December 12th, 2023: Ohtani, González, Vivas, Yamamoto, Hot Stove Rumors, Minor League Deals, Roster Check-In

Do you know what happened 10 years ago today? 10 years ago today Robinson Canó officially signed with the Mariners (the agreement was reported a few days earlier). Usually when I share these “this date in Yankees history” nuggets, my reaction is wow, I can’t believe it’s been that long! I feel so old! In this case it’s more like wow, it’s only been 10 years? It feels like Canó left a lifetime ago. Robbie is the Yankees’ all-time leader among Dominican-born players with +44.4 WAR. By a lot too. Luis Severino is second at +11.9 WAR. Could Juan Soto one day surpass Canó? I hope we get a chance to find out. Let’s get to today’s post.

1. $700M for Shohei. Shohei Ohtani is ditching Disneyland for Hollywood. Saturday afternoon Ohtani announced he’s signing with the Dodgers, which isn’t surprising in and of itself. I think most people expected him to wind up there. The contract though: 10 years and $700M. $700M! It’s a staggering sum. Here are the richest contracts in sports history:

1. Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers: $700M
2. Lionel Messi, FC Barcelona: $674M
3. Cristiano Ronaldo, Al-Nassr: $536.3M
4. Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs: $450M
5. Karim Benzema, Al-Ittihad Club: $436.3M

Soccer pays, eh? Ohtani’s contract is larger than the Aaron Judge ($360M) and Gerrit Cole ($324M) contracts combined, and I guess that makes sense because Ohtani is a Judge caliber hitter and a Cole caliber pitcher put together. Okay, he’s a notch below Cole, but Ohtani’s legit great at hitting and pitching, and he occupies only one roster spot. He’s incredible.

Of course, Ohtani's $700M is not actually $700M. He insisted on significant deferrals to give the Dodgers as much flexibility to improve the team around him as possible. How significant? Ohtani will be paid only $2M a year over the next 10 years. The other $680M will be paid without interest (!) from 2034-43, after the oceans consume the Earth and the great water wars begin.

Mark Feinsand says the deferrals reduce the present day value of Ohtani's contract to $460M, which is a) not $700M, b) a lot of money, c) more or less in line with what Ohtani was expected to receive this offseason. Probably less, I thought he would get $500M, but it's still a lot. Ohtani's luxury tax hit will be $46M annually, the highest in the game. His actually salary is backup catcher money, which helps the Dodgers with their real world cash flow.

Ohtani makes something like $50M a year in endorsements (I'm sure that'll go up now that he's with the Dodgers), so he won't be hurting for cash. This deferrals show the lengths he's willing to go to win. He's a very unique player and this is a very unique contract, and it is completely legal within the Collective Bargaining Agreement. As long as the player is willing, extreme deferrals are fair game, and most players aren't this willing.

(I answered a mailbag question about deferrals last offseason. after Edwin Díaz signed his deferral-laden contract. I can understand not wanting to saddle yourself with bills down the road, but if the Yankees are going to insist on adhering to the various luxury tax thresholds, they should be open to reasonable deferrals to lower the luxury tax hits of large contracts.)

For a little while there Friday it appeared Ohtani was going to sign with the Blue Jays – internet sleuths were tracking a private plane from Anaheim to Toronto and there were conflicting reports about Ohtani’s decision – and I have to be honest, I was kinda hoping Ohtani would sign with the Blue Jays. I think that would’ve been really cool. Bad for the Yankees, but cool for baseball.

As for the Yankees, they were never seriously in on Ohtani. Brian Cashman confirmed he spoke to Nez Balelo, Ohtani’s agent, but only in a due diligence kinda way. “In Ohtani’s case, he’s a Major League free agent. I talked to his agent. I would concede that. I’ll leave it at no more than that,” Cashman told Brendan Kuty last week, before Ohtani’s announcement.

Balelo and Ohtani never reached out to the Mets – “The agent never reached out to me personally and I think that’s pretty telling,” Steve Cohen told Will Sammon (subs. req’d) – which is a pretty good indication he didn’t want to play in New York. That’s fine. It’s his right to pick where he wants to play. Ohtani to the Yankees never seemed all that realistic.

Ohtani signing with the Dodgers is relevant to the Yankees. First and foremost, Judge now has an easier path to more MVPs. That’s cool. Secondly, and more importantly, the Dodgers are still very much in on Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The Dodgers desperately need pitching and they didn't give Ohtani $700M (on paper) just to skimp out on everything else. The deferrals help big time here.

Tony Gonsolin had Tommy John surgery in September, so he’ll miss next season, and Dustin May had flexor tendon surgery in July. He’ll be out until the second half. Clayton Kershaw, even if he re-signs, will miss a big chunk of next season after having major shoulder surgery a few weeks ago. The Dodgers’ rotation depth chart currently looks like this:

1. RHP Walker Buehler (coming back from his second Tommy John surgery)
2. RHP Bobby Miller
3. RHP Ryan Pepiot
4. LHP Ryan Yarbrough
5. RHP Emmet Sheehan (career high 70 innings in 2023)
6. RHP Gavin Stone (32 runs in 31 innings in 2023)

With Ohtani at $46M, Cot’s estimates the Dodgers have $222.7M on the books next season for luxury tax purposes, including arbitration projections. This is a team that has come close to $300M multiple times in recent years. They absolutely can afford Yamamoto. They can afford Yamamoto and two more starters in addition to him, like Tyler Glasnow and Shōta Imanaga.

The Dodgers still have money to spend – a lot of money – and a clear need in the rotation, and now they can ask Ohtani to help with their pitch to Yamamoto. I wish $700M for Ohtani meant the Dodgers are out on Yamamoto, but that's not the case. They didn’t give Ohtani that contract, and he didn't agree to those deferrals, to cheap out elsewhere.

Yamamoto is the pressing matter now, and trying to sign him away from the Dodgers and Mets. The Mets seem desperate to do something and the Dodgers are better positioned to sign Yamamoto now than they were before Ohtani. I thought rumblings of $300M for Yamamoto meant contract plus posting fee. Now I’m pretty sure it’ll be $300M just for Yamamoto’s contract.

2. Yankees swap Sweeney for González and Vivas. Sunday afternoon multiple reporters said the Yankees and Dodgers had agreed to a 2-for-1 trade with unknown players … and then no one followed up the rest of the day. They kept us in suspense until Monday morning. The trade: SS Trey Sweeney for LHP Victor González and IF Jorbit Vivas. It's been announced and a done deal.

The short version is the Yankees traded something like their No. 10 prospect for a new No. 11 prospect and a lefty reliever. The Dodgers had a full 40-man roster and needed spots for Joe Kelly and Shohei Ohtani, so they traded two 40-man players for one non-40-man player. The Yankees still have three open 40-man spots, plus they can easily open a few others.

González, 28, fits the Yankees’ preferred bullpen profile as a mid-90s sinker guy with high ground ball rates and a history of suppressing hard contact. He has a 3.22 ERA (3.35 FIP) in 89.1 career big league innings spanning 2020-23 (González missed 2022 with a “clean up” procedure on his pitching elbow). Here are the underlying numbers:

• Strikeout rate: 23.2% (MLB average: 22.7%)
• Swinging strike rate: 12.7% (MLB average: 11.2%)
• Walk rate: 8.4% (MLB average: 8.6%)
• Ground ball rate: 58.1% (MLB average: 42.5%)
• Average exit velocity: 84.9 mph (MLB average: 89.1 mph)
• Hard-hit rate: 30.7% (MLB average: 39.2%)
• Barrel rate: 4.9% (MLB average: 8.1%)

Perhaps Matt Blake can coach up González, though the Dodgers know what they’re doing with pitchers, so González might already be as good as he’s going to get. Even if that is the case, that’s fine. González has been great against lefties (.256 wOBA) while more than holding his own against righties (.293 wOBA), and he gets grounders and weak contact. That’ll work.

(Fun fact: González retired all four batters he faced in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, including three via strikeout. He got the win in the championship clincher. Here’s video.)

As for his contract situation, González has three years of control (projected $1M in 2024) and one minor league option remaining. He can be shuttled up and down next season and the Yankees can keep him for a few years if things work out. Also, I wouldn’t assume González means no Wandy Peralta reunion. There’s room in the bullpen for both and González isn't pricey.

Vivas, 22, is just about a full year younger than Sweeney, and he outperformed him at the same level in 2023. Also, he has the potential for a top tier Sterling call (“Jorbit hits it into orbit!”). I might as well do a head-to-head comparison since I get the feeling Vivas and Sweeney will be compared to each other nonstop the next few years. Their 2023 Double-A numbers:

Yes, Vivas walked more than he struck out in Double-A this year. The Dodgers bumped him up to Triple-A in late August and it didn’t go well (.225/.339/.294 and 83 wRC+ in 26 games), and his small sample contact quality data wasn’t good (84.4 mph average exit velocity and 12.0% barrel rate). The Yankees are presumably planning to send Vivas back to Triple-A to begin 2024.

Baseball Prospectus (subs. req’d) released their Dodgers prospects list Monday morning, a few hours before the trade, and they had Vivas at No. 17. Their post-trade update has Sweeney at No. 14, so he and Vivas were in roughly the same range. Here’s what they wrote about Vivas (here’s video):

Vivas is an undersized, bat-first second baseman with precocious plate skills and below-average power. He has quite the novel uncoiling mechanism at the plate, resulting in a power band that mostly occurs in the left-center power alley on stung oppo line drives. Not monolithic, Vivas is still physically capable of wheeling around on the inside corner to elevate, and has started to flash that skill a bit more. If Vivas didn’t have such a decorated history of elite contact rates, I’d say his coiling, effortful swing might make him susceptible to the more explosive fastballs MLB offers. In this case, the statline accurately reflects Vivas’ level of bat-to-ball ability. He’s hardly posted any meaningful campaigns in which he struck out more than 12% of the time, and he pairs those contact skills with solid swing decisions. Vivas isn’t a particularly impressive lateral mover on the defensive side, although does have nice baserunning instincts. This type of player can frequently carve out a nice big-league career for himself—see: someone like Cesar Hernandez.

Given their recent track records of hitter development, particularly once a player gets to the big leagues, I think it’s fair to say the Dodgers are more likely to turn Sweeney into a productive player than the Yankees are to turn Vivas into a productive player. Hopefully new hitting coach James Rowson fixes that, but until it happens, I can’t give the Yankees the benefit of the doubt.

Also, a downside to Vivas is he’s already on the 40-man roster, and 2024 is his final option year. It’s big leagues or waivers come 2025. Sweeney does not have to go on the 40-man until next offseason, and won’t have to stick in the show for good until 2028. I assume the Yankees are hoping Vivas will be able to help replace free agent-to-be Gleyber Torres in a year.

Vivas is not yet a big leaguer, though he is the fourth left-handed hitter with a history of strong contact rates the Yankees have added in the last week. Vivas, Trent Grisham*, Juan Soto, and Alex Verdugo all take walks and don’t swing and miss excessively. That applies to Sweeney as well, though the Yankees got back a similar hitter in the trade. They stuck to the script.

* Grisham has a 28.2% strikeout rate the last two years despite a better than average 9.7% swinging strike rate because he takes so many damn pitches. He has taken the third most called strike threes in baseball the last two seasons. Trent, swing the bat my dude.

This can’t be a coincidence. The Yankees are trying to reshape their offense and it is needed. They have gotten too right-handed and too swing-and-miss-y the last few years. They have made attempts to fix that (Andrew Benintendi, Anthony Rizzo, etc.), though now it feels like they’re taking it to the extreme. As long as they don’t build a lineup of nine Benintendis, I’m for it.

This feels like a good trade for both teams. The Dodgers opened the two 40-man roster spots they needed and got something for the two players they deemed expendable. The Yankees got a needed lefty reliever and the cost of business was surrendering a prospect roughly equivalent to the prospect they got back. Reasonable deal. Both sides should be happy.

(Last week the Yankees traded Kyle Higashioka, their longest tenured player. This week they acquired another organization’s longest tenured player. González signed with the Dodgers as an international amateur free agent in June 2012. He was a Ned Colletti signing. He predated the current Andrew Friedman regime.)

3. Latest hot stove rumors. The Yankees took care of their outfield last week, and now they’ll get to work on the rest of the roster. Here are the latest hot stove rumblings.

The latest on Yamamoto

The Yankees flew out to Los Angeles to meet in-person with Yoshinobu Yamamoto at his representatives’ offices Monday. Alas and alack, we haven’t gotten any details about the meeting yet, and we might not anytime soon. Details about their meeting with Gerrit Cole a few years ago didn’t come to light until after Cole signed. This might be like that. Shrug.

Here are the latest Yamamoto developments via Anthony DiComo, Andy Martino, Buster Olney, and Jeff Passan (subs. req’d):

• Hal Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman, Aaron Boone, and Matt Blake attended the meeting. It’s possible others attended (AGM Jean Afterman has a long history of recruiting Japanese players, so maybe her too?), but those four were definitely there.
• Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka were not at the meeting. It was rumored they would attend but that’s wrong. Matsui was involved in the original Zoom meeting though. (Also, why would Tanaka attend? He’s an active player on another team!)
• The Giants had their meeting with Yamamoto on Sunday. Mets owner Steve Cohen and POBO David Stearns met with him in Japan two weeks ago. The Mets do not have another meeting with Yamamoto on the books right now.
• Yamamoto is expected to make his decision within the next 10-14 days. He has until Jan. 4th, but apparently won’t use up his full 45-day window.

Cashman told Brendan Kuty (subs. req’d) the Yankees had someone attend every single one of Yamamoto’s starts this season, and Cashman himself went to Japan to see Yamamoto strictly to show the Yankees are serious. Being at the no-hitter was dumb luck, but Cashman sitting in the front row was not. He wanted Yamamoto to know he was there.

“It was with the perspective that he might be posted and leaving no stone unturned,” Cashman told Kuty (subs. req’d) about his Japan trip. “And I wanted to go over there and pay respects and (make sure) he knew we were there. It was widely covered. I think a lot of teams went over there with their executives and I certainly wasn’t going to make the mistake of not being one of the executives to go over there too. I think all of it plays a part.”

For what it’s worth, Jack Curry says the Yankees “remain optimistic” about Yamamoto after Monday’s meeting. That’s good, because I feel worse about their odds of landing him now than I did four days ago, before the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani. The Dodgers still have a lot of money to spend and can use Ohtani to help make their pitch. After the Yankees got Juan Soto, I thought they were in great shape. They showed Yamamoto they want the best players and could sell him on playing with Cole, Soto, and Aaron Judge. Now? Ehhh.

Hopefully this is just me being a crazy person and I’m worrying over nothing, because the alternatives to Yamamoto are not great. Miss out on him and the Yankees will either have to give Jordan Montgomery a much larger contract than they ever thought they’d give him, or further deplete the farm system to rent someone like Shane Bieber or Corbin Burnes for a year. It’s not ideal. Hopefully Yamamoto says yes. We’ll find out soon enough.

“We’ll compete,” Cashman told Greg Joyce 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.”

Sasaki asks to be posted?

Chiba Lotte Marines phenom Roki Sasaki has abruptly asked to be posted, according to Yahoo Japan (via Dylan Hernandez). For what it’s worth, veteran Japanese baseball reporter Jim Allen says the Yahoo report is misinterpreting rumors from MLB people at the Winter Meetings. Allen hears Sasaki is expected to be posted next offseason.

Japanese players can be posted no later than Dec. 15th, so we’ll find out by Friday whether the Marines are indeed posting Sasaki. If they do post him, his 45-day window would extend into late January, and that’s notable because Sasaki would be subject to the international bonus pools given his age. The 2024 signing period opens (and the bonus pools reset) on Jan 15th.

Sasaki turned 22 last month, and although he’s very good (1.78 ERA and 39.1% strikeouts in 91 innings in 2023), the consensus is he’s not MLB ready. He has a 100 mph heater and a nasty splitter, and could certainly out-stuff big league hitters right now, but spending another year in Japan refining his mechanics, improving his breaking ball, and building up his workload seems like the best thing for Sasaki long-term. Here’s video.

Regardless of whether he comes over this offseason or next, Sasaki will leave a lot of money on the table. He’ll be subject to the international spending rules, which means a seven-figure bonus and then the usual six years of team control. Wait until 2027 when he’s 25, and he’ll be a true free agent, and can sign a contract of any size like Yamamoto this offseason.

Coming over early would not be unprecedented though. Ohtani came over when he was only 23. He received a $2.3M bonus and a minor league contract because that’s all the system allowed him to get. Sasaki’s free agency would become about selling him on the team and organization. You can’t just keep adding millions to your offer to win the bidding. (The posting fee for a minor league contract is 25% of the signing bonus.)

In the event Sasaki is posted, of course the Yankees should pursue him. Even if they don’t think he’s ready to step right into the rotation, his upside is enormous, so sign him and let him finish off whatever development in Triple-A, and call him up whenever he’s ready. The money is so trivial that Sasaki wouldn’t stand in the way of anything else, including Yamamoto this offseason or re-signing Soto next offseason.

Yankees interested in Hicks, Stephenson

The Yankees have interest in righty relievers Jordan (not Aaron) Hicks and Robert Stephenson, according to Kuty, Chris Kirschner (subs. req’d), and Jon Morosi. Mark Feinsand says the priority is Yamamoto, but if the Yankees don’t sign him, they could pivot and invest heavily in the bullpen, and try to shorten games from the back end.

Hicks, who turned only 27 in September, was traded from the Cardinals to the Blue Jays at the deadline, and the Yankees reportedly had interest in him at the time (my nugget on that wound up in the Content Graveyard). Hicks throws a 100 mph sinker and has a history of high ground ball rates and solid strikeout rates. He is right up the Yankees’ alley (GIF via Rob Friedman).

Between the Cardinals and Blue Jays, Hicks threw 65.2 innings with a 3.29 ERA (3.22 FIP) and very good strikeout (28.4%) and ground ball (58.3%) rates. He also had an 11.2% walk rate that was his second lowest in a big league season. The Cardinals and Blue Jays are generally pretty good with pitchers, though maybe there’s something Matt Blake can unlock there.

As for Stephenson, the soon-to-be 31-year-old has bounced around the last few years. He wound up with the Rays this past June and immediately became one of the best relievers in the game. Tampa will do that. Stephenson had a 2.35 ERA (2.45 FIP) with a 42.9% strikeout rate and 5.7% walk rate – that’s 60 strikeouts and eight walks – in 38.1 innings with the Rays.

Stephenson is a former first rounder (No. 27 in 2011) and he’s always had very high spin rates. It wasn’t until he got to the Rays that he learned how to use them. They replaced his mid-80s slider with an upper-80s cutter, and he threw it about 75% of the time. A mid-90s four-seamer and upper-80s split-change are his secondary pitches. Here’s some video.

Tampa’s thing is getting their guys to throw the hardest, spinniest, nastiest pitches they can for as long as they can, and they churn through these guys nonstop. That approach usually leads to great short-term results and Tommy John surgery within a year or two. The Rays can’t keep pitchers healthy. They’ve acknowledged it several times over the years.

For a guy like Stephenson though, why wouldn’t you buy into Tampa’s approach? He’s 30, the Rays were his fourth team in three years, and he had basically zero big league success. If your arm blows out, your arm blows out, but it might be your best (last?) chance to stay in the league, have success, and get yourself a nice contract. There’s a reason so many Rays pitchers are 30-something-year-old randos. They’re the ones desperate enough to buy in and risk their health.

The going rate for a top non-closer – I’d put Hicks and Stephenson in that bucket – is in the $10M a year range. That’s what Reynaldo López got this offseason and what guys like Rafael Montero, Taylor Rogers, and David Robertson got last offseason. I can see Hicks and Stephenson each getting three years, maybe even four. That is mostly in line with the contract projections:

• Hicks: 4 years, $40M (MLBTR) and 3 years, $37M (FanGraphs)
• Stephenson: 4 years, $36M (MLBTR) and 2 years, $10M (?!?) (FanGraphs)

The market for both pitchers is robust, so four years seems like a good bet to me. The Yankees shed Zack Britton’s and Aroldis Chapman’s big contracts after last season and their highest paid reliever this year was Tommy Kahnle at $5.75M. They’re very good at unearthing quality relievers and building bullpens in general, so maybe sinking $10M or so into a setup man isn’t smart.

That said, one of the advantages of being the Yankees is being able to splurge on the margins of the roster. Is spending a projected $4.9M on Trent Grisham to be the fourth outfielder an efficient use of payroll? No, not really, but it’s a tiny sum to the Yankees. If you can afford it – and the Yankees can – why close the door on $10M a year bullpen guys? If something makes sense, pursue it.

Also, signing Hicks and/or Stephenson would help the 2025 bullpen. Kahnle, Clay Holmes, and Jonathan Loáisiga will all be free agents after 2024. Maybe the Yankees should give that $10M a year to Holmes rather than Hicks or Stephenson, but when Holmes becomes a free agent, he’ll be a year older than Stephenson is now, and four years older than Hicks is now.

There’s also a chance Holmes gets a qualifying offer and nets the Yankees a draft pick. Maybe not a big chance, but a chance. Sign Hicks or Stephenson now, pair them with Holmes in 2024, then qualify Holmes and take the pick, and build the 2025 bullpen around Hicks/Stephenson. That seem plausible? These are relievers though. So much can change in a year. We’ll see.

For now, the Yankees have interest in Hicks and Stephenson (would they sign both?), though the priority is Yamamoto. I imagine giving Yamamoto a boatload of money will affect how much the Yankees are willing to spend on their bullpen. Even with the Rays-related injury risk, I prefer Stephenson to Hicks because I prefer bat-missers, though Hicks is a good option too.

Medicals held up Soto trade

A medical issue with one of the players the Yankees sent to the Padres in the Soto trade held up the deal for a few hours Wednesday night, reports Martino. It couldn’t have been anything too serious seeing how the trade ultimately went through without being reworked, though apparently the Yankees were nervous for a little bit.

I’m not gonna lie, when Bryan Hoch first reported a medical concern on San Diego’s side popped up Wednesday night, I got Cliff Lee flashbacks. The Lee trade fell apart after the two teams agreed to the deal because the Mariners saw something scary in David Adams’ medicals. The Soto trade falling apart like the Lee trade fell apart would have been a bad, bad time.

(I know there’s still some belief within the organization that Seattle used Adams’ medicals as an excuse to back out of the trade once Texas put Justin Smoak on the table. Who really knows.)

The Padres and Yankees both seemed very motivated to get the trade done, so my guess is the two sides would’ve reworked the deal rather than blown it up entirely had the medical issue been a major concern. Swap the injured player out with someone else, add a sixth player, whatever. You never really know with these things. Unexpected hang ups are always unwelcome.

I have no idea what the medical issue was. It could’ve been anything. The Yankees sent four pitchers to San Diego and you can find something scary in any pitcher’s medical file. Also, Kyle Higashioka is a 33-year-old catcher who’s had Tommy John surgery. His hands, knees, and legs have taken a beating over the years. Well, whatever. No reason to worry about it now.

Cole likely to use opt out next year

From the no duh department: Boras indicated Cole is likely to use the opt out clause in his contract next offseason. ''We would anticipate that those things are going to happen. It's not been anything of length we've talked about,” Boras told Pete Caldera at the Winter Meetings. Next season will somehow already be Cole’s fifth with the Yankees. Time flies, eh?

Don’t sweat the opt out. The Yankees can void it by picking up a one-year club option worth $36M. Basically, Cole will use his opt out and the Yankees will tack the tenth year onto his contract to keep him. CC Sabathia and Aroldis Chapman leveraged opt outs into one-year extensions. Same deal here, only the Yankees negotiated the extension terms ahead of time.

Squint your eyes and there’s a scenario in which things go horribly next season, so much so that the Yankees decide to take a step back and rebuild, in which case they let Cole opt out to get the money off the books. The odds that happens are very small, but they’re not zero. Anyway, no real surprise. Cole had the opt out put in his contract for a reason, and that’s to get more money.

4. Latest roster moves. In addition to the Victor González/Jorbit Vivas trade, the Yankees also made a few minor league contract signings since we last spoke. Let’s round ‘em up now. (The Yankees signed RHP Yerry De Los Santos to a minor league deal a few weeks back.)

RHP Dennis Santana

The replenishing of pitching depth has begun. Or, really, it started even before the Yankees made their trades. The Yankees have signed Santana to a minor league contract with an invitation to Spring Training, reports Jessica Kleinschmidt. The signing apparently went down early last week, before the Alex Verdugo and Juan Soto trades (and Rule 5 Draft).

Santana, 28 in April, got into nine games with the Mets this past season and has a career 5.17 ERA (4.26 FIP) in 149.2 innings with the Dodgers, Rangers, and Mets. The underlying numbers are unimpressive (21.2% strikeouts, 12.0% walks, 11.5% swinging strikeouts, 44.9% grounders), though that always seems to be the case with minor league signings, right? Right.

Like seemingly every pitcher the Yankees bring in these days, Santana throws a mid-90s sinker. He also has a mid-80s slider and a sneaky nice upper-80s changeup I could see the Yankees wanting him to throw more often. If the Dodgers haven’t tried it already, the Yankees might try to give Santana a sweeper. It pairs well with sinkers. Here’s some video.

Santana is out of options, so if he winds up in the bullpen at some point, there is no shuttling him up and down. Really not much more to say about him at this point. Perhaps Matt Blake and the pitching people can work their magic and turn Santana into the next Ian Hamilton, maybe he’s just a depth arm who spends the year in Scranton. We’ll find out in a few months.

OF Billy McKinney

Welcome back, Billy Bombs. Jack Curry says the Yankees have re-signed McKinney to a minor league contract that I’m sure includes an invite to Spring Training. The Yankees called McKinney up in June, after Greg Allen hurt his hip, and he slashed .227/.320/.406 (101 wRC+) with six homers in 146 games. He was one of the better RailRiders reinforcements.

Now 29, McKinney is what he is, and that’s a Quad-A type who can put up numbers in Triple-A and give a somewhat respectable at-bat in the big leagues. Including the Oscar Gonzalez waiver claim, the outfield depth chart has added quite a few new names the last two weeks:

1. Aaron Judge
2. Juan Soto
3. Alex Verdugo
4. Trent Grisham
5. Oscar Gonzalez
6. Billy McKinney
7. Everson Pereira
7.5 Oswaldo Cabrera?
8. Estevan Florial

Unless the Yankees get hammered with injuries in Spring Training, the out of options Florial is a goner. He and Grisham are redundant as lefty hitting defense-first center fielders. The Yankees had a similar issue with Brett Gardner and Mike Tauchman in 2021. They had two players for the same role, so Tauchman was traded for Wandy Peralta four weeks into the season.

Grisham, Judge, Soto, and Verdugo will be the four MLB outfielders. The Triple-A outfield figures to be Gonzalez, McKinney, and Pereira. Depending on the big league bench, Cabrera could be in that mix too, ditto Brandon Lockridge and Elijah Dunham. The outfield depth chart looks a whole lot better than it did even a week ago. That resolved itself quickly.

LHP Anthony Misiewicz

Misiewicz is also back on a minor league deal, according to Curry. The Yankees non-tendered him last month and that got him off the 40-man roster without exposing him to waivers. Misiewicz has been claimed on waivers or traded for cash five times in the last 16 months. Some team might’ve grabbed him had the Yankees put him on waivers. Instead, he’s back as a non-roster guy.

Misiewicz, 29, got into three games with the Yankees this year and allowed three runs in 2.1 innings. His season ended when he took that line drive to the head in Pittsburgh. The Yankees re-signed him, so Misiewicz’s head must be good now. He throws a lot of bendy pitches like Lucas Luetge, and he has a minor league option remaining, so expect to see Misiewicz on the Scranton shuttle this summer. He may not be on the 40-man now, but I bet he finds his way there at some point in 2024.

5. Roster check-in. The Yankees overhauled their outfield last week and they still have a lot of work to do in the two months between now and Spring Training. With that in mind, I figured now would be a good time to take a step back and look at the roster, because seeing it laid out in one place can sometimes help you see things you didn’t notice before.

Here’s the roster as of Dec. 12th. An asterisk means the player is out of options and must pass through waivers to go to Triple-A.

Reminder: I think Gómez and Rortvedt have a fourth option, but I don’t know that for sure. More fourth option news has trickled out in recent days (Alex Faedo, Forrest Whitley, etc.), so teams know who has a fourth option, but we don’t. Gómez and Rortvedt being out of options would change the roster outlook a bit, though not in a big way. Now a few thoughts.

Okay, yeah, the Yankees need pitching

Obvious statement is obvious. I knew the Yankees thinned out their pitching depth in the Verdugo and Soto trades (and Rule 5 Draft), but I didn’t realize they are down to only 16 pitchers on the 40-man roster. That’s just three more than the MLB roster 13-pitcher limit. Several of those 16 pitchers are coming back from injuries too (Cortes, Effross, Gil, etc.).

The Yankees do have several non-40-man roster pitchers who could work their way into the big league mix next year, most notably Will Warren. He’s MLB-ready or very close to it. Minor league contract guys like De Los Santos and Santana are interesting in their own way (particularly De Los Santos), though they are a little too high up on the depth chart for my liking.

The Yankees have three open 40-man spots and can be aggressive on waivers, and signing non-tendered pitchers with options. Dakota Hudson stands out. He’s nothing special, but he is a viable depth starter with a history of high ground ball rates, and he has an option remaining. The Yankees can offer him a 40-man spot at a time when other teams may only put a minor league deal on that table. Hudson seems like a worthwhile depth pickup.

(My CBS colleague Dayn Perry is a Cardinals fan and he tells me Hudson is “not terrible, he's terrible to watch but not terrible.” So there you go. Go read Dayn’s Cardinals Substack.)

Dodgers bloggers (always trust the bloggers!) indicate lefty reliever Bryan Hudson is most likely to lose his 40-man spot whenever the Dodgers need one next. Hudson had a rough big league debut this summer (seven runs in 8.2 innings), but he’s optionable and he ran a 32.3% strikeout rate in Triple-A the last two years. Jumping the waiver line with a player to be named later or cash trade to get Hudson wouldn’t be a bad idea when the time comes.

Point is, laying out the roster and seeing that guys like Beeter and Marinaccio and Ramirez are currently in line for 26-man roster spots reinforces just how badly the Yankees need pitching. Rotation and bullpen. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the prize and priority. The Yankees will need even more pitchers beyond him. It takes a lot of arms to get through the 162-game season.

I would really like a third baseman

Assuming the Yankees will not bench Stanton right out of the gate, third base is the last position player spot the Yankees can realistically upgrade this offseason, and I’d like them to do that. Soto is excellent and Verdugo is better than the guys the Yankees ran out there in left field this season, but we are talking about one of the worst offenses in the sport …

• 673 runs (25th in MLB)
• .227 AVG (29th)
• .304 OBP (27th)
• .397 SLG (22nd)
• 94 wRC+ (20th)

… and adding another bat would be welcome. Jeimer Candelario* signed with the Reds and I’m not keen on Matt Chapman, a high-strikeout righty hitter. Justin Turner just turned 39 and doesn’t play much third base anymore. I guess that leaves the trade market. I already wrote about Jorge Polanco. Yoán Moncada? Ryan McMahon? Brandon Drury? Who else?

Bringing in a new third baseman and shifting LeMahieu back into the “tenth man” role would be ideal, though I’m not sure it’s possible this offseason given who’s available. LeMahieu was very good in the second half this year (.273/.374/.432 and 128 wRC+) and hopefully it continues (and/or Peraza has a breakout season), and this third base discussion is moot.

* Apparently the Yankees had interest in Candelario before he signed with Cincinnati? Huh. Maybe there is hope for a third base upgrade.

The guys already here need to be better

I mentioned this in the Offseason Plan. The Yankees can improve the team only so much this offseason, realistically. Soto’s great and Verdugo’s an upgrade in left field. In addition to them, the Yankees need as many of these things to happen as possible (in no particular order):

• Judge to avoid crashing into a wall and missing two months.
• Rizzo returning from his concussion with no lingering effects.
• Stanton reversing what is now a two-year downward trend.
• Volpe taking a step forward offensively in Year 2.
• Rodón staying healthy and not pitching to a 6.85 ERA when he is healthy.
• Cortes staying healthy and returning to his 2022 form, or close to it.

You can do this with every team, right? Every team needs their pitchers to stay healthy and their young position players to take a step forward. The Yankees are not unique in this regard, but they still need it to happen. They went 82-80 this past season and their run differential (-25) says they were a few wins worse on talent. They’re not two new outfielders away, you know?

If Judge gets hurt again and Rizzo and Rodón don’t bounce back, then the jig is up. Not sure the Yankees can overcome that, with or without Soto (or Yamamoto). For a team with World Series aspirations, the Yankees are pretty high variance. Their range of possible outcomes in 2024 is anywhere from like 82 wins to 100 wins right now.

(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.)