March 8th, 2022: Urshela at Short, Rule Changes, Rule 5 Draft

Lockout, Day 97: I hope I’m wrong, but MLB’s language in recent days – calling last week’s offer their “best and final offer” and saying the two sides are “deadlocked” – makes me think they are getting ready to declare a legal impasse and unilaterally impose their last offer. The MLBPA (and possibly the National Labor Relations Board) would then file an unfair labor practice charge and the two sides would wind up in front of a judge, similar to 1995. That process could take weeks. Again, I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think MLB is throwing around terms like “best and final offer” and “deadlocked” casually. We’ll see*. Let’s get to today’s thoughts.

* Actual labor lawyer Eugene Freedman says he doesn’t believe a legal impasse is coming because MLB still has “permissive” subjects in their proposal, meaning things the two sides are not legally required to negotiate (like wages, hours, etc.). Those “permissive” subjects include rule changes. MLB would have to remove them from their offer before declaring an impasse.

1. The case for keeping Gio at short. Whenever the lockout ends, the Yankees are expected to add a shortstop because they don’t have one right now. Gio Urshela did the job late last year and that always felt temporary, but what if it’s not, or doesn’t need to be? Could Urshela man short full-time in 2022? I think it’s worth laying out the case and the particulars.

To be clear, I’m not a “Gio at short” guy. I want an actual shortstop to play shortstop, and when a guy like Carlos Correa is available and you can afford him, you should just sign him (I’m also willing to accept Trevor Story on a short-term deal). I don’t expect the Yankees to do that though, so this is an exercise in Urshela vs. stopgaps like Andrelton Simmons and Isiah Kiner-Falefa.

In the interest of covering all the angles, here are the arguments for keeping Urshela at short, presented in no particular order.

It would be best for the offense

Allow me to once again point out the Yankees were tenth in runs scored in the American League in 2021. Tenth! They scored fewer runs than the 97-loss Nationals, who have 1.5 good hitters and no DH, and they did that even though Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton stayed healthy and mashed. The Yankees were seventh in the league with a 101 wRC+.

We’ll see what happens after the lockout, but right now, the plan to improve the offense is a full season of Joey Gallo, a hopefully healthy Aaron Hicks, and the three new hitting coaches helping others bounce back (“others” includes the entire infield). I’m not sure the Yankees can afford to carry a no-hit/all-glove stopgap shortstop. The offense may not be good enough.

Urshela, DJ LeMahieu, and Gleyber Torres all underperformed last season, at least  relative to the previous versions of themselves. That said, they're better hitters than the available stopgaps. To wit:

Acquire one of the top three guys and one of the bottom three guys has to sit, unless the Yankees put LeMahieu at first base full-time, which is undesirable. Even if LeMahieu's bat bounces back to its 2019-20 level, you leave a lot of value on the table by playing that guy at first rather than second or third (just look at who's available/acquirable to play first compared to who's available/acquirable to play the other infield positions).

Yes, the Yankees need to improve their infield defense, and those three potential stopgaps are all better defensive shortstops than Gio. I don’t think the Yankees can sacrifice much (any) offense to get that improved defense though. These aren’t the 2018-19 Yankees, the teams that led baseball in runs scored even while Judge and Stanton were hurt. Offense is no longer a given.

The Yankees play in a home run park in a hitters’ division. Like it or not, they have to bang their way to contention. You’re not beating the Blue Jays and Red Sox (and now even the Rays) with just pitching and defense. You’ve gotta score and score a lot, and some defense-only shortstop won’t move the needle. Keeping Urshela at short and flanking him with Torres and LeMahieu gives the offense a fighting chance.

Gio’s defense could improve

Much like his defense at third base, the eye test says Urshela’s shortstop defense is better than the numbers. In 285 big league innings at short (a very small sample that equates to less than 32 games), he’s at -3 DRS and -2 OAA. His range is lacking, even at third base, though he turns almost everything he can get into an out, even if it requires extraordinary effort. Like this.

Urshela may not have much experience as a shortstop, though he regularly played the shortstop position as part of the shift. I mean he physically stood where the shortstop usually stands even though he was technically the third baseman. Strip away the position label and look at only where he was standing on the field, and Urshela has been an average defensive “shortstop.”

Statcast says the average shortstop would have turned 64% of the batted balls Urshela saw as a “shortstop” into outs, and he was at 63%. Gio has a weakness on balls hit up the middle, which jibes with his issues ranging to his left as a third baseman, and maybe that’s the kinda thing he can improve with experience (and shifts?). More experience equals better reads off the bat, that kinda thing.

Urshela has been just about average defensively at shortstop in his limited time there, and given his skills (great hands, strong arm, etc.) and instincts (when was the last time we saw him make a bad decision and try to force something that wasn’t there?), I believe his defense at short will get better as he puts in more time at the position. At minimum, I don’t think it’ll get worse.

LeMahieu would have a set position

LeMahieu’s versatility is a plus, though players generally do not like bouncing between positions, and would prefer to stay in one spot. LeMahieu has never said this (he’s the epitome of a “I just do what the team needs me to do” guy) but he’s human, right? No one likes showing up to work each day not knowing what they’re going to do. We crave routines.

Keep LeMahieu at third base full-time and I bet his defense, which was shaky at the hot corner at times last year, improves, and it would allow him to focus more on his bat, which was just okay last year. Urshela at short, Torres at second, and LeMahieu at third allows LeMahieu to focus on his bat and third base defense without worrying about being ready at other positions.

Also, LeMahieu could still play other positions, should a need arise. The Yankees would not take away that ability forever. The upside here is having a set position allows LeMahieu to get comfortable and improve on both sides of the ball thanks to having a set routine. The downside is it doesn’t work, and LeMahieu goes back to moving around like he did the last three years.

(This also applies to Torres at second base. Last year the Yankees improved their defense at short by going from Torres to Urshela, but got worse at second by going from LeMahieu to Torres, and worse at third by going from Urshela to LeMahieu. Let Torres and LeMahieu settle in rather than change positions in the middle of the season, and I bet their defense gets better.)

He already has chemistry with Torres

Urshela and Torres have played 16 games together as a double play combination, plus they’ve worked out together all lockout, so they already have some chemistry. Bring in a new stopgap shortstop and he’d have a truncated Spring Training to develop chemistry not only with Torres, but also LeMahieu, who will see time at second base. Stick with Urshela at short and this is one less thing the Yankees, Torres, and LeMahieu have to worry about.

The Yankees could spend the dollars elsewhere

In their latest proposals MLB sought a $220M luxury tax threshold this season while the MLBPA was at $238M. For argument’s sake, let’s say they come close to splitting the middle and settle at $230M. Cot’s has the luxury tax payroll at $221.2M at the moment. Would it surprise anyone if Hal Steinbrenner orders the front office to stay under the luxury tax threshold this year, especially with an expanded postseason format lessening the need to improve the roster? It shouldn’t.

Staying under the threshold would leave little wiggle room. Stick with Urshela at short and the Yankees wouldn’t need to spend money on a stopgap. That could leave them enough money to, say, trade Luke Voit and acquire Matt Olson (projected $12M), who would improve the 2022 Yankees more than any non-Correa, non-Story shortstop. There’s a payroll allocation component to this.

I don’t want to harp on the money too much because this is all hypothetical, and I suspect Hal has already accepted the Yankees are going over the luxury tax threshold this year. Maybe not in 2023, but in 2022? It’s basically unavoidable, in which case spending on a stopgap shortstop isn’t going to stop the Yankees from doing anything else. In the event Hal does want to stay under the luxury tax threshold this year, then yes, Urshela at short saves money for other things.

* * *

You could argue there’s a “it would leave a path for Oswald Peraza and maybe even Anthony Volpe to get called up this year” component to sticking with Urshela at short. I don’t 100% buy this but I think you could make the argument. Sign a stopgap and the Yankees might stick with him longer than his play warrants. With Urshela, you could easily move him back to third base when the kids are ready.

The Yankees are in a weird spot right now where they have two second basemen (LeMahieu and Torres) and two third basemen (Urshela and LeMahieu), but no shortstop. They don’t even have a backup shortstop. My guess is they’ll bring in a stopgap shortstop after the lockout and lean on Gio as the backup. Sticking with Urshela at short makes some sense though. Given the impending post-lockout chaos, it is the cleanest, most straightforward solution.

2. MLB’s proposed rule changes. As part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement talks, MLB wants the ability to unilaterally implement rule changes with 45 days notice. Right now the league has to wait a full year before implementing its last rule change proposal. The MLBPA has indicated it is open to 45 days for rule changes as part of its larger CBA package.

I might be giving MLB too much credit here but I don’t think the 45 days thing means they’re going to implement rule changes in the middle of the season. My guess is the league will make proposals in November or December, and once the union rejects, MLB will implement the rule changes in January or February. I don’t think they’ll make proposals in March or April.

Anyway, I’m glad CBA talks have expanded beyond money (even if it drags negotiations out a little longer) because the game on the field needs work. Every once in a while I remember what awaits on the other side of the lockout (games approaching four hours, loads of strikeouts, pitchers taking 30 seconds between pitches, etc.) and kinda get annoyed.

Here are the rule changes MLB is pushing for at the moment. Just to be clear, these would take effect in 2023, at least based on current proposals. The 45-day thing would begin next year and the 2022 season would be played with the same old rules.

Pitch clock

I’m pro-pitch clock and you knew that already. Jesse Rogers says MLB wants a 14-second pitch clock with the bases empty and a 19-second pitch clock with men on base. The league tested 15-second and 17-second pitch clocks in the minors last year, determined it was too much time with the bases empty and not enough with men on, so they revised it to 14 and 19.

In my Commissioner for a Day post I noted a) over 80% of the players who appeared in an MLB game last season played with a pitch clock in the minors, so this wouldn’t be a new experience to most of the player pool, and b) enforcement is key. Minor leagues that used a pitch clock saw the average time of game creep up in subsequent seasons because enforcement lagged. MLB has to implement the pitch clock and actually enforce it, otherwise it won’t matter at all.

But yeah, big fan of the pitch clock here, and I love the 14/19-second proposal. I was hoping to see a 20-second pitch clock in all situations. 14 seconds with the bases empty? That is music to my ears. I love this sport dearly but I hate all the downtime between pitches. It’s gotten to the point where intervention is required, so let’s intervene.

Larger bases

Bases have been 15 inches by 15 inches basically since the dawn of the sport, and MLB wants to up that to 18 inches by 18 inches. They used 18x18 bases in Triple-A last year and I haven’t seen anyone say a negative thing about them, though I admit to not looking all that hard. I have to think we’d know if there was a major problem with the 18x18 bases.

Larger bases are an easy yes for me. They make the game a little safer by reducing the potential for collisions, and they could promote stolen bases and more aggressive baserunning in general because the bases are that much closer together. Also, the 18x18 bases have smaller "ramp," which cuts down on hitters popping up off the base for a instant after sliding in. From Ken Davidoff: 

“The current base, if you don’t hit the front of it and stop, you’re going through it,” Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer, told The Post on Thursday in a telephone interview. “And this base is a little more forgiving in the sense that, if you hit the front of it, hopefully there’s more catch on the base. You can actually stop on the bag without popping off. Certainly that’s one of the ideas behind it.”

How is any of that a bad thing? Fewer injuries, fewer ticky tacky "was he off the base for a nanosecond?" replays, and more baserunning adventures is all a-okay with me. Also, this is a really easy rule change to roll back in the event it does not work as intended. Let’s do it. Next.

Banning the shift

I haven’t seen any specifics about what MLB wants to ban, exactly. In some minor leagues last year they tested two anti-shift rules. In the first half of the season the infielders had to keep both feet on the infield dirt. In the second half teams had to keep two infielders on each side of second base and the players had to have two feet on the dirt. I assume that’s the rule MLB is pushing. Two infielders on each side of second and feet on dirt.

Over the last five seasons, during which the shift has risen to prominence, the league’s batting average has declined from .255 to .244. The shift has something to do with that, but it’s not all of it (the league strikeout rate has risen from 21.6% to 23.2%). Here are the numbers in at-bats when batters made contact from 2017-21:

• No infield shift: .334 AVG and .300 BABIP
• With infield shift: .332 AVG and .286 BABIP

That covers hundreds of thousands of plate appearances. The near identical AVG and different BABIP tell us home runs go up with the shift (homers are not considered balls in play because the defense can’t actually make a play on them, so BABIP ignores them), which is a bit interesting. Are hitters trying to go deep when they see the shift? That’s probably worth a deeper investigation.

"I get the defensive strategies. I do. I am 100% not against that,” Joey Gallo told Jayson Stark (subs. req’d) recently. “... But I think at some point, you have to fix the game a little bit. I don't understand how I'm supposed to hit a double or triple when I have six guys standing in the outfield."

With all due respect to Gallo, he walks and strikes out so much that fewer than half his plate appearances end in a ball in play (combined 52.5% strikeout and walk rate since 2019), and when he does put the ball in play, it’s in the air close to 75% of the time. He doesn’t see the standard “second baseman is in short right field” shift. Gallo sees shifts like this …

… and I’m not sure how heavily we should weigh the opinion of a player who is such an extreme outlier. Russell Carleton literally wrote the book on the shift and his more recent research has found teams are probably shifting too much. They’re beyond the point of diminishing returns and are giving up more hits than they’re taking away, particularly against righty hitters.

I am generally against banning the shift because I don’t want to stifle innovation, but I understand there’s an aesthetic component to this, and the game’s aesthetics must improve. And at this point, I believe banning the shift is a necessary Step 1 toward everyone realizing it’s the pitchers who are the problem. They all throw hard, they all have nasty breaking balls, and hitters are lucky to see the same pitcher three times in one game or three times in a series.

So, ban the shift and make teams put two infielders on each side of second base with their feet on the dirt. Maybe it’ll help. It probably won’t, at least not in a meaningful way that adds more than a point or two to the league batting average (the anti-shift rules produced inconclusive results in the minors last year). At this point, just do it. The sooner we get around to realizing the pitchers are the reason hits are down, the better.

Automated strike zone

I can’t get onboard with this yet. MLB wants to implement ABS (short for automated ball/strike system) in the coming years and the technology doesn’t seem to be ready. MLB tested ABS in Low-A last year and the league batting average and strikeout rate held steady, but walks went way up. It’s like the league is actively trying to make baseball more boring.

ABS isn’t infallible, and it’s my understanding that when the system gets a call wrong, it almost always calls a strike a ball rather than the other way around. I guess I’d rather have more balls than more strikes (who wants more strikeouts?), but either way, it ain’t great. And occasionally you’re going to see something like this with ABS:

That pitch nicked some part of the radar strike zone, but for 150 years everyone agreed that was a ball. It’s along the lines of “that grounder up the middle was a hit before the shift!” though this is more egregious because it happens more often. We see a lot more breaking balls in the dirt than grounders up the middle. Point is, ABS still needs refinement. A lot of it. I don’t think it’s a year or two away from MLB-ready like MLB seems to think it is.

(Also, I straight up do not trust MLB with an automated strike zone. We can’t trust the league with the baseball itself, and we’re supposed to trust them with the strike zone? I don’t trust MLB to not selectively juice the strike zone in a way that benefits the league and its gaming partners.)

I’m glad rule changes have re-entered CBA negotiations, even if it takes a little longer to finish the deal. The game on the field needs to improve. The pitch clock and larger bases are easy yeses for me. I no longer have the energy to argue against banning the shift, so just do it. ABS? No. I can’t get onboard with that right now. Check back in a few years. The 45-day rule could be a bit thorny, but I’m happy attempts to improve the on-field product are now back on the table.

3. Remembering a random Yankee: Chris Carter. By request, this week’s random Yankee is a player who led his league in home runs one year, and was out of the big leagues the next. Here’s the random Yankee archive. You can find links back to everyone we've covered there.

Born in the Bay Area and raised in Las Vegas, Carter was known in scouting circles as a high schooler thanks to his mammoth power, though his unrefined hitting ability made him a project. The White Sox rolled the dice in the 15th round of the 2005 draft and Carter socked 26 home runs in 147 games in the low minors before his 20th birthday.

The true 80 power on the 20-80 scouting scale made Carter a desirable prospect despite all the swing and miss and positional concerns. He was traded twice in two weeks in Dec. 2007 and a third time in Feb. 2013. They were significant trades too:

• Dec. 3rd, 2007: Traded by White Sox to Diamondbacks for Carlos Quentin.
• Dec. 14th, 2007: Traded by D’Backs to Athletics in the eight-player Dan Haren deal.
• Feb. 4th, 2013: Traded by A’s to Astros in the five-player Jed Lowrie deal.

Carter made his MLB debut as a 23-year-old with Oakland in 2010 and he spent the next three seasons going up and down. He was a regular with the hard tanking Astros from 2013-14, hitting .225/.314/.471 with 66 home runs in 293 games. Houston phased Carter out when they returned to prominence in 2015, then non-tendered him after the season ($5.6M projected salary in 2016).

The Brewers lost 94 games in 2015 and needed a first baseman, so they gave Carter a one-year deal to be a stopgap. The $2.5M guarantee was a pay cut from his $4.175M salary in 2015. It was money well spent too. Carter rewarded Milwaukee with a .222/.321/.499 line and a National League leading 41 home runs in 2016. Alas, they lost another 89 games that season.

Despite leading the league in homers and despite having another two years of team control, the Brewers non-tendered Carter after the season rather than pay a projected $8M salary in 2017. It was the first (and still only) time in baseball history that the reigning league home run leader was non-tendered. The Brewers replaced Carter at first base with the more affordable (and more productive) Eric Thames.

“There were points where we thought we were going to be able to get a deal done but ultimately we were not able to,” Brewers GM David Stearns told Tom Haudricourt about the team’s efforts to trade Carter before non-tendering him. “The fact it had never been done before makes it feel a little odd, but ultimately we think the series of transactions we've been able to make over the past two weeks will benefit our club going forward. Chris did a really nice job for us this year. He was a valuable member of our team. I have no doubt that he's going to continue to be a productive Major League player and that he'll land on his feet with another organization."

Carter, then 30, sat unsigned until right before Spring Training, when the Yankees inked him to a one-year deal worth $3.5M with $500,000 in bonuses tied to plate appearances. It was an odd fit at the time because Greg Bird was (temporarily) healthy and Tyler Austin was still around as a righty hitting first baseman. Also, Matt Holliday was signed to be the DH earlier in the winter.

“I definitely started getting antsy probably after Feb. 1st. It was definitely tough waiting through the off-season,” Carter told Pete Caldera after reporting to Spring Training. “... I really don’t know what they’re going to do with me. My mindset’s just to get my work in and do whatever I can to be ready.”

As these things often do, the playing time issue took care of itself. Austin fouled a pitch into his foot during a live batting practice session early in camp and suffered a fracture that would require at least six weeks to heal. That opened the door for Carter to platoon with Bird, but because he was on the light side of the platoon as the righty hitter, he didn’t see much action.

Carter made his Yankees debut on Opening Day, when he pinch-hit for Pete Kozma (!) in the ninth inning of a 7-3 loss to the Rays and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Kozma was on the roster because Didi Gregorius started the season on the injured list. Ronald Torreyes filled in at shortstop, Aaron Hicks pinch-hit for him earlier in the game, then Kozma took over at short.

Bird started the season very slowly (1-for-26) and it wasn’t until later in the year that we learned he was playing through a small fracture in his ankle. The injury and poor performance led to a few starts against righties for Carter, who had a modest four-game hitting streak at one point in April. He managed to hit a triple as a Yankee before hitting a home run. Go figure.

On April 22nd, Carter hit his first home run as a Yankee and it was his most impactful moment in pinstripes. The Yankees were in Pittsburgh and they trailed 3-0 going into the sixth inning against Jameson Taillon and the Pirates. A Starlin Castro three-run homer and a Torreyes two-run double gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead in the top of the sixth. The Pirates tied the game in the bottom half.

The game remained tied going into the eighth and Felipe Vazquez got two quick outs to begin the inning. Then Austin Romine reached on an error, Torreyes poked a single to center, and Carter was sent up to pinch-hit for the pitcher’s spot. He jumped on Vazquez’s first pitch, a mistake changeup out over the plate, and hit it over the bullpen in center field. Here’s video.

“It makes you feel like you’re a big part of the team when you win a game like that. It was big for him, and it was big for us,” Joe Girardi told Billy Witz after the game. Carter told Witz about the homer: “You don’t really feel it. It’s just one of those good swings you take, like in batting practice where you hit a ball and you just don’t feel it and everything is right.”

Carter’s home run broke the 5-5 tie and the Yankees piled on later, so the home run is easy to overlook in what became an 11-5 win. At the time though, the 2017 Yankees were a team that was starting to become interesting. Six days later they had the huge come from behind win against the Orioles, and a week after that was the Brett Gardner homer in Wrigley. Carter’s homer was among the first “hey, the Yankees are good” moments of the season.

Following the homer in Pittsburgh, Carter went on a mini-hot streak (5-for-12 in three games), then slipped into a 2-for-20 with 13 strikeouts slump. He hit seven more home runs as a Yankee and they came in bunches. One against the Royals on May 16th, then back-to-back days against the Royals on May 22nd and 23rd, the Red Sox on June 6th and 7th, and the Athletics on June 15th and 16th. Here’s one of the Red Sox homers.

Bird was shut down with his ankle injury in early May and Austin did not return until late June. In between Carter hit .202/.297/.388 with seven home runs and a 38.5% strikeout rate in 43 games. Things got so bad that Holliday, Romine (!) and Rob Refsnyder drew starts at first base. The Yankees were running out of patience with Carter.

“We’ve struggled at this position the entire year. Carter’s had a better June, but as we look and evaluate Carter vs. Austin vs. any other alternatives, Carter still is the best alternative,” Cashman told Zach Braziller in late June. Girardi was less diplomatic: “It’s what we have. I think (Cashman would) like to come up with a better option if we had one and we don’t.”

Following an 0-for-4 with three strikeouts game on June 23rd, the Yankees designated Carter for assignment to clear a roster spot for Austin. That did not end Carter’s time with the Yankees! He cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Scranton, so he remained with the Yankees as a non-40-man roster player. Five days later, the Yankees called Carter back up when Austin went down with a wrist injury.

Carter went 2-for-5 with a double in Houston in his return to the Yankees on June 30th. He then went 1-for-12 with four strikeouts in the next four games, and that time the Yankees cut ties for good. Carter was designated for assignment again on July 4th, this time to open a roster spot for Ji-Man Choi. About a week later the Yankees made the big White Sox trade, put Todd Frazier at third, and moved Chase Headley to first base to end the revolving door.

“It just hasn’t worked out,” Girardi told Dan Martin and George King the second time Carter was dropped from the roster. “He’s had opportunities and he gave a good effort. We felt it was time to go in another direction.”

This time the Yankees released Carter rather than keep him stashed in Triple-A. He appeared in 62 games with the Yankees, hitting .201/.284/.370 (71 OPS+) with eight home runs and 76 strikeouts in 208 plate appearances (36.5%). It worked out to -0.8 WAR. It was the worst season by a Yankees position player since, well, the previous year (Alex Rodriguez at -1.2 WAR and Mark Teixeira at -1.1 WAR in 2016).

Carter has not played in the big leagues since being released by the Yankees. He finished 2017 in Triple-A with the A’s, spent 2018 in Triple-A with the Twins and Angels, then found himself in the Mexican League in 2019. Carter hit .293/.449/.709 with 49 homers in 120 games that year. R.J. Anderson wrote about Carter’s pursuit of the Mexican League's single-season home run record that year (Carter fell five homers short).

Now 35, Carter did not play anywhere during the pandemic season in 2020, and he was again in the Mexican League last year (.242/.324/.484 in 26 games). He is under contract with the Acereros de Monclova for 2022. Carter’s chances of an MLB return are tiny at this point, though he did make just over $11M in his big league career. 158 career homers and eight figures in earnings ain’t bad for a 15th round pick.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. According to multiple reports, executives with several teams reached out to MLB about canceling the Rule 5 Draft. Last week we heard many teams weren’t allowing scouts into their minor league camp so they wouldn’t see Rule 5 Draft eligible players who improved over the winter. Canceling the Rule 5 Draft isn’t fair to players who’ve already been buried in the minors too long. If team executives are unhappy opposing teams get extra looks at their Rule 5 Draft eligible players, I suggest they take it up with the owners who shut down the sport rather than deny kids a big league opportunity (even Rule 5 Draft picks who don’t stick get a higher minor league salary because they were once on a 40-man roster). How’s this for a compromise: teams get another protection period after the lockout and before the Rule 5 Draft itself. That way if, say, Matt Krook shows greatly improved control and the Yankees want to keep him, they get a second chance to put him on the 40-man. Otherwise eligible players should be given the opportunity to be selected in the Rule 5 Draft and put on an MLB roster. They should not be punished for the lockout … Anthony Castrovince has the details on MLB’s international draft proposal. It is needlessly complicated – rather than the draft order being tied to record, each team would be put in a six-team group that rotates through the draft slots (1-6, 7-12, etc.) on a five-year cycle – and the proposed set bonus for the No. 1 pick ($5.25M) is nowhere near the slot value of the No. 1 pick in the domestic amateur draft ($8.4M in 2021). I want an explanation why international players don’t deserve a) comparable bonuses, and b) the ability to negotiate an overslot bonus. I suspect I already know the answers to those questions though. I hope there is no international draft for many reasons, including the Yankees not being cut off from the best talent most years … And finally, Dan Szymborski ran the proposed 12-team postseason format through ZiPS to generate postseason odds (based on the original 162-game schedule). One extra postseason spot per league doesn’t move the needle that much, but the Yankees go from 74.3% to 83.4% to make the postseason, and 8.6% to 9.1% to win the World Series. Those are the third highest postseason odds in baseball behind the Dodgers (92.7%) and Astros (87.0%). The Yankees are not exactly a powerhouse at the moment, so anything that expands the postseason is good news for them. The last two years and the current roster tell us they’re more at risk of missing the postseason entirely than getting bounced by an underdog in October.

(Send your requests for Tuesday's random Yankee series and questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)