Poll: Plan B behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto

At some point soon, likely within the next 7-10 days, Orix Buffaloes ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto will pick an MLB team and sign a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Yankees met in-person with Yamamoto on Monday and he’ll spend the rest of the week meeting with other interested teams, including the Blue Jays, Dodgers, and Red Sox. Probably others too.

“We’ll compete,” Brian Cashman told Greg Joyce about the Yamamoto pursuit last week. “But I don’t know what the other teams – unless the agent shares the offers – we’re not going to know what other teams are throwing. So we just gotta put our best foot forward and do what we think we are willing to do. Hopefully we’re gonna hit the right spot for him.”

Here’s my Scouting the Market post on Yamamoto. Hal Steinbrenner is reportedly prepared to stretch payroll to sign the 25-year-old righty, who has a chance to pitch at or near the front of a rotation. All indications are the Yankees are putting on the full court press. If they fail to sign Yamamoto, it doesn’t seem like it will be because of a lack of effort. The Yankees are all-in.

That said, it’s very possible the Yankees won’t sign Yamamoto. Yamamoto gets to pick his team and maybe he prefers the West Coast, or maybe Steve Cohen refuses to be outbid, or maybe Yamamoto loves lobster rolls and goes to Boston. Who knows why people do things? All the Yankees can do is put their best foot forward, offer a ton of money, and hope he says yes.

If the Yankees are unable to sign Yamamoto, it would be a major blow, but the offseason goes on and the Yankees will have to address their pitching staff in other ways. Both the rotation and bullpen, but especially the rotation. At present, the rotation depth chart looks like this:

1. RHP Gerrit Cole (amazing)
2. LHP Carlos Rodón (injured and ineffective in 2023)
3. LHP Nestor Cortes (injured and ineffective in 2023)
4. RHP Clarke Schmidt (set a new career high by 66 innings in 2023)
5. RHP Luis Gil (coming back from Tommy John surgery)
6. RHP Clayton Beeter (4.94 ERA and 5.76 FIP in Triple-A in 2023)
7. RHP Will Warren (not on 40-man roster)

The Yankees traded Mike King, a projected rotation member, to get Juan Soto, as well as Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez, who figured to be their No. 6 and 7 starters next year, at least initially. Also, Domingo Germán was cut loose. I’d argue Yamamoto is a necessity more than a luxury looking at that rotation. Heck, the Yankees could use another starter in addition to Yamamoto.

Fortunately, the starting pitching market hasn’t moved that much yet this offseason. Sonny Gray, Aaron Nola, and Eduardo Rodriguez have signed, and reuniting with Gray was unlikely anyway. Second and third tier starters like Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, Kenta Maeda, Nick Martinez, and Luis Severino have come off the board, though missing out on them isn’t the end of the world.

While we wait for Yamamoto to make a decision, I figured it was worth looking at the potential Plan Bs in the event he signs with the Not Yankees. I started piecing this together, and then about halfway through realized it best worked as a poll. Let’s dig into the available options and then get to the poll itself. Here are possible Plan Bs in no particular order.

Sign Blake Snell

The reigning NL Cy Young winner is a free agent and there have been basically no rumors about him this offseason. Look at his MLBTR archive. Nothing of substance. That’s weird, right? Some team will sign Snell eventually, I’m sure of it, but I guess everyone wants to see what happens with Yamamoto first. Can’t say I blame them.

Snell turned 31 last week and he was terrific in 2023 (2.25 ERA and 3.44 FIP in 180 innings) with a historic finish (19 runs allowed in his final 23 starts). His strikeout (31.5%) and swinging strike (15.3%) rates were top of the line for a starting pitcher. Snell also led baseball with 99 walks, and an 86.7% strand rate is one of those things that is hard to repeat. The MLB average is 71.9% and Snell’s career strand rate entering the season was 76.2%.

When he’s on, Snell is as good as anyone in the game. It’s a mid-90s fastball, two swing and miss breaking balls, and a sneaky good changeup. He’s generally a five-and-fly pitcher though because he runs high pitch counts, and he’s a tough watch. As good as he is, Snell’s starts can be a real drag. Lots of nibbling, deep counts, long innings, etc. Here are the contract projections:

• The Athletic (subs. req’d): 5 years and $135M
• ESPN (subs. req’d): 6 years and $150M
• FanGraphs: 5 years and $125M
• MLBTR: 7 years and $200M

Five years and $125M feels too light, seven years and $200M too much. Snell now is a year older than Rodón was last offseason, though his injury history (particularly his arm injury history) is much cleaner, so Rodón’s contract seems like a reasonable benchmark for Snell. Six years and $162M. For our purposes, let’s assume it’ll take something in that range to get Snell.

Sign Jordan Montgomery

Last month it was reported the Yankees have interest in Montgomery, and I took that to mean as a Plan B to Yamamoto, not in addition to or instead of Yamamoto. Montgomery turns 31 in two weeks and he just had the best season of his career, throwing a career high 188.2 innings with a 3.20 ERA (3.56 FIP). Add in the postseason and he finished the year at 219.2 innings.

Montgomery is essentially the opposite of Snell. He’s not a strikeout pitcher (21.4% strikeouts and 11.4% swinging strikes), but he doesn’t walk guys either (6.2%). Montgomery gets his outs by managing contact. Also, he’s much more pitch efficient. The MLB average was 3.89 pitches per plate appearance in 2023. Among the 100 pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title:

1. Blake Snell: 4.25
2. MacKenzie Gore: 4.21
3. Cristian Javier: 4.20
…
81. Jordan Montgomery: 3.75

For better or worse, the Yankees rarely let Montgomery go through the lineup a third time, so we often saw him pulled after six innings and 75-80 pitches. That changed with the Cardinals and Rangers. Montgomery has thrown 95+ pitches 37 times in his career: 20 times in 97 starts with the Yankees and 17 times in 43 starts with the Not Yankees.

Montgomery isn’t too different as a pitcher now than he was with the Yankees. His brief stint as a four-seam fastball guy with the Cardinals in 2022 didn’t last. It’s still mostly sinkers, curveballs, and changeups, with a few four-seamers and cutters per start. Watching him this season, the biggest difference for Montgomery is execution. He’s really learned how to limit mistakes and avoid letting innings snowball. Here are the contract projections:

• The Athletic (subs. req’d): 5 years and $105M
• ESPN (subs. req’d): 5 years and $106M
• FanGraphs: 5 years and $105M
• MLBTR: 6 years and $150M

Unless he gets a crazy high annual salary, I bet Montgomery gets six years. I’m not sure he can match Rodón’s guarantee because he is a year older now than Rodón was last offseason, plus Rodón’s demonstrated upside was much greater. There’s also heightened age-related risk here because Montgomery already works with an average fastball. His margin of error is smaller.

Sign Shōta Imanaga

Imanaga is the other Japanese starter coming to MLB this offseason and all indications are this is not a Daisuke Matsuzaka/Kei Igawa situation, where one guy is considered a stud and there are questions about the other's viability as a starter. Imanaga is not Yamamoto, but he’s a good pitcher himself, and the consensus seems to be he’s a No. 3-4 starter in MLB.

This past season the 30-year-old Imanaga threw 159 innings with a 2.66 ERA (3.05 FIP) and a 29.5% strikeout rate that exceeded Yamamoto’s (26.7%) and far exceeded the NPB average (19.2%). Here is Baseball America’s scouting report (subs. req’d) from earlier this month:

Imanaga is a crafty lefthander with a good feel for pitching. His fastball sits 89-93 mph with solid riding life as a starter and touches 94-95 in short bursts. His main secondary pitch is an above-average, 82-85 mph splitter with late cut that induces ground balls. Imanaga’s success in MLB will hinge largely on the development of his slider. It’s currently a fringy offering at 80-83 mph that stays on one plane and gets barreled in the strike zone. He’s flashed the ability to throw it firmer and get chase swings, but it needs improvement to become an average pitch. He also has a below-average, 71-74 mph curveball he’ll throw as a change-of-pace offering. Imanaga mostly throws to his glove-side and can get one-sided in his repertoire, but he mixes and matches well to keep opponents off-balance. He has above-average control and keeps everything around the plate … Imanaga’s feel for pitching gives him a chance to be a No. 4 or 5 starter. He may fit best as a swingman or bulk reliever on a contending team.

The contract projections put Imanaga in the 4-5 years at $17M a year range. That’s about what Jameson Taillon and Taijuan Walker received last offseason. The Yankees don’t do multi-year contracts for non-elite free agent starters, but this poll is not asking what the Yankees will do. It’s what you think the Yankees should do. Let’s call it 4-5 years at $17M a year for our polling purposes.

Trade for Shane Bieber or Corbin Burnes (a rental)

Tyler Glasnow is also in this mix, though I’m going to assume a Yankees-Rays trade isn’t gonna happen. (I would’ve said that about a Yankees-Red Sox trade two weeks ago, then Alex Verdugo happened, so who knows.) This section is intended to cover the pitcher version of Soto, meaning a stud who is only a year away from free agency. One year of a high-end starter.

Bieber would presumably cost less than Burnes because he’s coming off a down year in which he missed a bunch of time with an elbow injury. Of course, Bieber’s down season included a 3.80 ERA (3.87 FIP) in 128 innings, which is still pretty good. As I wrote in last week’s mailbag though, there were red flags aplenty in his velocity, whiff rates, etc.

Burnes threw 193.2 innings with a 3.39 ERA (3.81 FIP) this past season and hasn’t had any injury issues the last few years. He’s a better bet than Bieber to give you 30 starts in 2023. Like Bieber though, Burnes has some red flags. These numbers are trending the wrong way:

You know you’re pretty good when your “trending the wrong way” stats are a 25.5% strikeout rate and a 12.2% swinging strike rate in the most recent season. Burnes is a little more home run prone and a little less bat-missy than he was even a year ago, but he’s still very good, and would be a more than worthy No. 2 behind Cole. I’d put Bieber in a similar bucket, albeit with more risk.

It’s been a while since the last rental ace trade, so we don’t really have a good benchmark for a Bieber or Burnes swap. For a guy like this, I think you have to assume it'll take a top prospect, a second very good prospect, and then one or two lottery tickets. Something like, say, Spencer Jones and Oswald Peraza, or Everson Pereira and Chase Hampton, plus secondary stuff.

The pitcher and the trade package obviously matter, but I’m more interested in the concept here than the exact pieces. The Yankees miss out on Yamamoto and this option is turning around and trading from the farm system to get one year – and only one year – of a top end starter. Maybe it’s Bieber, maybe it’s Burnes, maybe it’s Glasnow. A move along those lines.

Trade for Dylan Cease (a controllable starter)

Looking through depth charts, I’m not even sure who fits as an alternative to Cease in this “trade for a controllable starter” section. Maybe Jesús Luzardo? The Mariners have a few young pitchers that could be of interest (Bryce Miller, Bryan Woo, etc.), though in this section I want to look specifically at established big leaguers who have shown they can be an impact pitcher.

Cease, who I wrote about two weeks ago, is an obvious target. The White Sox are very bad and selling, and his name is all over the trade rumor mill. He comes with two years of control rather than one like Bieber and Burnes, which means the asking price will be higher. The Luis Castillo trade works as a good benchmark, I think. Seattle traded for 1.5 years of Castillo, though the key is they got him for two postseasons. Trade for Cease and you get him for two postseasons.

Castillo fetched a top 30 prospect (Noelvi Marte), a top 75 prospect (Edwin Arroyo), a team top 10 prospect (Levi Stoudt), and a team top 30 prospect (Andrew Moore). Unless you include Jasson Domínguez, the Yankees do not have a good Marte equivalent. Then again, who’s to say that’s what the White Sox would even want? The Aaron Bummer trade was quantity over quality.

There’s an argument to be made for taking on Yoán Moncada and the $29M owed to him in 2024 to lower the prospect cost for Cease, but let’s assume that isn’t happening here. This option is a massive prospect package – call it Jones, Hampton, Pereira, and Will Warren – for two years of Cease or a similar pitcher (I guess Luzardo?). Putting a huge dent in the farm system for multiple years of a starter with a chance to pitch near the top of the rotation.

Spread the money around

Rather than spend significantly on Montgomery or Snell (or even Imanaga), or trade even more prospects for someone like Burnes or Cease, the Yankees could take a more low-key approach to free agency and sign 2-3 lesser starters to short-term contracts. Such a strategy would raise the team's floor, though not necessarily raise their ceiling.

It seems more and more likely Yamamoto will command a $300M contract, plus the posting fee on top of that. I assume the $300M will come across 10 years. Maybe it’s nine years, but I would guess 10, so we’re talking $30M a year. Here are the MLBTR contract projections for select second and third tier free agent starters:

• RHP Lucas Giolito: 2 years, $44M
• RHP Marcus Stroman: 2 years, $44M
• RHP Mike Clevinger: 2 years, $26M
• RHP Michael Lorenzen: 2 years, $22M
• LHP Sean Manaea: 2 years, $22M
• RHP Frankie Montas: 1 year, $15M

Is there a combination of two pitchers totaling $30M or so per year that appeals to you? Maybe Giolito and Lorenzen ($33M per year)? Stroman and Manaea ($33M per year)? Clevinger and Montas ($28M per year)? That’s the idea. Instead of spending $30M annually on Yamamoto, sign two lesser pitchers for about $30M combined, and fill multiple rotation spots.

This is a nice strategy in theory but it is difficult to pull off in the real world. With the exception of Montas, all of these guys are looking for multiple years, and should get it. We’re talking about signing two pitchers for $30M or so total to be a band-aid in 2024, but in reality you’re going to have to offer 2025 and maybe even 2026 roster spots to be competitive for these players.

Sticking to one-year contracts and one-year contracts only with this approach probably means you’re looking at guys like Martín Pérez and Alex Wood, who lost their rotation spots in 2023, or Carlos Carrasco and Hyun-Jin Ryu, who are approaching (or at) the end of the line. There is no Hiroki Kuroda type available this offseason, that quality veteran on a one-year deal.

Stay in-house

Doing nothing is always an option. It’s not always a good option, but it is an option. Rather than saddle yourself with a potentially regrettable long-term contract (Montgomery, Snell, etc.) or continue emptying the farm system in trades (Burnes, Cease, etc.) or going with half-measures (Lorenzen, Montas, etc.), the Yankees could just give the kids a chance in 2024.

In this case “the kids” refers to Beeter and Warren, first and foremost, plus Gil once it’s clear he is ready to return to the big leagues post-elbow reconstruction. Hampton and Yoendrys Gómez are more likely to be second half rotation options than guys the Yankees count on right out of the gate. Prospects can surprise you. Remember Severino in 2016? Remember Severino in 2017? It was night and day. Give the kids a chance and they can reward you.

The Yankees traded a lot of pitching for Soto and Verdugo, though they still have several young pitchers knocking on the door and eager to contribute in 2024. Ideally they would all be backup plans rather than Plan A on Opening Day, but sometimes the market tells you to stay in-house and trust the players you already have in the organization. It’s always an option and sometimes even the best option, even though it can be pretty scary.

* * *

I think that covers everything, yeah? Spend big on a free agent, spend smaller on free agents, trade prospects, go with the kids … not sure what other options exist. I am hopeful we never have to think further about Plan Bs – I posted this Wednesday because I don’t want to put it in the Content Graveyard if Yamamoto quickly says yes to the Yankees – but the Yankees must consider such scenarios, so we might as well consider them too.

Alright, so with all that said, what approach do you want the Yankees to take if Yamamoto signs elsewhere?