December 9th, 2022: Judge, Rodon, Taillon, Red Sox, Rule 5 Draft, Mailbag

By projected 2023 WAR, 13 of the top 30 free agents remain unsigned, and the trade market has been weirdly quiet this offseason. The most notable trades involved Teoscar Hernandez, Hunter Renfroe, Gio Urshela, and Jesse Winker/Kolten Wong. That’s about it. Still waiting on that Sean Murphy deal or a blockbuster involving a Marlins starter. Anyway, let’s get to today’s post.

1. Wrapping up the Winter Meetings. “The Yankees signed Aaron Judge and Tommy Kahnle for a combined $371.5M” is the new “Aaron Judge and Isiah Kiner-Falefa combined for 66 home runs.” The Winter Meetings are over and the Yankees did what they had to do this week, namely re-sign their franchise player. Now it’s on to other matters. Let’s recap the last little bit of Winter Meetings news.

More on Judge returning

In the two days since Judge agreed to return to the Yankees, details on how it all came together have come to light. Here’s what I’ve gathered from reading and listening to various reports:

• Judge wasn’t planning to attend the Winter Meetings. He was traveling from Tampa to Hawaii and decided to make a stop in San Diego to meet with the Padres. They never made a formal offer but indicated they’d meet his asking price (the Xander Bogaerts signing shows they were serious).
• Aaron Boone called Judge sometime Tuesday night to reiterate how much he means to the Yankees and how much they wanted him back. Real talk: Boone must have a great relationship with Judge to be comfortable doing that at a critical point in negotiations.
• The Yankees were at eight years and the Giants offered nine years and $360M. Judge and Hal Steinbrenner, who is in Italy, spoke on the phone and Judge told Hal he wants to be a Yankee, but needed the ninth year. Hal said okay, and that was that.
• Apparently Judge told a few close friends and teammates he was coming back late Tuesday night, then the rest of the world found out Wednesday morning.

Brian Cashman called Hal the Mariano Rivera of the Judge negotiations because he closed them out. I gotta say though, Judge signing with the Giants or Padres while Hal was vacationing in Italy would have turned me into the Joker. I know like 99% of business gets done over the phone and on Zoom these days but come on man. The optics, they would have been bad.

The bet Judge made on himself is an all-timer. He turned down a $213.5M extension in April, had maybe the greatest contract year in sports history, and earned himself an additional $146.5M. He managed to do it in such a way that he came off as sincere when he said he wanted to remain a Yankee, yet he also made the Yankees believe he’d go elsewhere. A free agency masterclass.

Dan Szymborski ran Judge through ZiPS and the projection over the next nine seasons is about as good as you could reasonably hope. Look at this:

That’s roughly +35 WAR during the nine-year deal and I would be thrilled if Judge is close to a +3 WAR player in 2028, his age 36 season and the sixth year of his contract. Teams pay about $9M per WAR these days (probably more this offseason) and Judge’s importance to the Yankees transcends WAR because of his off the field value. He might be worth $15M per WAR to them in the big picture. Maybe more. Judge playing up to ZiPS would be a great outcome.

Judge is back and a young generation of Yankees fans now have their Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter, and that’s extremely cool. The Yankees have to get this guy a championship at some point. Have to. The rest of the roster needs work, and now that Judge is back in the fold, the Yankees can move forward knowing they have a superstar to build around. Hooray.

"We have a lot of aspects of the roster that we need to address," Cashman told Max Goodman on Wednesday. "There’s other aspects of the roster we’re trying to address and we’ll continue to do so. We’re on the clock. We’ll obviously give (Boone) the best players so he can have the best team and he can do with it what he wants when Spring Training starts.”

Yankees remain interested in Rodon

Even with Judge returning on his monster contract, the Yankees remain interested in Carlos Rodon. I normally don’t think much of these vague “have interest in” reports, but when it comes from Jack Curry (on more than one occasion!), it’s different. No offense to all the other baseball media folks out there, but Jack is the authority on the Yankees. If he says something, it’s legit, and it’s serious.

I’m not sure I’ll have enough time for a deep dive on Rodon before he signs, so the short version is he’s excellent and an extreme bat-misser despite being fastball/slider heavy and rarely using a third pitch. His last two seasons are as good as it gets: 2.67 ERA (2.42 FIP) with top of the line strikeout (33.9%) and swinging strike (14.5%) rates. Front of the rotation stuff, clearly.

Rodon turns 30 this weekend and you can’t expect him to repeat this year’s home run rate (0.61 HR/9 and 6.5% HR/FB), especially as a fly ball guy (35.6% grounders) in Yankee Stadium. That’s just not a home run rate you see repeated year after year. Also, Rodon’s injury history is long and it’s all arm injuries. Shoulder surgery, Tommy John surgery, and other stuff as well.

Rodon is reportedly seeking six years at $30M a year and yeah, given the starting pitching prices this offseason, that’s not crazy. I don’t think he’ll get a seventh year because of the injury history, but it wouldn’t be an unreasonable ask given the market. Look at the free agent starters to get a multi-year deal and their FanGraphs projected contract:

• Justin Verlander, Mets: 2 years, $43.3M AAV (projected 2 years, $35M AAV)
• Jacob deGrom, Rangers: 5 years, $37M AAV (projected 3 years, $40M AAV)
• Taijuan Walker, Phillies: 4 years, $18M AAV (projected 3 years, $13M AAV)
• Jameson Taillon, Cubs: 4 years, $17M AAV (projected 3 years, $12M AAV)
• Zach Eflin, Phillies: 3 years, $13.3M AAV (projected 3 years, $10M AAV)
• Tyler Anderson, Angels: 3 years, $13M AAV (projected 3 years, $14.5M AAV)
• Jose Quintana, Mets: 2 years, $13M AAV (projected 2 years, $12M AAV)
• Andrew Heaney, Rangers: 2 years, $12.5M AAV (projected 2 years, $10M AAV)

Poor Tyler Anderson. He got out ahead of the market and signed early, and likely left a lot of money on the table. I mean, he’ll live plenty well on $13M a year, but that’s gonna be middle reliever money in like three weeks. Otherwise everyone except Anderson and I guess Quintana blew away their projections. Everyone’s getting an extra year and a few extra million a year.

FanGraphs has Rodon projected at five years and $27M a year, so seeking six years at $30M apiece is in line with the market. The Yankees adding another $30M a year player and pushing payroll up around $300M is something I will need to see to believe. They have some avenues to trim payroll (Josh Donaldson, Aaron Hicks, Gleyber Torres, etc.) but not much. Signing Rodon would require the highest payroll in franchise history and not by a few million. By like $30M.

And that’s fine! With me, anyway. I’m not cutting the checks. The Dodgers and Mets were up around $300M this past season. No reason to believe the Yankees can’t do it. It’s just a matter of whether they’re willing to do it. Signing Rodon and raising payroll to have a 2008-09 offseason would be fantastic. It’s been a frustrating few years. I would appreciate going all-in this offseason.

I am all for signing Rodon. He’s excellent, the World Series window is as open as it’s going to get, and he addresses a long-term need. Luis Severino and Frankie Montas will be free agents next offseason and Gerrit Cole can opt out after 2024. Signing Rodon helps in 2023, first and foremost. He also gives the Yankees a rotation anchor and more long-term stability.

Rodon is not without risk but he is great and no one left in free agency (or realistically available in a trade) matches his upside. You win with star-caliber performances and stars are most likely to give them to you, and Rodon can perform like a star. The payroll makes me think it won’t happen, but with Curry chiming in, I think it’s a much greater possibility than I would have otherwise.

“We're on the clock to continue to find ways to improve the club both small and large, so we'll see where it takes us," Cashman told Goodman on Wednesday. "We haven't officially landed any planes. We have some lined up to be brought down but there's a lot more planes out there circling. There's some opportunities that exist out there and hopefully we'll find a way to secure a few of them for us that gives us a better shot."

Taillon signs with Cubs

I find it easy to root for Jameson Taillon and he was a good Yankee the last two years, and now he’ll go and be a Cub for four years. Taillon has reportedly agreed to a four-year, $68M contract with the North Siders. He was second to Cole in starts (61) and innings (321.2) among Yankees the last two years, and this year he had a 3.91 ERA (3.94 FIP). That’s solid work.

For me, Taillon’s signature game as a Yankee was Game 162 last year. It was a must-win game (a loss would’ve sent the Yankees to Toronto for a Game 163 tiebreaker) and Taillon was able to gut through 3.1 shutout innings on his bad ankle (video). He had surgery a few weeks later. Taillon also pitched into the eighth inning in the AL East clincher this year (video) and took a perfect game into the eighth on June 2nd (video). He threw some dandies in pinstripes.

In hindsight, yeah, the Yankees should have made Taillon the $19.65M qualifying offer (I did in my Offseason Plan). I’m willing to cut them some slack because I don’t think anyone expected free agency to be this wild, and I can understand not risking it for a dinky post-fourth round pick. But yeah, the Yankees should’ve offered it. Worst case is you get a good pitcher on an overpriced one-year contract, and that’s not bad at all. Alas.

(The qualifying offer likely would have hurt Taillon’s market, but I don’t think it would have hurt it so much that he would have accepted it. There’s a pretty big gap between $19.65M and $68M, and the Cubs would have only surrendered their second highest draft pick and $500,000 in international bonus money to sign him. Not exactly a huge penalty there.)

I like Taillon but four years and $68M is exactly the kinda contract I didn’t want to give him. He’s smart, adaptable, and tough, but he’s already 31 and has a scary injury history, and he doesn’t miss bats (20.7% strikeouts and 9.9% swinging strikes in 2022) or limit hard contact (8.3% barrel rate) enough. Taillon’s like 1-2 mph of natural velocity loss away from a 4.60 ERA. If he had taken the qualifying offer, great. One more year would’ve been okay. But four years? Ehhh. Congrats on getting the bag, Jamo.

Red Sox lose Bogaerts, sign Yoshida

I'm a huge fan of this recent trend of AL East rivals letting their best players go to West division teams*. Xander Bogaerts agreed to an 11-year, $280M contract with the Padres earlier this week and will join Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez, and Blake Snell on the West Coast. I hope Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Adley Rutschman join them soon.

* I can say this now that Judge turned down the Giants!

Alex Speier says the Red Sox offered Bogaerts six years and $162M with a willingness to go a little higher. That was an unserious offer. How do you see what Judge and Trea Turner got and think six years will get it done? Jose Abreu was said to be Boston's No. 1 target and their bid was roughly $20M short of Houston’s. The Red Sox have mostly “we tried” their way through the offseason with Zach Eflin, Andrew Heaney, and Tommy Kahnle all taking similar deals elsewhere. Eflin used Boston to get a better deal from the Rays (!). Woof.

Bogaerts and Turner, two 30-year-old shortstops, received 11-year deals and the Yankees gave a soon-to-be 31-year-old corner outfielder nine years. That’s crazy! But contracts are getting longer because the luxury tax threshold isn’t rising at the same rate as revenue, so if you want to give a player a boatload of money without incurring a heavy luxury tax bill, you have to give them years. That’s why we’re seeing these super long-term contracts this winter.

Anyway, the Red Sox did manage to sign Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida at the Winter Meetings, so I guess they have that going for them. It’s a five-year, $90M contract and Boston will pay the Orix Buffaloes a $15.4M posting fee. Yoshida was posted earlier this week. As far as I can tell no Japanese player has ever signed this quickly while going through the posting system, and when a player unexpectedly signs quickly, there are three possible reasons:

1. He really wanted to go to that team.
2. They blew him away with an offer and he didn’t bother to shop around.
3. A combination of 1 and 2.

Remember when the Yankees signed Jacoby Ellsbury a week before the Winter Meetings? Top Scott Boras clients almost never sign before the Winter Meetings. It was because the Yankees made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Maybe Yoshida really wanted to go to Boston. Or maybe the Red Sox knew Bogaerts was leaving and pivoted quickly and aggressively. Whatever.

The Yankees were said to have interest in Yoshida but I seriously doubt they were willing to commit five years and $18M per year to a soon-to-be 30-year-old with no MLB track record and questionable defense. Maybe they’ll come to regret it. I dunno. There are other outfielders out there. I hope they land Bryan Reynolds. If not, Andrew Benintendi and Michael Conforto remain available, plus there’s a small army of trade candidates. Yoshida is no longer an option though.

Yankees have checked in on D’Backs outfielders

And finally, a quick note to wrap up: Nick Piecoro reports the Yankees are among the teams to give the Diamondbacks a call about their young outfielders. The two sides aren’t close to a trade or anything like that. The Yankees just checked in. Arizona has a lot of MLB-ready outfielders, almost all of whom hit left-handed. I wrote about them all last month. They’re natural trade partners. It’s just a question of whether the Yankees and D’Backs can find common ground.

2. Rule 5 Draft results. The annual Rule 5 Draft was held Wednesday and the big story is the Phillies selecting Red Sox RHP Noah Song. Song has top 100 prospect upside but he hasn’t pitched since 2019 because he’s in the Navy and on active duty. The Phillies will stash Song on the military list, where he won’t count against the 40-man roster but will accrue service time, and then see what’s what whenever he’s eligible to play. Why didn’t the Red Sox protect him and put him on the military list? Beats me. Not much about that team makes sense these days.

"It was a fastball that was up to 99 and good secondaries, good feel to pitch," Phillies GM Sam Fuld told Alden Gonzalez about the Song pick. “There's some uncertainty surrounding the pick, for sure. But we feel like the upside of the player is enough to take a chance."

The Yankees did not make a Rule 5 Draft pick this year. They haven’t made a Rule 5 Draft pick since taking LHP Cesar Cabral and RHP Brad Meyer in 2011. That is not the longest Rule 5 Draft pick drought! The Dodgers haven’t made a Rule 5 Draft pick since taking RHP D.J. Houlton from the Astros in 2004. Every other team has made at least one Rule 5 Draft pick since the Yankees last made one though. Let’s review the Rule 5 Draft happenings (full results).

Yankees lose Greene and Rodriguez

There were 15 Major League Rule 5 Draft picks this year and 14 were pitchers (the Athletics took Dodgers 1B Ryan Noda), and that’s the direction this thing is heading. Teams take interesting arms with good pitch data and see whether they can tweak something to unlock another level. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t, but every year teams try.

After the Rule 5 Draft protection deadline I said RHP Zach Greene had the best chance to get selected and actually stick next season, and he was indeed selected. He went to the Mets. Greene, 26, had a 3.42 ERA (4.20 FIP) with 33.3% strikeouts and a 14.6% swinging strike rate in 68.1 relief innings with Triple-A Scranton in 2022. He’s an invisiball guy. His 91-92 mph fastball plays higher because he gets great spin and plane on it with a lower arm slot.

Going to the Mets makes it less likely Greene sticks next year. They’re trying to win a World Series and won’t sit on a struggling reliever who can’t be optioned to Triple-A. Greene will have to pitch well right away to stick and hey, maybe he will. He has talent and the pitch traits teams like. And if Greene doesn’t stick with the Mets, he has to go on waivers before being returned to the Yankees, so another team (a bad team better able to carry him) could claim him. We’ll see.

The other pitcher the Yankees lost in the Rule 5 Draft, RHP Wilking Rodriguez, is an unusual case. The Yankees signed the soon-to-be 33-year-old out of the Mexican League in September and he never did appear in a game for them. The Cardinals took him in the Rule 5 Draft before the Yankees could see him pitch in a game in their (minor league) uniform. Here’s what I wrote about Rodriguez in September:

If nothing else, Rodriguez has an interesting backstory. He came up through the Rays system, moved on to the Royals as a minor league free agent, then caught on with the Yankees in 2015. Rodriguez was a non-roster invitee to Spring Training that year and made seven appearances with Triple-A Scranton, then he tested positive for a banned substance and got hit with an 80-game suspension.

Now 32, Rodriguez has not pitched in affiliated ball since his 2015 stint with the RailRiders. In fact, he didn’t do much pitching at all from 2016-20, only making a few winter ball appearances back home in Venezuela each year. Rodriguez showed up in the Mexican League last year and had a 2.01 ERA with 77 strikeouts in 44.2 innings with Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos this year, so the Yankees signed him

I heard secondhand Rodriguez sits upper-90s with his fastball and has a hard cutter and a good curveball. The Cardinals are a pretty smart team with a good eye for pitching talent, so even though Rodriguez turns 33 in March, they might’ve found something. The fact Rodriguez was a Rule 5 Draft pick tells us he wasn’t standard minor league depth. The Yankees saw something and hoped to sneak him through the Rule 5 Draft, but no dice. St. Louis liked him too.

C Josh Breaux, 3B Andres Chaparro, and RHP Matt Sauer are the notable Yankees prospects who weren’t selected in the Rule 5 Draft. Chaparro has become something of a cult hero because he’s hit .279/.377/.520 (142 wRC+) at three levels the last two years. He’s stats over scouting report though, plus he’s had injuries and has yet to play in Triple-A, and there’s no defensive value. Corner bats just aren’t a hot commodity on Rule 5 Draft day. If Chaparro hits in Triple-A in 2023, he’ll be in a better position to get a 40-man roster spot after the season.

Yankees select one, lose six in minor league phase

The minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft works differently than the Major League phase. There are no roster requirements. Pick a player in the minor league phase and he’s yours to keep. The same players eligible for the MLB phase are eligible for the minor league phase, and each team has a 38-man roster for protection. So if the Yankees hadn’t put Breaux on that 38-man roster, he could have been taken in the minor league phase. Got it? Good.

A whopping 67 players were selected in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft this year, the most since 1982. This is the build-a-pitcher era, so teams take pitchers with interesting data in the minor league phase and see if they can help him get better. The Yankees did this with LHP Matt Krook. There have been a few other minor league Rule 5 Draft success stories in recent years (A’s RHP Zach Jackson, former Mets and current A’s RHP Adam Oller, etc.).

The Yankees selected one player in the minor league phase: Royals LHP Pablo Mujica. The 21-year-old missed 2021 with an injury and threw 31.2 rookie ball innings with a 3.13 ERA (4.20 FIP) and big strikeout (32.8%) and walk (11.9%) rates in 2022. I have efforted, but I don’t have any further information on Mujica. Sorry. Maybe he’ll show up on a prospect list in 18 months.

As for minor league phase losses, the Yankees had six – six! – players selected. That’s the most they’ve lost in the minor league Rule 5 Draft as I’ve been doing this. Here are the Yankees minor leaguers who went in the minor league phase. As a reminder, these guys are gone. There are no rules about sticking on the roster next year or anything:

• RHP Nelson Alvarez (Rays)
• RHP Yon Castro (Dodgers)
• IF Oliver Dunn (Phillies)
• RHP Denny Larrondo (Diamondbacks)
• RHP Ryan Miller (Red Sox)
• RHP Alfred Vega (Orioles)

Alvarez and Larrondo are the most famous prospects in the group. Alvarez was one of my Not Top 30 Prospects in 2021 and he had a 2.85 ERA (3.86 FIP) in 53.2 innings while repeating High-A Hudson Valley this year. The 24-year-old is a pretty standard big fastball/iffy breaking ball/poor control (career 14.5% walks) relief prospect.

The Yankees gave Larrondo a $550,000 bonus in 2018 but he’s thrown only 25.2 innings since 2019 (including zero in 2022) because of injuries and the pandemic. Remember when the Yankees had to quarantine all their minor leaguers in Tampa in March 2020 because of a COVID outbreak? Larrondo was the first case. Here’s what FanGraphs wrote prior to 2022:

Larrondo didn’t show many signs of progress in 2021. He sits about 90-92 mph and has below-average control, but he is long-limbed, projectable, and one of the better athletes in this system. He has among the best 10- and 20-yard sprint splits in the org and played a good center field as an amateur. He’s just an athletic sleeper with premium spin talent right now, but that’s all Randy Vasquez was a year ago, too.

Vega is the best prospect of the group at this point. The 21-year-old struck out 22 and walked four in 15.2 rookie ball innings in 2022. He works with a mid-90s fastball, a sweeper, and also a changeup. Castro, 23, is a mid-90s fastball/slider guy who had a 28.5% strikeout rate in 87.2 Low-A innings this year. Here he is striking out a rehabbing Luke Voit in 2021.

I know Dunn, a 2019 11th round pick, has fans in the organization. He’s a super utility type with experience all over the field, and he plays hard. There’s not a whole lot to his game other than versatility and walks though. Miller, 27 in March, fanned 50 batters in 36 High-A relief innings this year. The Yankees signed him out of an independent league in May.

If Vega continues to make strides, Alvarez figures out control, and/or Larrondo manages to stay healthy and develop, one of these minor league Rule 5 Draft picks may come back to bite the Yankees. Ultimately, they’re all long shot lottery tickets, and that also applies to Mujica, who the Yankees selected. Greene going to the Mets and the mystery that is Rodriguez going to the Cardinals are the big stories this year. We’ll see how long they stick with their new teams.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Jonathan asks: How does Judge's signing with the Yankees (and probably finishing his career as a Yankee) help his eventual Hall of Fame case? Assuming he'll be a close call, would he have had a worse case if he spent half his career as a Giant (Pujols situation)?

A player spending his entire career with one team doesn’t resonate with Hall of Fame voters all that much and it shouldn’t, especially if a guy gets traded and changing teams wasn’t really his call (like Mookie Betts). I don’t think being a career Yankee would help Aaron Judge’s Hall of Fame case. It’s a cool thing and I’m glad it’ll happen, but it won’t give him an edge come Hall of Fame voting time (it didn’t for Don Mattingly or Jorge Posada).

What could help Judge is Yankee Stadium. Judge hit 103 home runs the last two seasons (lol) and Statcast says it would have only – “only” – been 92 homers had he played at Oracle Park instead. Based on that, let’s say the difference in ballparks is five homers a year. Five homers a year across a nine-year contract equals 45 fewer homers overall. It’s a lot!

Even if the real number is something like 25-30 fewer homers across nine years while playing in San Francisco, it could be the difference between joining the 500 home run club and sitting a few dozen homers outside it like Nelson Cruz and Carlos Delgado. As long as you don’t have any performance-enhancing drug ties, 500 homers still automatically punches your ticket to Cooperstown*.

* There are 28 players in the 500-homer club and 19 of the 28 are in the Hall of Fame. Two of the other nine are active and will be first ballot Hall of Famers (Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera), and the other seven all have PED connections: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa.

Judge did not play his first full season until age 25, so he got a late start on building his Hall of Fame case, but he’s also sitting on 220 homers and +37.0 WAR. He’s made up a lot of ground in a short period of time. He’s in the same range as Hall of Famers Dave Winfield (204 HR and +38.0 WAR) and Larry Walker (202 HR and 36.9 WAR) through their age 30 seasons.

Hall of Fame careers are made in your 30s, not your 20s. Andrew McCutchen and David Wright were on the Hall of Fame path early in their careers and it didn’t work out. I’d say Judge has already had a Hall of Fame peak. Now he has to build on it with longevity. Judge is maybe – maybe –  50% of the way to Cooperstown right now. Maybe.

If we assume Judge will retire after this nine-year contract, he will hit the Hall of Fame ballot in 2036, and who in the world knows how we’ll evaluate players in 14 years? Yankee Stadium will help pad his homer total, but I don’t think being a career Yankee will help his Hall of Fame case otherwise. Get close, then maybe the American League’s single-season home run record puts Judge over the top.

Mark asks: Let’s say in spring training before the start of the 7th season of Judge’s new contract, after several WS titles and MVPs, #99, while “healthy”, has lost his bat speed and cannot perform at the level of an MLB player. If Judge were to “retire” as a player and turn around and sign a 2 year $80M contract as a team ambassador, would that be allowed under the CBA’s luxury tax rules? It would seem to offer the player and team a dignified transition. Thanks!

MLB would flag this as luxury tax circumvention. Seems pretty obvious that’s what’s happening, no? Players forfeit the rest of their contract when they voluntarily retire and that wipes it off the team’s luxury tax payroll, but then turning around and giving a massive deal – a deal wildly out of line with the usual contracts for these positions – to be a team ambassador or special advisor or whatever would give the game away. The Yankees and Hal Steinbrenner entered Aaron Judge’s new contract understanding they’ll be on the hook for all nine years, and that there won’t be any loophole to escape. (Alex Rodriguez was released and paid his entire contract. He didn’t retire. He was forced out.)

Craig asks: If we trade Gleyber, what do you think about trying to sign Segura to a 1-year?

Jean Segura is a fun, fun player. He’s a good player – .277/.336/.387 (105 wRC+) around a few injuries in 2022 and that is right in line with his last 4-5 years – who doesn’t strike out much (15.0% this year) and will give you double-digit home runs and steals, and play good enough defense. He’s also high-energy and has a flair for the dramatic. Segura’s very fun.

Another righty hitter would not be ideal – trading Gleyber Torres would open up the opportunity to add a much-needed lefty bat – and I’m not sure Segura will get only one year in this market, but he’s a strong stopgap second base option. League average hitter, solid defense, fun. Bat him in the 7-8-9 range somewhere and you’re good to go. If it comes to it, I’d be okay with Segura, though I would prefer the Yankees to look for a lefty bat first.

Alex asks: Knowing what we know now, would you have preferred to sign Harper for the contract he got and let Judge go this offseason?  Both contracts run through 2031, they’re basically the same age (Judge is 6 months older), and the total cost is fairly close ($330M for Harper albeit at a substantially lower AAV). I assume that you would have preferred to sign Harper and let Judge walk, so you could have had them both on the same roster for the last 4 years, plus he’s a lefty and he’s cheaper. But on the flip side, Aaron Judge is forever cool with you and will be a Yankee for life.

The emotional side of my brain says I’d rather watch Aaron Judge spend his entire career in pinstripes, and one day go into Monument Park (and Cooperstown?). The rational side of my brain says Bryce Harper is absolutely the way to go. You get to pair them together for four years and avoid Judge’s decline while still having a superstar outfield bat (for $14.6M less per year).

The Yankees screwed up badly when they passed on Harper, I’ve said it a million times, and it contributed to giving Judge that huge contract. They couldn’t lose him. With Harper, the Yankees could have held the line a little more firmly. I would have preferred Harper and Judge to get those four years together to maximize the World Series window, but I’m not going to complain about getting to watch Judge spend his entire career in pinstripes either.

Matthew asks: I find it hard to believe the Yankees will truly give Peraza and Volpe a chance to win the SS job out of spring training. With the Giants in on Carlos Correa do you think the Yankees can and/or should make a call about Brandon Crawford? Bat is similar to IKF, but with some more pop and left handedness. Good defense, winning pedigree (whatever that means), seems like he would be a good fit to keep SS warm while the prospects finish off their development.

I don’t think this one is realistic because Crawford has a full no-trade clause and he’s a born and raised Bay Area guy who’s played his entire career in San Francisco. He turns 36 in January and it’s possible if not likely next season will be the last of his career (he has one year left on his contract). Crawford is a legacy Giant and I get the sense he’ll ride it out and retire as a one-team player, and hey, that’s pretty cool.

Hypothetically though, the Giants could sign Correa and look to displace Crawford, in which case the Yankees would be a good destination for him. He’d presumably want a chance to win and Yankee Stadium is favorable to lefties, plus he’s Gerrit Cole’s brother-in-law (Cole is married to Crawford’s sister). Feels like the Yankees would be on his list of acceptable trade destinations.

Crawford’s last two seasons closely mirror the Giants’ last two seasons. He had a career best season in 2021, slashing .298/.373/.522 (138 wRC+) with 24 homers and elite defensive stats. The Giants won 107 games that year. Crawford then slipped to .231/.308/.344 (87 wRC+) with nine homers and so-so defense in 2022, and the Giants went 81-81.

I would prefer Crawford to Isiah Kiner-Falefa at short but I would prefer the kids (either Oswald Peraza or Anthony Volpe) to Crawford at this point in his career. If the Yankees determine the kids need more seasoning, then fine, Crawford works. I don’t get the sense he’s eager to leave San Francisco, so this is all a hypothetical. I don’t think he’s truly available.

(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.)