December 7th, 2022: Kahnle, Judge, Yoshida, Rule 5 Draft

Tuesday was a day. I don’t know if it was a good day or a bad day, but it was definitely a day. We seem to be inching closer to Aaron Judge’s decision and I’m ready for this to be over. His free agency, I mean. Not his time as a Yankee. Anyway, I’m hitting publish on this before I go to sleep just to get it out there as soon as possible. Will any of it still be relevant when I wake up? Maybe!

1. Kahnle returns. Welcome back, Tommy Tightpants. The Yankees agreed to a two-year, $11.5M contract with Tommy Kahnle. Joel Sherman says it’s $5.75M per season with no options or opt-outs or anything like that. Straight two years and $11.5M. I gave Kahnle two years and $10M as part of my Offseason Plan, so I shortchanged him. Tommy, how do you feel about rejoining the Yankees?

“There's nothing official there yet,” Aaron Boone said during his Winter Meetings availability Tuesday. “Tommy's a guy that I think was a beloved guy in our room. He's got a big personality but was also an outstanding pitcher for us. He's come back from Tommy John surgery. He pitched really well for the Dodgers at the end of the season. So he's a guy with a number of talented relievers out there, we certainly feel like he has returned to his form.”

The reliever market is a bit crazy right now (the entire free agent market is a bit crazy right now) and that helped Kahnle get a nice deal for a guy who’s thrown 15.2 big league innings the last three seasons. Kahnle, 33, returned from Tommy John surgery this past May – he blew out his elbow in his 2020 season debut with the Yankees – and four games later he went down with a forearm issue. He returned in September and looked pretty good in his very limited action.

The injury risk is considerable, but Kahnle missed a lot of bats (30.4% strikeouts) and got a lot of ground balls (68.0%) in his limited action this past season, and it’s not like $5.75M a year will make or break the Yankees. They’re not counting on him to be the guy in the bullpen either. He’s just one of the gang. The bullpen depth chart looks something like this at the moment:

• Closer: RHP Clay Holmes
• Setup: RHP Mike King, RHP Jonathan Loaisiga, LHP Wandy Peralta
• Middle: RHP Tommy Kahnle, LHP Lucas Luetge, RHP Ron Marinaccio, RHP Lou Trivino
• Depth: RHP Albert Abreu, RHP Jimmy Cordero, RHP Junior Fernandez, RHP Clarke Schmidt, RHP Greg Weissert
• Kids: RHP Jhony Brito, LHP Matt Krook, RHP Randy Vasquez
• Injured: RHP Scott Effross, RHP Luis Gil

King is coming back from his fractured elbow and maybe he won’t be ready for Opening Day, in which case Cordero or Schmidt or whoever will take his place. And if King is ready to begin the season on time, someone will get squeezed out. Maybe Luetge gets cut, maybe Marinaccio has to go to Triple-A. Worry about that in Spring Training and not one second sooner.

The Yankees have enough on-paper bullpen depth that they could trade someone and try to cash in on the hectic market. They don’t have to move anyone. They can monitor the market, see who offers what, and jump on anything that makes sense. Kahnle and Marinaccio are a bit redundant as righty changeup specialists. Perhaps that makes Marinaccio expendable. I dunno.

Loaisiga, Peralta, and post-shoulder injury Holmes were the only Circle of Trust™ relievers in the postseason because of injuries (Effross, King, Marinaccio) and while Kahnle has to prove he’s high leverage worthy again, I think he will. He always had a knack of being great in October too. The Yankees know Kahnle* and he won’t have to adjust to New York. He’s been here already.

* Three years is an eternity in bullpen time. The only pitchers on the depth chart above who were Kahnle’s teammates with the Yankees previously are King and Loaisiga (Abreu and Schmidt didn’t get called up until after Kahnle got hurt).

I don’t think the Kahnle signing takes the Yankees out of the running for Liam Hendriks because he’s so good and a special case (we don't even know if they're in on Hendriks, that's just me speculating). I’m not sure it takes them out of the running for Zack Britton either. He’s looking at a relatively small one-year deal. You can always fit that. Unless they trade a reliever, Kahnle probably takes the Yankees out of play for another multi-year reliever signing, and that’s about it.

Two years and $11.5M isn’t cheap given Kahnle’s recent injury history, but also Chris Martin got two years and $17.5M and Matt Strahm got two years and $15M. Decent bullpen help – not even great bullpen help – isn’t cheap right now. The Yankees have a knack for finding quality relievers and that’s a valuable skill. There’s nothing wrong with throwing a little money at the bullpen too. The Yankees make plenty of it, so spend it.

2. The latest from the Winter Meetings. Based on the last few days we should expect every notable free agent to get an extra year and several million more per year than we expect. It’s a good offseason to be a free agent. Almost like teams have more money than they let on. Here’s the latest from the Winter Meetings.

Obsessive Judge Watch

Where were you for Arson Judge day? There were a hectic few minutes Tuesday afternoon after Jon Heyman erroneously reported Aaron Judge – autocorrected to Arson Judge – was signing with the Giants. Heyman walked it back a few minutes later and apologized for jumping the gun and boy, I could’ve done without that. I felt emotions. Judge remains unsigned.

“We haven't heard anything. I know it's been obviously an ongoing negotiation. Obviously that's more for Cash and Hal and stuff, but that's been my understanding of it,” Aaron Boone said not long after Heyman’s screw up. “... I was just getting out of the shower and getting dressed, and I called Cash and said, ‘What's going on?’ He said, ‘Nothing.’”

Earlier in the day Heyman reported the Giants are believed to have made an offer in the $360M range and I’m gonna assume that’s across nine years ($40M per year) rather than 10 ($36M per year). San Francisco signed Mitch Haniger a few hours later (three years, $43.5M) but that won’t stop them from signing Judge. They’ve said all along they want multiple outfielders this winter.

Part of me thinks the $360M leak was Judge’s camp letting the Yankees know the number they have to beat, typical negotiate through the media stuff, and another part of me is growing pessimistic because San Francisco is really getting after it and I don’t think Hal Steinbrenner has the stomach for a long-term deal at $40M a year. His heart isn’t in this enough.

This is the first time I think it’s less than 50/50 Judge returns (I thought it was something like 95/5 coming into the offseason) and maybe that’s just my growing pessimism after the Arson Judge fiasco. Or maybe it’s the fact the Giants open 2023 in the Bronx and the odds Judge takes Gerrit Cole deep in the first inning are roughly 9,000%. Or maybe it’s the new TIME Magazine piece in which Judge again said he wasn’t happy the Yankees revealed their extension offer in Spring Training.

“We kind of said, ‘Hey, let’s keep this between us,'" Judge said. “I was a little upset that the numbers came out. I understand it’s a negotiation tactic. Put pressure on me. Turn the fans against me, turn the media on me. That part of it I didn’t like.”

The Yankees obviously did that to make Judge look greedy, I said so at the time, and the fact he’s still talking about it eight months later shows it really bugged him. It’s nothing money (a lot of it) can’t smooth over, but geez, what a dumb unforced error by the Yankees. Brian Cashman doesn’t announce the extension offer terms with Hal’s blessing. He seems a bit insecure about being perceived as cheap and look where it got the Yankees.

So, I dunno. Jack Curry says Judge’s camp is looking to wrap this up soon and, one way or the other, I hope this is over before the Winter Meetings end Wednesday. If he’s coming back, great. I hope he does. And if Judge is leaving, then just rip the band-aid off already and let the Yankees go about the rest of their offseason business. I feel like I’m owed a Shohei Ohtani signing next offseason after sitting through this.

“If Judge signs somewhere else, do we pivot and do something else?’’ Cashman told Dan Martin on Monday. “Do we remake ourselves completely? I have no idea. It’s not what we want to do … We’ll see how it all plays out. The way this winter is gonna play out could take us down a lot of different roads we didn’t expect.”

Yoshida posted

At long last, the Orix Buffaloes have officially posted outfielder Masataka Yoshida. Mark Feinsand says MLB informed teams Yoshida was posted earlier this week and he has until 5pm ET on Jan. 20th to sign. That’s a ways away and the Yankees figure to put Yoshida on the back-burner until Judge’s free agency is resolved. They’re said to have interest though.

Here’s what I wrote about Yoshida last month. The 29-year-old projects as a singles and walks hitter with some power and not much else. Yoshida isn’t regarded as a strong defender and he’s never been a threat on the bases. Even if the Yankees re-sign Judge, they’ll need a left fielder, and Yoshida would fit as a high contact lefty, even if his game isn’t especially well-rounded.

I get the sense the bidding war will push Yoshida’s contract out of the Yankees’ comfort zone and he’ll wind up elsewhere. They’ve been very selective with Japanese players since Kei Igawa blew up in their faces, pursuing only Masahiro Tanaka and Shohei Ohtani, who were both closer to 20 than 30 at the time. Yoshida turns 30 next summer. He doesn’t really fit their M.O. I guess we’ll see.

Rule 5 Draft on Wednesday

The Rule 5 Draft is scheduled for 5pm ET on Wednesday and don’t expect the Yankees to make a pick. They have an open 40-man roster spot but the Tommy Kahnle deal isn’t official yet, plus the Yankees need to re-sign or replace Judge, bring in a left fielder, maybe add a starter, that kinda stuff. They need 40-man space for more important things than a 26th man who can't be shuttled up and down.

J.J. Cooper’s exhaustive Rule 5 Draft preview (subs. req’d) includes 63 (!) names and four Yankees prospects: C Josh Breaux, 3B Andres Chaparro, RHP Matt Sauer, and C Anthony Seigler. Seigler is lumped into a former first rounders section and Cooper says he’s “a tough player to project as being taken and then sticking with a new team.”

Chaparro seems like a decent candidate to be selected. I’m not sold on Breaux or Sauer, but maybe. Righties and analytic darlings Zach Greene and Mitch Spence could catch someone’s eye. They fit the type usually taken in the Rule 5 Draft as pitchers with good data who could maybe be coached up. We’ll see who gets picked. Just wanted to mention the Rule 5 Draft is coming up and that I don’t expect the Yankees to make a pick.

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