The Yankees and the 1992 Expansion Draft

The final week of 2021 has arrived and the owners’ lockout is ongoing with no end in sight. Baseball news is nonexistent, so during this week between Christmas and New Years, I’m going to switch things up a bit and cover two topics I’ve had on my to-do list for a while now. Today we’ll look at the role the Yankees played in the 1992 expansion draft (think of this as a Retro Week post) and Friday we’ll play commissioner for a day. Let’s dive in.

Background

As part of the 1990-94 Collective Bargaining Agreement, MLB and the MLBPA agreed to add two new expansion franchises to the National League, evening the two leagues out at 14 teams apiece. The two sides first started expansion discussions as part of the 1985-89 CBA, then they agreed to all the particulars and put the wheels in motion in 1990.

10 cities submitted expansion bids and were seriously considered: Buffalo*, Charlotte, Denver, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, Tampa*, and Washington DC. It was an open secret Florida would get one of the two new franchises, and the other would go to a non-Florida city. The expansion teams were awarded to Denver and Miami in July 1991.

“I am very pleased with the vote and happy to welcome Miami and Denver to the National League,” NL president Bill White said in a statement. “It has been a long and thorough process and we are sure the National League will be well represented by the ownership and populace of both areas.”

* Pilot Field in Buffalo and Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg were built specifically to lure expansion franchises. The Trop eventually went to the Rays. Pilot Field (now Sahlen Field) is home to the Blue Jays’ Triple-A affiliate (where they played home games this year and last). It is a Triple-A park designed to easily expand and accommodate a third deck in the event Buffalo ever lands an MLB team.

The Rockies and Marlins exist in part because the owners had to pay off their collusion debt. The union filed three collusion grievances during the 1980s and the players received $280M as part of a settlement. The Rockies and Marlins each paid a $95M expansion fee, so it was a $190M cash infusion. Here’s what former commissioner Fay Vincent told Maury Brown in 2005:

Well, I think it’s absolutely correct (we used expansion to pay the collusion settlement). Indeed, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. Look, each owner had a $10 million bill and there were about 26 clubs before expansion and 30 at the moment, then $280 million, let’s say $10 million a club – they didn’t have the money. So they did what most would business do, they sold stock, they sold interest in the clubs, in the expansion clubs. In my day two of them – Miami and Denver. And that money, which was vital, paid off their collusion debt. Without it I think baseball would have had a very serious time.

…

I remember one of the owners said, “(Relocating existing franchises to Denver and Miami is) the single dumbest idea I’ve ever heard!” But what he was really saying is, “We need the money to pay off the union because we colluded.”

So, the Rockies and Marlins were born out of collusion, and they were scheduled to begin play in 1993. They were able to go from being awarded franchises to playing games in only 15 months because the two cities already had facilities capable of hosting MLB games (Mile High Stadium in Denver and Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami). For comparison, the Diamondbacks and (Devil) Rays franchises were awarded in March 1995 but did not begin play until 1998 because Arizona needed to plan and build its ballpark.

Back in the day the American League and National League were separate entities, and when a new franchise came in, they could only select players from teams in their league during the expansion draft. So in 1968, the Padres and Expos selected players from NL teams, and the Royals and Pilots (they later became the Brewers) selected players from AL teams.

That changed in 1992. The Rockies and Marlins were both joining the NL, but they were allowed to select players from NL and AL teams in the expansion draft, though AL clubs were given a few expansion draft benefits. These were the expansion draft rules:

• Each team could protect 15 players in the first round. Players drafted in 1991 or 1992, or signed internationally in July 1990 or later, were exempt from the expansion draft.
• At the end of each round NL teams could protect three additional players and AL teams could protect four additional players. Teams could only lose one player per round (the draft was three rounds).
• Only eight AL players could be selected in the third round, meaning six AL teams would escape having lost only two players in the expansion draft.

The expansion draft took place on Nov. 17th, 1992 and was broadcast nationally on ESPN, plus the Denver and Miami markets had special local broadcasts. The Rockies won the coin flip to determine the draft order. They had two choices:

• No. 1 pick in the expansion draft and No. 28 pick in the 1993 amateur draft.
• No. 2 and 3 picks in the expansion draft and No. 27 pick in the 1993 amateur draft.

The Rockies took the No. 1 pick in the expansion draft and selected Braves righty Dave Nied. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked Nied the game’s No. 23 prospect a few weeks later – he was one spot behind Johnny Damon – and it was considered a shock Atlanta left Nied exposed.

"We went after what we wanted right away," Rockies manager Don Baylor said during the ESPN broadcast, according to Joe Posnanski. Baylor also immediately announced Nied would start Opening Day and throw the first pitch in franchise history.

The Yankees’ protection list

The protection lists were supposed to remain confidential, but Jerome Holtzman of USA Today (creator of the “save” statistic) got his hands on the protection lists and published them the day before the expansion draft. Gordon Edes reported MLB considered fining the team that leaked them $250,000, the maximum allowed under league rules at the time.

Holtzman’s original article with the protection lists is not available online as far as I can tell. The Los Angeles Times reprinted them and have them archived, thankfully. Here are the 15 players the Yankees originally protected heading into the 1992 expansion draft:

• Catchers: none
• Infielders: random Yankee Russ Davis, Pat Kelly, Don Mattingly, Dave Silvestri, J.T. Snow
• Outfielders: Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams, Gerald Williams
• Pitchers: Sterling Hitchcock, Mark Hutton, Domingo Jean, random Yankee Sam Militello, Melido Perez, Russ Springer, Bob Wickman

Brien Taylor (1991 draft) and Derek Jeter (1992 draft) were exempt from the expansion draft as recent draftees. Mariano Rivera (signed in Feb. 1990), Andy Pettitte (1990 draft), and Jorge Posada (1990 draft) were all eligible to be selected, though they were lower level minor leaguers at the time and not yet touted prospects (more on this a bit later).

The Yankees went 76-86 in 1992 (their most recent losing season!) and were not expected to contend in 1993, so they loaded their protection list with young players. Davis, Hutton, and Jean were minor leaguers. Hitchcock, Militello, Silvestri, Snow, Springer, Wickman, and (Gerald) Williams all made their MLB debuts in 1992. Kelly and (Bernie) Williams debuted in 1991 and had yet to play a full big league season.

Mattingly, O’Neill, and Perez were the only MLB regulars on the Yankees’ original protection list. Among the notables left exposed were catchers Mike Stanley and random Yankee Matt Nokes; infielders Mike Gallego, Charlie Hayes, Kevin Maas, Hensley Meulens, and Randy Velarde; outfielder/DH Danny Tartabull; and relievers Steve Farr and John Habyan. I assume a few of them were added to the protection list after the first and second rounds.

"There is no such thing as a perfect list," manager Buck Showalter told Jack Curry a few weeks before the expansion draft. "We are probably going to lose one or two players who someone in the organization did not want to lose. But we have to lose some. There is no way to prevent it."

Tartabull was an interesting case. The Yankees signed him to a five-year, $25.5M contract in Jan. 1992 and he was quite productive that season, hitting .266/.409/.489 with 25 home runs in 123 games. The Yankees were displeased with Tartabull despite the production though, so they left him exposed in the expansion draft. From Curry:

But there could be more to the Tartabull scenario than (an expansion team being unlikely to take on his contract). Despite his 23 homers and 80 RBI, there are team officials who are irritated by Tartabull's chronic injuries and who would prefer to see the Marlins or Rockies snatch away what they consider a $5.1 million-a-year headache.

How disastrous would it be for the Yankees to lose their marquee free agent after one season? They could sway any negative feelings by grabbing the $20 million they save, add another $10 million or so and put on the full-court press to sign Barry Bonds. Does that sound like a George Steinbrenner design to anyone?

Tartabull has heard that the Marlins might be interested in him because he was born in Miami, but the talk doesn't bother him.

"They're doing it from a business standpoint," he said. "It doesn't have anything to do with me."

Tartabull was not selected in the expansion draft and the Yankees put the full court press on Bonds anyway, but he signed with the Giants. They lost out on Greg Maddux too that offseason. He signed with the Braves. Anyway, Curry said the Yankees had “one of the deepest farm systems in the Major Leagues” at the time, and they did what they had to do to protect those young players.

"This is extremely important for the future of the Yankees," managing partner Joseph Molloy told Curry a few weeks before the expansion draft. "You could lose a player and have it affect the team for years."

Losing three players

Thanks to their deep farm system, the Yankees were among the eight AL teams to lose three players in the expansion draft. Nied went No. 1 to the Rockies. The Marlins used the No. 2 pick on Blue Jays outfield prospect Nigel Wilson. Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked Wilson as the No. 37 prospect in baseball a few weeks later. Mike Piazza was No. 38.

The Rockies took Charlie Hayes from the Yankees with the No. 3 pick. He was the first MLB player off the board. Then 27, Hayes hit .257/.297/.409 with 18 home runs as the starting third baseman in 1992. “I'm not angry. I'm just surprised and confused. To me, it seemed like I meant more to them,” Hayes told Curry about not being protected, adding he found out he was picked during the ESPN broadcast. No one with the Yankees informed him beforehand.

“I was hoping that they would take a prospect and Charlie would get through,” GM Gene Michael told Curry about the decision to leave Hayes unprotected. “We gambled a little. We gambled on young players. We thought that maybe he could get through the first round. It was a gamble. We knew we were going to lose somebody good."

Once Hayes was selected, the Yankees could not lose another player in the first round. The first round was completed, the Yankees added four players to their protection list (we don’t know who they were, unfortunately), then the draft continued. The Rockies took Reds infielder Freddie Benavides with the first pick in the second round. With the second pick, the Marlins took outfield prospect Carl Everett from the Yankees.

Everett, then 21, was the Yankees’ first round pick in 1990. They took him with the No. 10 pick and Baseball America (subs. req’d) ranked him the game’s No. 32 prospect going into 1992, but he hit .239/.310/.385 in 52 games around injuries at Low-A and Single-A. The Yankees soured on Everett so much that year that he was not among the first 19 players they protected in the expansion draft after the season. Pretty crazy.

The Everett selection meant the Yankees could not lose any more players in the second round. The rest of the round was completed, the Yankees added four more (unknown) players to their protection list, and then the third round began. And with the first pick of the third round, the Rockies took catching prospect Brad Ausmus from the Yankees.

The then-23-year-old Ausmus was a 48th round pick in 1987 and he wasn’t a top prospect, but he was regarded as an excellent defensive catcher who was almost MLB ready. He hit .242/.317/.313 in Triple-A in 1992. Ausmus was the third and thus final player the Yankees lost in the 1992 expansion draft. All three players were selected within the first three picks of their round, which is pretty good evidence the organization was as deep as advertised.

"When I heard I wasn't in the original 15 who were protected, I thought about being drafted," Ausmus told Murray Chass in Spring Training 1993. "But by the time I was drafted, I was very surprised. I thought by that time, I was protected."

Hayes was five years into a 14-year big league career at the time of the expansion draft (he of course rejoined the Yankees in a 1996 waiver trade and caught the final out of that year’s World Series) and Everett and Ausmus both went on to have long MLB careers. Because I’m a crazy person, I tallied up the WAR lost by each team in the 1992 expansion draft:

1. Yankees: +44.6 WAR
2. Braves: +34.0 WAR (mostly Vinny Castilla)
3. Reds: +27.7 WAR (all Trevor Hoffman)
4. Giants: +27.7 WAR (mostly Pat Rapp and Steve Reed)
5. Phillies: +21.4 WAR (all Andy Ashby)

That is career WAR after the expansion draft. I would have liked to limit it to WAR during each player’s team control years (Hayes was two years away from free agency at the time of the expansion draft, for example), but service time records from those days are spotty, and it would have been too much of a headache to go back and check it manually (not many of these players went on to have long post-expansion draft careers anyway).

Anyway, the Yankees lost by frickin’ far the most WAR in the 1992 expansion draft. Here are the full expansion draft results and here’s my WAR spreadsheet. If anything, that +44.6 WAR lost sells the Yankees short because Baseball Reference WAR doesn’t include pitch-framing, plus catcher defense stats are sketchy (particularly pre-pitch tracking). Given his reputation, Ausmus likely provided more value than his career +16.5 WAR suggests.

Hayes played two years with the Rockies before moving on via free agency. Everett went up and down in 1993 and 1994 before the Marlins traded him to the Mets for Quilvio Veras. He hit .271/.341/.462 with eight teams in parts of 14 seasons. Ausmus started 1993 in Triple-A, then was traded to the Padres in a five-player deadline deal that sent pitchers Greg Harris and Bruce Hurst to Colorado. He was a .251/.325/.344 hitter in parts of 18 seasons.

Trying to stop the expansion draft

Because they had such a deep farm system, the Yankees knew they would get raided in the expansion draft, and they contended beforehand that the draft should not be held. Then, after the expansion draft itself, the Yankees straight up refused to send Hayes, Everett, and Ausmus to their new teams*, again arguing the draft was illegitimate.

* Officially, the Yankees “revoked the assignment” that sent those three players to their new teams. Every transaction (trade, waiver claim, demotion to the minors, etc.) is an "assignment" sending a player somewhere else and the Yankees said nope, we’re undoing this.

According to Chass, the Yankees sent MLB four letters (three before the draft and one after) saying the expansion draft was invalid because the Marlins had not compensated them for territorial rights. The Yankees had a minor league affiliate in Fort Lauderdale (they held Spring Training there as well), and the Marlins were moving into their backyard. From Chass:

The owners of another minor league club, the Miami Miracle, sued the Marlins and the National League in October, asking a judge to enjoin the expansion team from participating in the draft because it hadn't compensated the owners for the Miami territory.

But Justice Shirley Fingerhood of New York State Supreme Court denied the injunction two weeks ago, ruling that the Miracle and the Marlins should enter the arbitration process that is provided in the Professional Baseball Agreement. The Miracle owners appealed the decision last week to the court's appellate division.

Both the Yankees and the Miracle owners contend that the Marlins could not be "included in any Major League," as the Professional Baseball agreement states, until they received "just and reasonable compensation" for their territory. Both have said the Marlins have refused to discuss compensation.

“We will respond in some appropriate amount of time,” Bud Selig, then the acting commissioner, told Chass. In their letters the Yankees said they “reserved their rights to pursue all possible remedies, including litigation,” according to Chass, meaning they could have taken the entire matter to court, which would have gummed up the offseason and rosters around the league.

“This is the first I've heard of it,” MLBPA chief Donald Fehr told Chass. “When they say the assignment is revoked, if the Major Leagues say the expansion teams are the only place the players can play and they show up, what are the Yankees going to do about it? Having said that, if there is something that has to be done with the Fort Lauderdale club, it should be done.”

On Nov. 23rd, five days after the expansion draft, Selig invoked the commissioner's “best interests of baseball” authority to prevent the Yankees from interfering with the expansion draft. It was the first time as acting commissioner Selig used that power, which had historically been used for such things as banning the 1919 Black Sox and Pete Rose. Here’s Chass with the details:

In his three-sentence letter to Molloy, Selig said the council had considered his letter and as a result, "has ordered in the best interests of baseball that the New York Yankees are prohibited from taking any action intended to revoke the assignment of the contracts of the New York Yankees players selected in the Nov. 17, 1992, expansion draft."

Although Selig didn't specifically mention litigation, some people who read the letter said "any action" and another phrase, "or in any other way interfering with the transfer" of the players, could include a lawsuit the Yankees have considered filing to block the expansion teams from getting the players.

The Yankees were unable to overturn the expansion draft results, but they did eventually win a territorial rights grievance against the Marlins. They moved the High-A Fort Lauderdale Yankees (and Spring Training) to Tampa in 1993, and in 1995 an arbitration panel awarded them $460,000 to cover territorial losses and moving expenses, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The Yankees originally sought up to $10M.

(As far as I can tell the Yankees had no territorial rights issues with the (Devil) Rays when they joined the league because the (Devil) Rays don’t actually play in Tampa. They play in St. Petersburg and apparently minor league territorial rights only cover a 15-mile radius. If the Rays ever move to downtown Tampa, the Yankees can seek compensation.)

Almost losing Rivera

As noted earlier, Mariano Rivera was left unprotected in the expansion draft. He signed with the Yankees as an international amateur free agent on Feb. 17th, 1990. The cutoff for expansion draft eligibility was July 2nd, 1990. At the time of the expansion draft Rivera was a soon-to-be 23-year-old who had 2.28 ERA in 59.1 High-A innings (42 strikeouts and five walks!) in 1992. His season came to an end in August when he had elbow ligament surgery (but not Tommy John surgery).

“A great moment in Yankee history,” former farm system head Mark Newman jokingly told Ian O’Connor in 2011 about leaving Rivera exposed in the expansion draft. “But Mariano wasn't even in the discussion then. He wasn't a consideration. We were just worried about losing three big leaguers in Brad Ausmus, Carl Everett, and Charlie Hayes in that draft."

The expansion Marlins hired Dave Dombrowski away from the Expos to run their baseball operations and, at Saberseminar in 2016, Dombrowski told David Laurila the Marlins planned to select Rivera in the third round of the expansion draft. The Rockies took Ausmus with the first pick of the round, however, which meant the Yankees could not lose any more players. From Laurila:

Dombrowski shared a fascinating what-if at Saberseminar. Had the Colorado Rockies not selected Brad Ausmus in the 1992 expansion draft (note: this was originally misquoted here as Rule 5 draft), Mariano Rivera may never have pitched for the New York Yankees.

Dombrowski was the general manager of the Florida Marlins at the time, and his club was planning to take Rivera with the ensuing pick. As fate would have it, the Ausmus selection “closed out the Yankees from losing any other players.” Had Colorado taken a player from any other organization, Rivera would have been a Marlin.

Imagine landing both Rivera and Hoffman in the expansion draft? The Marlins nearly did it, at least according to Dombrowski. (Hoffman was originally a shortstop and he was relatively new to pitching at the time of the expansion draft. He spent half a season with the Marlins before going to the Padres in the Gary Sheffield trade.)

Part of me wonders whether this is one of those fun but not entirely true “we were going to take that guy” stories. Albert Pujols was a 13th round pick in 1999 and you can find an article with a scout or an executive with just about every team quoted as saying “oh yeah, Pujols was on our board, we were totally going to take him next.” The Rivera thing might be like that. Mariano was exposed in the expansion draft though. There's no doubt about that.

“We got lucky,” Gene Michael told Joel Sherman in 2017. “... Rivera was available in the expansion draft and never got picked. Remember, Rivera wasn’t Rivera until he reached the Majors, and it is just lucky that we didn’t trade him before he began throwing well.”

What happened next?

The Yankees lost three players in the expansion draft who went on to have long Major League careers, yet they were four years away from a dynasty, so it’s hard to say those losses set them back. Of course, the Yankees didn’t know that at the time, and soon after Selig told them to knock it off and honor the expansion draft results, the Yankees tried to reacquire Hayes.

Their offer to Colorado? Meulens, who was also available in the expansion draft. Joe Sexton has the details from the 1992 Winter Meetings:

Today the Yankees met with Rockies officials and offered Hensley Meulens, the player the Yankees had hoped one of the expansion teams would have selected. The Rockies' response: Don't be silly, we could have drafted him.

The Rockies countered by asking for Sterling Hitchcock and Sam Militello, two impressive young pitchers, plus Russell Davis, a minor league third baseman. The Yankees said no to all three. The meeting ended shortly afterward.

The Yankees eventually gave up on reacquiring Hayes and instead signed Wade Boggs to a three-year, $11M contract. Boggs hit a career worst .259/.353/.358 at age 34 in 1992 and it wasn’t a popular move. Lots of folks thought he was nearing the end of the line, including some with the Yankees.

"If there were people who didn't think the signing was right, they will come around," George Steinbrenner told Curry. "Everyone pulls together once it is done. You're a company man. If you're not, you're in trouble."

Boggs revived his career with the Yankees, hitting .320/.404/.416 during that three-year deal, and he signed on for a few more years after that as well. Funny enough, Boggs and Hayes platooned at third base after Hayes rejoined the Yankees in Aug. 1996. It cost the Yankees some money, but ultimately replacing Hayes with Boggs was an upgrade.

The Yankees didn’t have to “replace” Everett because he was a prospect in Single-A. They didn’t even need a new No. 3 catcher to replace Ausmus because they had Nokes, Stanley, and Jim Leyritz. Those three combined to start 419 of 420 possible games behind the plate from 1993-95 (random Yankee Bob Melvin drew a stray start in 1994).

In Nov. 1995 the Yankees traded pitching prospect Mike DeJean to the Rockies for Joe Girardi, who a) Colorado took from the Cubs in the expansion draft, and b) gave the Yankees a defensive ying to Leyritz’s offensive yang behind the plate. Posada began to wrestle the starting job away from Girardi come 1998. Hard to say the Yankees missed Ausmus.

Ausmus and Everett were quality prospects* and you can get real nitpicky and say the Yankees should have protected both in the expansion draft, at minimum giving them higher quality trade chips to help prolong the dynasty. That, as I said, is real nitpicky. Hard to complain about four titles in five years. Keep Ausmus and maybe they don’t trade for Girardi. Keep Everett and maybe there’s no Tim Raines and David Justice. Keep (or reacquire) Hayes and there’s probably no Boggs.

* One future Hall of Famer (Hoffman) and 10 future All-Stars were selected in the 1992 expansion draft. Ausmus and Everett are two of the 10.

So many things had to go exactly right for the dynasty to happen. Change something – anything – somewhere along the line and the most likely outcome is fewer championships, not more championships. As much as it hurt in the immediate aftermath to lose those three players in the expansion draft, and as productive as they went on to become, I’m not sure the Yankees missed any of them at any point. It’s pretty remarkable, really.

The Yankees lost a ton of talent in the 1992 expansion draft, much more than any other team, yet the farm system was so deep and so good that it produced MLB’s most recent dynasty a few years later anyway. The expansion draft process was chaotic at the time though, so much so that the Yankees tried to stop it from even happening. They weren’t successful, and it all still worked out in the end.

"We got hurt," Michael told Curry after the expansion draft. "We knew we would. We didn't know how much. We knew we were going to lose good players."