Quick thoughts after the Yankees re-sign Aaron Judge

“Just park the Brinks truck over there.”

In the end, the Yankees couldn’t afford to let Aaron Judge leave and Judge wanted to remain a Yankee. Judge is returning to the Yankees on a nine-year, $360 million contract according to basically every baseball reporter who matters. There are no opt outs or anything like that as far as I can tell, though Judge gets a full no-trade clause. The contract is not official yet, but it will be soon (more likely in a few days rather than a few hours).

This year could not have gone better for Judge. He rejected a seven-year extension worth $213.5M in Spring Training – it was a reasonable offer at the time! – then had a historic and record-setting MVP winning season. All along he said he wanted to be a Yankee, but he also mingled enough with the Giants to plant a seed of doubt in Hal Steinbrenner’s head, and it all earned Judge an extra two years and $146.5M (!) to the Spring Training extension offer. Incredible.

The $360M contract is the largest free agent contract ever and the $40M average annual value is a record for a position player. I gave Judge nine years and $342M as part of my Offseason Plan and he got an extra $2M a year. Sorry for shortchanging you, Aaron. Here are the new largest contract leaderboards:

Total guarantee
1. Mike Trout, Angels: $426.5M
2. Mookie Betts, Dodgers: $365M
3. Aaron Judge, Yankees: $360M
4. Francisco Lindor, Mets: $341M
5. Fernando Tatis Jr., Padres: $340M

Average annual value
1. Max Scherzer, Mets: $43.3M
2. Justin Verlander, Mets: $43.3M
3. Aaron Judge, Yankees: $40M
4. Jacob deGrom, Rangers: $37M
5. Gerrit Cole, Yankees: $36M
6. Mike Trout, Angels: $35.4M

Jack Curry says the Yankees were in the eight-year, $300M range as recently as Sunday, so they really upped their offer this week. Ken Rosenthal (subs. req’d) adds Judge did indeed travel to the Winter Meetings on Tuesday and he met face-to-face with Padres people while there. San Diego offered a larger deal, per Brendan Kuty, and I buy that given their Trea Turner offer and GM A.J. Preller’s general craziness.

Rosenthal (subs. req’d) also says the Yankees are expected to name Judge captain as part of the deal and hey, that’s neat. Judge’s teammates lobbied for it at the end of the season, and while I don’t think it’s of paramount importance, it’s still neat. He’s a leader and he’s beloved in the clubhouse and that would be true with or without the captaincy. Might as well make it official.

If you’ve come here looking for doomposting about the ugly years at the end of the contract, you’re in the wrong place. The Yankees have no other contracts on the books from 2029-31, so they have a good long runway to plan around the last three years of Judge’s deal. Revenues are at an all-time high and it’s impossible to know what the sport will look like in nine years. Just look back three years. They were playing a 60-game season in empty stadiums.

As for standing in the way of doing other things, I mean if it’s not Judge it would be something else. The luxury tax, having to extend Anthony Volpe, etc. There’s always a reason not to spend, and after the Yankees passed on other things (Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, most notably) because they said they had to extend Judge, I’m sure they’ll pass on more in the future because they’ve extended Judge. This isn’t a Judge thing. It’s an ownership thing.

With Judge back, the Yankees can now move on to actually improving the team. They’ve already re-signed Anthony Rizzo and brought Tommy Kahnle back, but really all they’ve done to date is reassemble the 2022 team. And the 2022 team was pretty mediocre after the first three months. The rest of the offseason to-do list looks something like this:

• Find a left fielder (Bryan Reynolds trade?)
• Figure out the left side of the infield (a kid at short?)
• Add a starter (are the Carlos Rodon rumors real?)
• Find more pitching depth in general.
• Unload Aaron Hicks before his 10-and-5 rights kick in.
• Find a catcher with more offense.

Those are in rough order of importance but they don’t have to be done in that order. They just have to get done. FanGraphs estimates the luxury tax payroll at $267.2M with Judge, so either the Yankees will exceed the third penalty tier ($273M) for the first time ever and push their first round pick back 10 spots*, or they’re going to cut money/go cheap the rest of the winter. You just gave Judge a $40M a year deal. Just up payroll and really go for it.

* To be clear, this would be their 2024 first rounder. They have to play the entire 2023 season and actually go over that third luxury tax threshold first.

It is exceedingly rare for an elite free agent to return to his team. Zach Crizer found that of the 53 largest free agent contracts, only six went to players returning to their former team. Now it’s seven of 54. When elite free agents go out into the market and get wooed by other clubs, they often leave. Judge stayed. The big dinger man will continue to hit his big ol’ dingers in the Bronx. A good day, this is.

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