan Cease if they take on the $29M the White Sox owe Yoán Moncada in 2024. Cease is excellent (or at least has the talent to be excellent) and the Yankees could add Moncada to their unsettled third base mix.

And I do mean call Reinsdorf, not White Sox GM Chris Getz. Reinsdorf is notoriously cheap and would likely jump at the chance to unload Moncada’s $29M, even if it means trading Cease at a discount. Back in the day, if you wanted a good young Yankees player, you skipped the GM and went straight to George Steinbrenner because he would trade kids for veterans all day, every day. Try that with Reinsdorf and Moncada’s money.

I think Blake Snell has become underrated. There’s so much talk about his walk rate (which is high) and inability to pitch deep into games that all the things he does well – premium stuff from the left side and elite bat-missing ability – get overlooked. In the four years between his two Cy Young seasons, Snell had a 3.85 ERA (3.44 FIP) with a 31.0% strikeout rate. I’d take it.

That said, I do not want to watch Snell pitch. His starts are ugly – lots of nibbling, deep counts, and long innings – and I need the Yankees to be more watchable, not less. Montgomery being the best alternative to Yamamoto says more about the free agent class than Montgomery, who’s very good, but likely to get a contract way out of line with who he will be moving forward. Then again, what else are the Yankees supposed to do?

Yankees interested in Imanaga

According to Heyman, the Yankees are among the teams eyeing Shōta Imanaga as a backup plan to Yamamoto. Imanaga’s 45-day posting period closes at 5pm ET on Thursday, Jan. 11th. That is exactly one week after Yamamoto’s. This is the first time the Yankees have been connected to Imanaga in any way other than speculatively.

Imanaga turned 30 in September and he threw 159 innings with a 2.66 ERA and a stellar 29.5% strikeout rate in 2023. That’s higher than Yamamoto’s 26.7% strikeout rate and well above the 19.6% league average. Here is FanGraphs’ updated scouting report:

Imanaga presents MLB clubs with the skill set of an ultra-stable no. 4 or 5 starter thanks largely to his exceptional command … (In 2023) he set a personal record for average fastball velo across an entire season (92 mph), as well as bests in strikeout rate (29%) and xFIP (2.38) in his 143 IP. His fastballs play up a bit due to his command and his low release, which is mostly created by his powerful, flexible lower body and drop-and-drive style of delivery. His low-80s slider is his finishing secondary pitch; it has plus two-plane wipe and, like the rest of his repertoire, is aided by Imanaga’s ability to locate. His stuff is otherwise pretty pedestrian. His low-70s curveball may be too slow to play in MLB and his changeup is reliant upon location much more than stuff, but of course Imanaga's command of it is exceptional — that pitch barely ever finishes in a vulnerable spot … Any pitcher who works at the top of the zone as often as Imanaga does is likely to have a high fly ball rate, but Imanaga’s 58% FB% (NPB average is 45%) is astronomical and points to some risk that he gets shelled by stronger MLB hitters. Perhaps I’m underrating the impact Imanaga’s command will have on his overall performance, but I think most of his value will be in the volume of innings he works rather than his pound-for-pound impact, and he strikes me as the sort of talent who gets shifted into a long relief role during October crunch time.

Baseball America (subs. req’d) adds “Imanaga’s feel for pitching gives him a chance to be a No. 4 or 5 starter (but he) may fit best as a swingman or bulk reliever on a contending team.” The contract projections have Imanaga at 4-5 years and $17M per year and that’s an awful lot for a pitcher described as a back-end guy. Maybe Imanaga will really be more like a No. 3? I dunno.

My hunch is the Yankees are interested in Imanaga in a due diligence kinda way. If they give 4-5 years to a non-Yamamoto starter, I suspect it would be someone with a proven MLB track record like Montgomery or Snell. Otherwise I would expect them to shift to the trade market, or free agents on shorter term contracts. Imanaga doesn’t seem up their alley.

(For what it’s worth, signing Imanaga finished pretty far down in our Plan B poll.)

Braves release Carpenter

The Padres continued their payroll slashing over the weekend and sent old pal Matt Carpenter and lefty reliever Ray Kerr to the Braves for a non-prospect. The Braves took on $4M of the $5.5M remaining on Carpenter’s contract to get Kerr, who had a 30.7% strikeout rate in 2023. Rosenthal said Atlanta planned to flip Carpenter elsewhere, but apparently they couldn’t find a trade partner, so the Braves released him Monday.

The Braves have been taking on bad money to get access to younger players all offseason. Here are their salary absorbing moves:

• Taking Marco Gonzales and Evan White to get Jarred Kelenic.
• Taking David Fletcher and Max Stassi to unload White.
• Taking Carpenter to get Kerr.

Atlanta then ate some money to flip Gonzalez (Pirates), White (Angels), and Stassi (White Sox) elsewhere soon thereafter, and Fletcher was placed on waivers (but not claimed). My math says the Braves have absorbed $28.76M in salary to get Kelenic, Kerr, and Fletcher. Alrighty.

Anyway, Carpenter will clear waivers in 48 hours – no team will claim him and assume that $4M obligation – and, once that happens, he’ll be a free agent available for the $740,000 league minimum. Carpenter will probably have to sign a minor league contract and audition for a job in Spring Training. Because he has 6+ years of service time, a minor league deal will automatically include an opt out five days before Opening Day.

Should the Yankees pursue Carpenter as a non-roster guy who would get a league minimum salary if he makes the MLB roster? There would be no risk bringing him to Spring Training. Bring him to camp, see if there’s anything left in the tank, and then make a decision at the end of March. It would be a good vibes move, if nothing else.

As I wrote in last week’s mailbag, I’d rather Oswaldo Cabrera play everyday in Triple-A than sit on the MLB bench. If Carpenter has anything left, the Yankees could send Cabrera down and roll with Carpenter, Trent Grisham, Oswald Peraza, and Jose Trevino on the bench. Carpenter can be the “aim for the short porch” extra bat. The Jake Bauers role, basically. His 2023 spray chart:

The downside is Carpenter fools everyone in Spring Training and is very bad again in games that count, in which case you have to have a difficult conversation when you release him. At the league minimum, there should be no hesitation to cut anyone. The upside is, well, a 2022 repeat, though expecting that again is unrealistic. Can Carpenter chip in something like a .240/.330/.420 line against righties? That would be useful on the bench.

Carpenter’s wRC+ the last five seasons is hilarious: 96, 85, 68, 218, 86. Chances are he’s done, like done done, but it would cost nothing to get him – if Carpenter insists on a big league contract and a 40-man roster spot, you say thanks but no thanks, and wish him good luck – and there is possibly a role for him. Plus the Yankees know Carpenter. He’d fit back into the clubhouse nicely.

Unless the Yankees bring in a new starting third baseman and move DJ LeMahieu into a “tenth man” role, they will fill their final bench spot either with Cabrera or a cheap pickup. The Padres probably tried to include Carpenter in the Grisham/Soto trade, but taking him on at his full salary was unappealing. Now that his money has been laundered through the Braves, perhaps there is a path to a Carpenter reunion. Low risk, some upside. If it happens, cool. If not, oh well.

2. Latest roster moves. Now that the Rule 5 Draft has passed and teams won’t have to use 38-man minor league reserve spots on newly signed players, the minor league deals are beginning to roll in. Here are the Yankees’ latest moves at the non-roster level.

McKinney traded to Pirates (???)

This is a weird one. A week after re-signing Billy McKinney to a minor league contract, the Yankees traded him to the Pirates for international bonus pool money, the team announced Friday. J.J. Cooper, who’s covered baseball and the minors and weird transactions for decades, said he can’t ever remember a player signing one week and getting traded the next.

(Annoyingly, the Yankees every year announce all their minor league contract signings at once when they announce their non-roster invitees to Spring Training in February. That means they never announced the McKinney signing, but they did announce his trade. Quirky.)

The only thing that makes sense is the Yankees did McKinney a favor after the Alex Verdugo and Juan Soto trades, and sent him to a team that offers a better MLB opportunity. Jack Curry reported the McKinney re-signing Friday, Dec. 8th, the day after the Soto trade and two days after the Verdugo trade. Chances are the contract was agreed to days earlier though, if not weeks earlier. It’s likely McKinney re-signed before the Verdugo and Soto trades.

McKinney may have requested his release or a trade, the Yankees shopped around, and found a deal with the Pirates. McKinney’s agent might have even worked with the Yankees to find a trade, similar to what happens when a player uses an opt out in his minor league contract. Find a team willing to put the player on the 40-man roster, then tell the team to trade him there. This might be like that, minus the 40-man roster spot part.

(It could be the Pirates were the runner-up to sign McKinney as a free agent and said sure, we’ll take him now, we're not planning to use this international bonus pool money. Also, Pittsburgh lost starting catcher Endy Rodríguez to Tommy John surgery last week. They may be preparing to move Henry Davis from right field back to catcher, which would open an outfield spot for McKinney, or at least move him up a spot on the depth chart.)

So McKinney was back, and now he’s gone. The MLB outfield is Soto, Verdugo, Trent Grisham, and Aaron Judge. The Triple-A outfield right now is Oscar Gonzalez, Everson Pereira, and I guess Elijah Dunham and Brandon Lockridge. I would expect the Yankees to bring in (or at least try to bring in) another center field capable player to fill McKinney’s vacated spot in Scranton.

Yankees sign Capellan as IFA

As for the international bonus pool money the Yankees acquired in the McKinney trade, it will have no bearing on their Yoshinobu Yamamoto pursuit. He’s not subject to the bonus pools. Also, the bonus pool money was for the 2023 signing period, not the 2024 signing period that opens on Jan. 15th. Can’t trade for bonus pool money until the signing period opens, I believe.

The Yankees used the bonus pool money from the McKinney trade to sign Dominican C Justin Capellan, reports Curry. He received a $450,000 bonus. The 2023 international signing period closed at 5pm ET on Friday. The McKinney trade press release hit my inbox at 10:31am ET. The Yankees turned around and signed Capellan at some point in the 6.5 hours between the trade and the signing period closing.

I can’t find much on Capellan, but $450,000 is a significant bonus. Definitely not the kinda bonus a player who signs on the last day of the signing period usually receives. This late in the signing period, just about anyone with a modicum of prospect stock has already been scooped up. Did the Yankees overpay Capellan because they had nowhere else to spend the money? Nah.

My guess is Capellan had a $450,000 deal lined up for the 2024 signing period (once the bonus pools reset) and the Yankees jumped the line. They might’ve signed him out from under another team. It’s also possible the Yankees had that original $450,000 deal in place with Capellan, and the trade allowed them to complete the signing now. That would free up $450,000 for the 2024 signing period.

Needless to say, Capellan having a deal in place for 2024 and the Yankees swooping in to sign him in 2023 is waaay more likely than the Yankees giving the kid a big pile of cash because they had nowhere else to spend it. Bonuses are a good proxy for prospect stock in the international market and $450,000 tells us the Yankees really like Capellan. Shoutout to McKinney for helping make it happen.

(The official site says the Yankees also signed Dominican OF Yael Zapata on Friday. I got nothing on him but I can’t imagine the Yankees gave out two significant bonuses on the last day of the signing period.)

Yankees sign Underwood

According to Jon Heyman, the Yankees have signed righty Duane Underwood Jr. to a minor league contract with an invite to Spring Training. Not including McKinney, Underwood is the fourth player with MLB experience the Yankees have signed to a minor league deal this offseason. He joins fellow pitchers Yerry De Los Santos, Anthony Misiewicz, and Dennis Santana.

Underwood, 29, allowed 14 runs in 24.1 innings with the Pirates this past season before getting hurt and then DFA’d. He spent the rest of the year in Triple-A. From 2021-22, Underwood had an okay-ish 4.36 ERA (3.68 FIP) with middling peripherals (21.1% strikeouts, 9.0% walks, 45.7% grounders) in 130 innings. His contact quality allowed has been average to a tick better.

I wrote about the Pirates prior to the 2022 trade deadline and noted Underwood fit the “The Next Clay Holmes” mold as a pitcher with a heavy sinker and possibly untapped upside. Underwood used his mid-90s sinker, low-90s cutter, and upper-80s changeup in equal parts the last few years. He also has a low-80s curveball and at one time had a slider. Here’s some video.

Matt Blake has a thing for turning talented but unheralded arms into reliable big league relievers, so we shouldn’t dismiss any non-roster signing. The next Ian Hamilton could be right around the corner. Blake and the Yankees have a thing for sinkers, particularly mid-to-upper 90s sinkers, and Underwood fits the profile. What’s the plan for the secondaries? We’ll find out in camp.

There’s nothing wrong with leaning into your strengths and the Yankees have had success with sinkers, but they should diversify the bullpen a little bit, no? There’s bound to be diminishing returns at some point if all your relievers throw sinkers. Maybe mix in a four-seam/curveball guy just to have a different look? Eh, what do I know. Building bullpens is the one thing the Yankees have done reliably well the last few years.

Yankees sign Mosqueda

And finally, the Yankees have signed left-hander Oddanier Mosqueda to a minor league contract, he announced on Instagram. Mosqueda has no big league time, but he spent this past season in Triple-A, so I assume he received an invite to Spring Training. The 24-year-old spent the last eight years with the Red Sox. He became a minor league free agent after the World Series.

In 2023, Mosqueda threw 61 relief innings with a 5.31 ERA (5.74 FIP) and a solid 26.2% strikeout rate, but underwhelming walk (13.8%) and ground ball (37.0%) rates. Triple-A Statcast data says he’s a low-90s fastball guy with a curveball right around 80 mph. FanGraphs called Mosqueda a “cross-bodied lefty who throws strikes with 40-grade stuff” in June. Here’s Sox Prospects:

Projects as organizational bullpen depth. Ceiling of an up-and-down reliever. Has improved year after year and shown bat-missing ability. Secondary pitches and command and control need refinement. Will show intriguing spin rates on fastball and slider. Comes from a very tough angle for left-handed hitters and has excelled against them so far in the high minors.

Statcast calls it a curveball, Sox Prospects calls it a slider. Mosqueda has a low arm slot and it can be easy to confuse sliders and curveballs from down there. Andrew Miller insisted this trademark slider, that devastating wipeout pitch, was a curveball. Whatever you want to call it, curveball or slider, Mosqueda has a nice little breaking ball with good spin.

For what it’s worth, Alex Cora said Mosqueda was an Opening Day bullpen candidate in Spring Training, though obviously that didn’t happen. The lefty reliever depth chart is better now than it was coming into the offseason, though it still isn’t great. The hierarchy is pretty clear, I’d say:

1. Victor González
2. Nick Ramirez
3. Anthony Misiewicz (non-roster)
4. Matt Krook
5. Oddanier Mosqueda (non-roster)

A veteran lefty to slot into the No. 1 spot and bump everyone else down a peg still figures to be on the offseason to-do list. We’ve heard the Yankees are interested in a Wandy Peralta reunion a few times this offseason. Maybe it’ll be him. No matter who that go-to lefty winds up being, we can add Mosqueda toward the bottom of the lefty reliever depth chart.

(Send your requests for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for when it returns.)