The Yankees and the 2021-22 Offseason Calendar

UPDATE: I screwed up some math on the Gardner and O'Day buyouts in the contract options section. My bad. Doesn't really change anything other than a few numbers, but it's fixed now.

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The Braves are the 2021 World Series champions and you'll have to forgive me for tooting my own horn: I totally called Jorge Soler winning World Series MVP at CBS (here’s my reasoning). The Braves won the World Series, but I nailed a somewhat obscure World Series MVP pick, so who’s the real winner here?

Anyway, the 2021-22 offseason begins today. The Yankees have been in offseason mode for a month now, but now it officially begins today. Here is the offseason calendar and a look at what each date means for the Yankees.

Today, Nov. 3rd: Free agency begins, kinda
Eligible players (6+ years of service time) became free agents at 9am ET this morning. MLB used to make players file for free agency, which was a waste of time, so now they automatically become free agents the day after the World Series. The Yankees have only two free agents: Corey Kluber and Anthony Rizzo. (Andrew Heaney elected free agency after being designated for assignment a few weeks ago. He’s been gone.)

Sunday, Nov. 7th: Contract options, qualifying offers, injured list activation, free agency, Gold Gloves
Sunday will be a busy day. First, it is the deadline for contact option decisions. It’s five days after the World Series this year, not three. Not sure why. There are some exceptions (like Zack Britton’s 2022 club option last offseason), but most option decisions are due Sunday. The Yankees have three players with contract options this offseason:

• Brett Gardner: $7.15M club option ($1.15M buyout) and $2.3M player option
• Darren O’Day: $1.75M club option and $1.4M player option ($700,000 buyout)
• Joely Rodriguez: $3M club option ($500,000 buyout)

I think the Yankees decline all three club options. Rodriguez is a great left-on-left matchup guy but is limited by the three-batter minimum, and the Yankees need the 40-man roster space. Gardner and O’Day (who is coming off his second major hamstring surgery in four years) aren’t worth those club option salaries. They’ll be declined and bought out.

What happens with the player options? I’m not entirely sure. Considering the buyout, O’Day has a $700,000 decision. He turned 39 last month and he's thrown only 52.1 innings the last four seasons combined. Even if he wants to continue playing, he might be headed for a forced retirement.

Gardner's buyout is tied to the club option, not the player option like O'Day's, so his player option is a straight $2.3M decision. I guess it’s not inconceivable Gardner could decline the player option and look for more money. I mean, would the Yankees really balk at paying him $3M in 2022? I don’t think so, but you never know. Either way, I expect the Yankees to decline the club options and the put the ball in Gardner's and O'Day's court.

(I’m not sure how long Gardner and O’Day have to decide on their player options if/once the Yankees decline the club options. Britton would have had two days from the date the Yankees declined his club option last year, so I guess that’s it? I’m not sure. Britton’s contract is unique.)

Second, Sunday is the deadline for teams to tender their eligible free agents the qualifying offer. The qualifying offer is a one-year contract set at the average of the top 125 salaries in the game ($18.4M this offseason) and free agents who reject it are attached to draft pick compensation. The Yankees didn’t exceed the $210M luxury tax threshold this season, so here’s what they’ll get for losing a qualified free agent:

• Player signs contract worth $50M or less: Draft pick after Competitive Balance Round B (before the third round).
• Players signs contract worth more than $50M: Draft pick after first round.

Alas, the Yankees don’t have any qualifying offer candidates this offseason. Their only eligible free agents are Gardner and O’Day if their options are declined, and Kluber. Those guys are not getting a qualifying offer. They’d take it in a heartbeat. Rizzo is not eligible because he was traded at midseason. So, no qualifying offers and no extra draft picks.

Third, this is the deadline to activate players off the injured list. The Yankees have seven players on the 60-day injured list: Britton, O’Day, Miguel Andujar, Clint Frazier, Aaron Hicks, Tim Locastro, and Luke Voit. The Yankees will open two 40-man roster spots when Kluber and Rizzo become free agents. They’ll have to clear spots to activate the other five guys.

Fourth, the exclusive negotiating period ends and free agents will be officially free to sign with any team starting Sunday. Free agency is a marathon though, not a sprint. There won’t be a rush of signings on Day 1. I expect this to be a slower than usual free agent period (especially with the very big name free agents) because teams will wait to see the terms of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement before setting their 2022 budgets.

And fifth, the Gold Gloves will be announced during an ESPN broadcast at 8:30pm ET. The Yankees do not have any Gold Glove finalists this year. Unless you count Joey Gallo, who is a finalist in right field thanks mostly to his work with the Rangers. He played primarily left field with the Yankees. 

Aaron Judge should have been a Gold Glove finalist -- with his 30th birthday coming up in April, chances are Judge has already had his best defensive seasons, so he may never get a Gold Glove at this point -- but he is not. Dumb. The Yankees have not had a Gold Glove winner since Gardner in 2016. It’s a damn shame Masahiro Tanaka never won one.

Monday, Nov. 8: Awards finalists announced
MLB and the BBWAA will announce three finalists for each of the four major awards (Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young, MVP), which is something they have been doing for a few years now in an effort to generate buzz. I think it’s working? Hard to tell. Anyway, this year’s finalists will be announced during a live MLB Network broadcast at 6pm ET.

The Yankees have several awards candidates. Gerrit Cole will get plenty of Cy Young votes, though the best he can do is finish runner-up to Robbie Ray, I think. These are regular season awards, remember. Votes were cast after the regular season and before the postseason, so Cole’s clunker in the Wild Card Game will have no impact on the voting.

Shohei Ohtani and Vlad Guerrero Jr. are the overwhelming favorites to finish first and second in the MVP voting in either order. Marcus Semien has a leg up on the third place spot, and Judge is part of a large group who will get votes behind those three, and is not a lock to be among the three MVP finalists. The Yankees don’t have any Rookie of the Year candidates and Aaron Boone won’t get Manager of the Year votes.

Tuesday, Nov. 9th to Thursday, Nov. 11th: GM Meetings in Carlsbad
The GM Meetings are back. They were canceled last offseason because of the pandemic. The GM Meetings are intended to cover big picture matters (I assume foreign substances will be a hot topic this year), though anytime you put the 30 general managers in one place, deals can happen. The Hicks trade went down at the 2015 Winter Meetings, for example.

Thursday, Nov. 11: Silver Sluggers announced
The Yankees have five Silver Slugger finalists: Judge (outfield), Giancarlo Stanton (DH), Gary Sanchez (catcher), DJ LeMahieu (second base), and Gallo (DH for some reason). I have to think Judge will get one of three outfield Silver Sluggers. Judge, Cedric Mullins, and either Kyle Tucker or Teoscar Hernandez sounds right. I assume Ohtani will get the DH award over Stanton (and Gallo), Semien will get the second base award over LeMahieu, and Salvador Perez will get the catcher award over Sanchez. Judge figures to be the Yankees’ only Silver Slugger and that’s not a stone cold lock.

Monday, Nov. 15th to Thursday, Nov. 18th: Awards winners announced
Rookies of the Year on Monday, Managers of the Year on Tuesday, Cy Youngs on Wednesday, and MVPs on Thursday. The last Yankee to win a major award was Judge in 2017, when he was named AL Rookie of the Year unanimously. Each award will be announced during a live MLB Network broadcast at 6pm ET.

Wednesday, Nov. 17th: Player qualifying offer decisions due
Players who receive the qualifying offer have 10 days to accept or reject it, and they will spend those 10 days gauging the market. The Yankees don’t have any qualifying offer candidates this offseason, so this deadline isn’t really relevant to them. 

As a team that did not exceed the luxury tax threshold or receive revenue sharing this year, the Yankees will have to surrender their second highest 2022 draft pick and $500,000 in international bonus pool money (for the signing period that begins next year, not that one that begins in January) each time they sign a qualified free agent.

Friday, Nov. 19th: Rule 5 Draft protection deadline
The Rule 5 Draft protection deadline is usually Nov. 20th, but Nov. 20th is a Saturday this year, so MLB moved it up so it falls on a business day. Here are the notable Yankees minor leaguers eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this offseason:

• Catchers: Josh Breaux, Donny Sands
• Infielders: Oswaldo Cabrera
• Outfielders: Trey Amburgey, Anthony Garcia, Brandon Lockridge, Everson Pereira
• Righties: Barrett Loseke, Ron Marinaccio, Stephen Ridings, Matt Sauer, Randy Vasquez, Greg Weissert
• Lefties: JP Sears

I expect the Yankees to protect Cabrera, Pereira, Ridings, Sands, and Vasquez. 40-man space is very tight right now and they will have to make moves to clear space between now and the Rule 5 Draft protection deadline. They don’t have nearly enough free agents coming off the roster to make room for everyone. Trades (or releases) are coming these next two weeks and change.

Monday, Nov. 22nd: Hall of Fame ballot announced Here are the players eligible for the 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. This is not the day the voting results are announced. This is the day the ballot itself is announced. The screening committee will go through the first time eligible players and pick who will appear on the ballot, then release it to the public. This is the final year on the ballot for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling.

As for notable first timers, Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz join the ballot this year, so prepare yourself to see some selective morality with those two. I can’t see A-Rod getting in. Not after the longest performance-enhancing drug suspension in history. Mark Teixeira joins the ballot this year too, but he’s not getting in either.

Wednesday, Dec. 1st: Non-tender deadline and CBA expires
The non-tender deadline is usually Dec. 2nd, but MLB moved it up a day this year so it occurs before the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. The CBA expires at 11:59pm ET and the non-tender deadline is (I think) 8pm ET. A bunch of poor saps are going to get non-tendered and then locked out in the span of four hours or so. Rough.

Let’s go chronologically. The Yankees have several non-tender candidates: Andujar, Frazier, Locastro, Sanchez, Voit, and Lucas Luetge, most notably. Some are more likely to be non-tendered than others, but I wouldn’t call any one of those six players safe. Not with 40-man space so tight and all except Luetge seeing their stock slip in one way or another.

As for the CBA, there has been speculation commissioner Rob Manfred’s plan is to let the CBA expire, lock the players out until late January or early February, then agree to a new deal and condense free agency into a two-week mad dash before Spring Training. That will hurt the union and suppress salaries. Again, only speculation, but it sounds Manfredian, no?

“I’m a believer in the process. We’re meeting on a regular basis, and I’m hopeful we find a way to get an agreement by Dec. 1st,” Manfred told James Wagner about CBA talks a few days ago, which is really the only thing he can say publicly. “The most important point is I know our clubs are 100% committed to the idea that they want an agreement by Dec. 1st.”

If there is a lockout, MLB can (officially or unofficially) implement a transactions freeze, though that didn’t happen during the 1994-95 strike. As Murray Chass reported, George Steinbrenner signed Paul O’Neill to a four-year, $19M extension in Oct. 1994 with a $1.2M signing bonus payment due in Dec. 1994, and it pissed off the other owners. Transactions may be possible.

That said, teams love nothing more than a reason not to spend, and I suspect it will be a very slow first few weeks of the offseason as teams await the CBA. They will claim they want to know the CBA terms before committing future payroll. That’s not unreasonable! But I have a hard time taking anything Manfred or the owners say at face value. They lie constantly.

In a screwed up way, the pandemic may have saved us from a work stoppage that extends into next season and forces games to be canceled (Spring Training could be shortened, however). Both MLB and the MLBPA love money too much to have a third straight compromised season. Because of that, I’m optimistic there will be a new CBA in place for the start of next season. The offseason might be a complete mess though.

11:59pm ET on Dec. 1st. That’s when the CBA expires and it is perhaps the most important date in baseball in the last 26 years or so. From this point forward, all the important deadlines and events listed are subject to change pending the new CBA.

Monday, Dec. 6th to Thursday, Dec. 9th: Winter Meetings in Orlando
The GM Meetings are back and so are the Winter Meetings. They were virtual last year because of the pandemic and they were surprisingly busy, though nothing is quite like the hustle and bustle of the actual Winter Meetings. They are traditionally the busiest days of the offseason, with lots of signings and trades and rumors. Cole and CC Sabathia were Winter Meetings signings, and the Stanton trade happened at the Winter Meetings too. If the Yankees do something big this offseason, it’ll probably happen in Orlando.

(Bill Madden recently reported the Winter Meetings have already been canceled in anticipation of a work stoppage, but that’s wrong. They haven’t been canceled yet. In fact, MLB sent out the media credential application information Monday. That doesn’t mean the Winter Meetings can’t be canceled at some point, just that they haven’t been canceled yet.)

Thursday, Dec. 9th: Rule 5 Draft
The Rule 5 Draft is the unofficial end of the Winter Meetings. Everyone heads home afterward. The Yankees will lose a player or two this year because they always lose a player or two -- last year they lost Garrett Whitlock to the Red Sox and it is their most egregious Rule 5 Draft loss maybe ever -- but don’t expect them to select a player. The 40-man is tight and the Yankees haven’t taken a player in the Rule 5 Draft since random Yankee Cesar Cabral (and Brad Meyer) in 2011. This is typically not a place they look for talent.

Friday, Jan. 14th: Arbitration filing deadline
This is the deadline for teams and their arbitration-eligible players to file salary figures for next season. The player files what he believes he should be paid and the team files what they believe he should be paid. This is just the filing deadline and the two sides can still work out a contract of any size after this date.

That said, most teams are file-and-trial these days, meaning they use the filing deadline as a hard deadline, and cut off contract talks after this date. That puts pressure on the player to sign, and I should note the vast majority of arbitration-eligible players agree to contracts prior to the filing deadline. That has always been the case, even before the file-and-trial days. Only a handful actually file each year. The Yankees have 19 (!) arbitration-eligible players this winter.

Saturday, Jan. 15th: International signing period opens
What is technically the 2021-22 international signing period will open on this date. MLB and the MLB agreed to push back the 2020-21 and 2021-22 signings period because of the pandemic (the signing period usually opens July 2nd each year), and my guess is the upcoming CBA will include an international draft. This offseason may be the last time we see true international free agency, where you can pursue any player.

The Yankees will have a $5,232,700 bonus pool this signing period (teams can not trade for additional bonus pool space now) and they are expected to sign Dominican shortstop Roderick Arias to a $4M or so bonus. That won’t leave them much to spend on other players, but a) Arias is arguably the top prospect available, and b) the Yankees are pretty good at finding lower cost under-the-radar prospects, so I trust they’ll turn their non-Arias dollars into something interesting.

Thursday, Jan. 20th: 2022 Hall of Fame class announced
No players were voted into the Hall of Fame last year and there’s a pretty good chance Ortiz will be the only player voted in this year. I guess Schilling could get in because players usually get a bump in support their final year on the ballot (he was 16 votes short last year), but he was such a baby about missing out last year that I don’t think he will. A-Rod and Clemens are the only former Yankees with a chance to get in and I don’t think either makes it.

Monday, Jan. 31st to Friday, Feb. 18th: Arbitration hearings
If the team and player can’t agree to a contract, they’ll argue their cases in front of a three-person arbitration panel, and the panel will pick either the salary the player filed or the salary the team filed. Nothing in between. The two sides can continue to negotiate a contract up until a hearing, and heck, they can even rip up the panel’s ruling and agree to a contract after a hearing, though that’s unusual. The two sides are typically done talking once they file.

The Yankees last went to an arbitration hearing with Dellin Betances in 2017. Before that, their last hearing was with Chien-Ming Wang in 2008. The Yankees and Luis Severino were minutes away from a hearing three years ago when they agreed to his four-year extension. As always, bet against the Yankees going to a hearing. They have been more willing to do so in recent years, but I still wouldn’t expect one. Both sides are motivated to avoid a hearing.

Mid-February: Spring Training begins
The Yankees begin their Grapefruit League season with a pair of split squad games against the Orioles and Phillies on Saturday, Feb. 26th. They haven’t announced their reporting dates yet, but pitchers and catchers typically report 10 days before the first exhibition game, so figure Wednesday, Feb. 16th. Position players will then report 4-5 days later.

Here is the Spring Training schedule. The Yankees will play 32 Grapefruit League games in Florida and then a two-game home-and-home exhibition series with the Mets to close out Spring Training. That’ll be fun. The Yankees were supposed to play two exhibition games against the Blue Jays in Montreal two years ago, but the pandemic put a stop to that. I was hoping they’d go this year. Instead, two games against the Mets.

Thursday, March 31st: Opening Day!
With any luck, the offseason and all the CBA ugliness will be over, and the 2022 regular season will begin as scheduled. The Yankees open 2022 on the road with a six-game trip through Texas (Rangers then Astros). The home opener is Thursday, April 7th against the Red Sox. Here is the full 2022 schedule.