October, 23rd, 2020: Tanaka, Torres, Kim, Mailbag

Some news: I’ve decided to put together an Offseason Plan post. Here are my 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19 posts. I didn’t do one last year because I was still feeling burnt out (here’s what I did instead). I’m up for it this year though, and I figure I can’t back out once I make an announcement, so here’s the announcement. I'm waiting for a few things (free agent contract predictions from MLBTR and FanGraphs, the list of minor league free agents, etc.), so figure it’ll be posted late next week sometime? Soon after the end of the World Series. Anyway, let’s get to today’s thoughts.

1. The cases for and against re-signing Tanaka. Hard to believe Masahiro Tanaka’s seven-year contract is up already, isn’t it? Feels like just last week we were obsessively following the rumors and waiting to see whether he’d actually be posted. Posted he was and a Yankee he became. Tanaka’s ranks these last seven years (min. 700 IP for rate stats):

• Starts: 173 (26th in MLB)
• Innings: 1,054.1 (26th)
• ERA: 3.74 (30th)
• ERA+:  114 (27th)
• FIP: 3.91 (37th)
• K/BB ratio: 4.76 (8th)
• WAR: +17.6 (24th)

Tanaka has been a top 25-ish starter these last seven years and he was great in the postseason up until this year. The Yankees didn’t win a World Series during the seven years but that wasn’t Tanaka’s fault. He was steady and reliable, occasionally great, and an all-around fun guy to have on the roster. It was money well spent.

“Obviously we enter the winter now as a free agent, he has another opportunity to enter free agency like he did when he left Japan and that is an unpredictable time how things happen,” Brian Cashman said during his end-of-season press conference (video link). “I thought he was special and fantastic. Everything we thought he could be, he was as advertised.”

Tanaka turns 32 in nine days and the guess here is the Yankees will try to re-sign him this offseason, though he’ll obviously have to take a pay cut from the $22M+ he made the last seven years. There are rumblings the Rakuten Golden Eagles, Tanaka’s former team in Japan, will try to lure him back this winter, though that seems unlikely to happen. The money is much better in MLB (Tomoyuki Sugano, the highest paid player in Japan, made about $6M this season).

The Yankees badly need pitching -- they have to replace Tanaka, James Paxton, and J.A. Happ this offseason -- and re-signing Tanaka is the safe move, and the Yankees are all about safe moves these days. Brett Gardner over Clint Frazier in the postseason was the safe move. Counting on Happ for innings in Game 2 rather than Deivi Garcia was the safe move (as was signing Happ rather than Patrick Corbin). Starting Kyle Higashioka over Gary Sanchez was the safe move. So on and so forth.

The case for re-signing Tanaka is pretty straightforward. He’s still effective -- he’s not ace, but he’s a solid mid-rotation guy -- and he’s a very smart pitcher who has shown he can make adjustments on the fly to remain successful. That pitching acumen figures to serve him well as he ages and inevitably loses velocity and a little bite on his offspeed pitches.

Tanaka has also passed every “can he handle New York?” test you could throw at him, and the Yankees value that. Perhaps too highly, but they value it. There’s value in reliability and predictability, and Tanaka is as reliable and predictable as it gets. He loves being a Yankee and he’s popular in the clubhouse. It just works. Keeping this relationship intact is an obvious move.

At the same time, there is a case against re-signing Tanaka. He will play next season at age 32, which is when you’d start to expect age-related decline, especially for a guy with this many innings on his arm. Tanaka threw over 1,300 innings in Japan before he ever wore pinstripes. He’s at 2,438.1 career innings right now. That’s Felix Hernandez and CC Sabathia territory through age 31, and those guys started to fall apart in their age 32 seasons.

Tanaka’s elbow is the elephant in the room. It’s been seven years -- seven years! -- since his partial ligament tear diagnosis and he’s had no trouble with it since. Is he any more likely to require Tommy John surgery than the typical soon-to-be 32-year-old with over 2,400 career innings under his belt? I’m not sure. The Yankees know Tanaka and his medicals better than anyone. If they run away, that’s a red flag for other teams.

Beyond his age and workload and The Elbow™, I think the biggest reason to pass on re-signing Tanaka is his splitter, which has basically disappeared the last two years. The splitter is his trademark pitch and it’s just not as effective now as it was a few years ago. The numbers:

Tanaka is still throwing his splitter at the same velocity and as often, and it’s still getting ground balls, but everything else about it is worse. More spin and less downward movement -- you want less spin on splitters to create that tumbling action -- fewer swings and misses, and more damage when hitters connect. When Tanaka’s splitter misbehaves, it moves side to side rather than down, and that’s been happening more often these last two years.

Things got so dire with the splitter last year that Tanaka changed his grip at midseason and that is a huge deal. Pitchers don’t change the grip on their signature pitch willy-nilly. Many do it only as a last resort. Tanaka threw only 13 splitters in his Wild Card Series Game 2 start and 11 splitters in his ALDS Game 4 start. Not long ago he’d throw 30+ splitters in a start like it was nothing. Now, in two important postseason starts, he threw 24 total? That tells me he didn’t feel confident in the pitch.

That Tanaka had as much success as he did this year (3.56 ERA and 4.42 FIP) without ever really having his splitter is a testament to his pitching smarts, his doggedness, the quality of his slider, and his command. Still, the best version of Tanaka has that splitter working, and we have not seen that guy really in two years now. He’s been fighting the splitter since 2018.

Whichever team signs Tanaka will do so hoping he rediscovers the splitter but understanding it just might not ever come back. He might be a slider guy now, not a splitter/slider guy. Tanaka’s a really smart pitcher and the fact he’s been unable to figure this out for two seasons now (albeit one an abbreviated season) is worrisome. This is an ongoing problem.

To be clear, this is not me saying the Yankees should not re-sign Tanaka. I’m just being an equal opportunity blogger and laying out the cases for and against re-signing him. I hope the Yankees re-sign Tanaka as long as the price has to be right -- the Happ contract (two years at $17M per year) is about my limit -- because I think he’ll either figure out the splitter or figure out a way to remain effective without it. It’s risky, no doubt, but in a free agent pitching market this underwhelming, I feel better about hitching my wagon to Tanaka than I do just about anyone else available.

2. Gleyber at shortstop. Had Gary Sanchez not waddled through his disaster season, Gleyber Torres would’ve caught a lot more grief for his underwhelming year. He authored a .243/.356/.368 (106 wRC+) batting line with three homers before redeeming himself in October: 10-for-23 (.435) with two homers and more walks (seven) than strikeouts (six).

Torres underwhelmed offensively and in the field as well. As the full-time shortstop, he posted -9 DRS and -4 Outs Above Average. That’s in 320.2 innings. Last year he was at -1 DRS and -3 OAA in 659.2 innings at short, and that matches the eye test. Torres looked worse at shortstop this year than he did last year while Didi Gregorius was completing his Tommy John surgery rehab.

“Regular, I guess,” is how Torres described his defense to Dan Martin in September. “... I had a little struggle in the beginning (of the season) but I feel confident. Errors are part of the game. I really don’t like to make errors, like I don’t like to strike out.”

Errors are not the best way to evaluate defense -- you can’t make an error on a ball you don’t get to -- but, in Gleyber’s case, they work pretty well, because so much of his defensive issues are tied up in routine plays. He boots grounders (like this) and makes off-lines throws (like this) on easy, routine plays. The plays a Major League shortstop has to make.

Torres made nine errors this season (five throwing, three fielding, one missed catch), tied for the fifth most in baseball overall and tied for the second most among shortstops. Only Trevor Story (11) had more and Torres had the same number of errors as Willy Adames and Trea Turner. He was second in errors but 22nd in innings at shortstop. It was entirely too many botched plays.

“I think for Gleyber, it’s about becoming excellent at the routine," Aaron Boone said during his end-of-season press conference (video link). "Ultimately that’s what separates really good shortstops from average to below average. I think, for Gleyber it’s about making that routine play, day in and day out. That’s what’s going to allow him to become a really good shortstop.”

Gleyber’s issues with routine plays date back to last season -- I mentioned them as something he could improve going into Spring Training -- but I’m not ready to give up on him at shortstop. Not even close. For the umpteenth time, you have to give young players a chance to improve. Example: Clint Frazier. He looked like a lost cause defensively last year and what happened? He worked hard at it and got better, and it happened pretty quickly.

Torres will turn only 24 in December and he still hasn’t had a full season at short. Last year’s stint at shortstop was temporary because Gregorius was on the mend. This season was interrupted by the shutdown. No one had a normal Spring Training. I don’t think it’s fair (or smart) to make a significant decision about a young player’s career based on anything that happened this year, and a position change for Torres falls under that umbrella.

Now, that said, I am not opposed to moving Torres back to second base full-time, but only under the right circumstances. Those circumstances: Francisco Lindor, the only reasonably available shortstop I would displace Gleyber to accommodate. Lindor is a star-caliber player and you do what you have to do to get him in the lineup. That’s a special case.

As loaded -- “loaded” -- as the free agent shortstop market is this winter, there’s no one I would displace Torres to acquire. Sir Didi is forever cool with me, but I’m not eager to give him a market value contract going into his age 31 season. The Yankees either should’ve locked him up to team friendly terms years ago or brought him back on a one-year prove yourself contract this past season. I don’t love the idea of giving him three or four years at this point.

Marcus Semien is presumably out of the Yankees’ price range this offseason. Also, it’s fair to wonder how good he really is, because right now that 2019 season appears to be a massive outlier. Andrelton Simmons does nothing for me. On the wrong side of 30, defense is starting to slip, injuries have been an issue, can’t really hit. That’s not the guy I’m pulling the plug on Torres at shortstop to get into the lineup. Freddy Galvis? Jose Iglesias? No. Come on now.

Unless the Yankees get Lindor, I would stick with Gleyber at shortstop and give him another season -- hopefully a full, normal season -- to show he either can or can’t do it. And if he can’t, then you look at that class of 2021-22 free agent shortstops (Lindor, Story, Javier Baez, Carlos Correa, Corey Seager) and adjust. Not all of those guys will hit free agency, but chances are one or two (or three) will, so there will be alternatives.

I think Gleyber’s tendency to botch routine plays is a correctable flaw -- that doesn’t mean it will be easy, of course, but it is correctable -- or at least more correctable than a guy who lacks the range or arm for the position. I want the Yankees to do whatever they can to put the team in the best position to win right now, while they have this core, but with Torres, I am okay with being patient and giving him time to improve. He’s too talented to definitively say he can’t do something at age 23.

“Gleyber is our shortstop moving forward and we’re gonna evaluate all circumstances that best fit us," Brian Cashman said during his end-of-season press conference (video link). "I think he’s capable of better defense in this really young year of his career. We will again game plan and discuss with all parties involved and if we feel something is a better way to go, then obviously we’ll discuss that. As of right now, whatever we currently have that we have controlled is, what is our best option. And if suggestions come our way from pro scouting or analytics, or development or field manager and immediate coaching staff, and we’ll evaluate those.”

3. Kim to be posted. Speaking of shortstops, the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization will post star shortstop Ha-Seong Kim for MLB teams this offseason, according to Jee-Ho Yoo. This was expected. Kim has been eyeing a jump to the big leagues for a few years now and last year Kiwoom reportedly promised to post him this offseason.

Kim, 25 this past weekend, authored a .314/.405/.541 (147 wRC+) batting line with 30 homers, 21 steals in 23 attempts, and more walks (12.0%) than strikeouts (10.4%) in 133 games this past season. He was a very good player from 2015-18 (112 wRC+) who really broke out in 2019 (142 wRC+) and carried it into 2020. Seems like a classic case of a guy getting into his peak years. Here’s video.

Depending who you ask, Kim is either the best player in KBO or the second best player behind teammate Jung-Hoo Lee, a 22-year-old outfielder who authored a .335/.398/.531 (141 wRC+) batting line this season (Lee is not being posted this offseason). Baseball America ranked Kim the No. 1 prospect in KBO earlier this year. A snippet of their scouting report:

Kim is a solid all-around player who projects to stick at shortstop. He is a good athlete with good instincts at the position and has the average arm strength to stay on the left side of the infield. He projects to be an above-average hitter and has enough power to hit 12-15 home runs per year in the majors. Kim is likely to face an adjustment period at the plate when he first arrives in the U.S., but he has the athleticism and twitch to adjust and eventually hit major league velocity. He is a plus runner who adds value on the bases as well. Kim projects to be an everyday shortstop who makes an impact on both sides of the ball and on the basepaths. He would be a Top 100 Prospect if he signed today.

For what it’s worth, Dan Szymborski ran ZiPS translations and says Kim’s numbers this year are equivalent to .274/.345/.478 with 29 home runs in MLB. The slash line is about what Dansby Swanson hit this year (.274/.345/.464). Here are the long-term ZiPS projections for Kim in MLB:

A 25-year-old +4 WAR shortstop is easily a $100M player on the open market in normal times and probably a $200M player. These aren’t normal times though, and all we have is a +4 WAR projection. There is no MLB track record here and the uncertainty will keep the price down. That’s just the way it goes with players coming over from Asia.

The posting period will run Nov. 10th to Dec. 14th this year. That’s nine days later than usual to accommodate changes to KBO’s schedule as a result of COVID-19. MLB and KBO agreed to a new posting system two years ago that mirrors MLB’s posting agreement with Nippon Pro Baseball in Japan. Here’s the posting fee structure:

• $25M contract or less: Posting fee is 20% of contract value
• $25M to $50M contract: $5M plus 17.5% on amount over $25M
• $50M or more contract: $9.375M plus 15% on amount over $50M

The largest contract ever given to a Korean player is the six-year, $36M deal the Dodgers gave Hyun-Jin Ryu back in the day and it’s not close. Second largest is the four-year, $12M deal the Twins gave Byung-Ho Park, who flopped. Jung-Ho Kang received four years and $11M. He was posted at age 27 and a more established star than Kim at the time.

Once upon a time it was believed infielders (like Kaz Matsui and Tsuyoshi Nishioka) had a more difficult time transitioning to MLB than outfielders (like Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui) because the game is so much quicker on the infield. I’m not sure that’s true though. Akinori Iwamura and Tad Iguchi were pretty good players. Kang was really good but was undone by makeup and off-the-field legal issues. The infielder narrative seems like selection bias to me.

The Yankees are really thin on the middle infield. They have Gleyber Torres, who is awesome, and Tyler Wade and Thairo Estrada, and that’s it. I hope DJ LeMahieu comes back, but until he does, we shouldn’t count on him being a Yankee. Even if LeMahieu does return, the Yankees could still use more infield depth. Kim represents an opportunity to get a prime-age player with upside rather than sign a 30-something free agent or trade prospects for a younger player.

Two questions have to be answered. One, what will it take to sign Kim? Unlike Shohei Ohtani, Kim is exempt from the international bonus pool because of his age (he just barely made the cutoff), so he can sign a contract of any size. Yoshitomo Tsutsugo’s two-year, $12M contract with the Rays could be a reference point in talks. The posting fee does not count against the luxury tax, but it is real money that has to be spent at a time when cash flow is hurting.

And two, why would Kim sign with the Yankees? Maybe this is a straight money grab and he’s going to take the largest offer no matter what. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Or maybe Kim looks at the roster, see Torres (and LeMahieu?) and realizes he wouldn’t have a clear path to playing time at shortstop, and decides to look elsewhere. I wouldn’t blame him. The Yankees would have to sell themselves to Kim. Free agency is a two-way street.

Looking around the league, the Angels and Athletics stand out as potential suitors for Kim (Andrelton Simmons and Marcus Semien are free agents), and perhaps Cleveland will jump into the mix should they take the plunge and trade Francisco Lindor. The Brewers, Giants, Marlins, Rangers, and Reds are also potential landing spots. I think Kim will be in demand and have his pick of competitive offers.

Everything I know about Kim is in this post, and based on the little I do know, I like the idea of seeing whether he’s open to playing some second and third base as well as shortstop. Get him into the lineup everyday, but I’m not ready to turn the page on Torres at shortstop, so he’d have to be willing to move around a bit. If not, so be it. If he is open to it, great, let’s talk turkey.

Ever since the Kei Igawa fiasco, the Yankees have tread careful with Asian players. They went all-in on Masahiro Tanaka and were rewarded. They were ready to go all-in on Ohtani, but that was a minimal financial commitment. It was zero risk. Other than that, they’ve steered clear of players who projected to be anything less than stars. They do their homework and want who they consider the best of the best, otherwise they don’t bother*. 

* The Yankees were surprised to win the posting for infielder Hiroyuki Nakajima in 2011 and wouldn’t budge off their offer because they liked him as a player, but didn’t love him, and Nakajima wound up going back to Japan.

I don’t know how the Yankees feel about Kim. They might see him as a potential impact middle infielder and make a serious effort to sign him, or they might see him as a utility infielder type and do little more than gauge his interest in New York. My guess is the Yankees will steer clear and focus on bringing LeMahieu back. I do find Kim intriguing though. Middle infielders with power and defensive chops are always worth a call.

(The Kia Tigers are expected to post lefty Hyeon-Jong Yang this offseason, according to Jee-Ho Yoo. He doesn’t really do much for me though. The soon-to-be 33-year-old had a 4.56 ERA and 3.87 FIP in 154 innings this season. Yang is a former KBO MVP but appears to be settling into his decline phase at this point. I would’ve rather signed Kwang-Hyun Kim and his wipeout slider last offseason. He had himself a fine rookie season with the Cardinals this year.)

4. Rapid fire thoughts. I can’t shake the feeling Kyle Schwarber is going to end up in pinstripes next season. The Yankees have been after him forever, the Cubs are expected to make significant changes this offseason -- “Is it an end? No. It is clearly a period of transition and crossroads? Yes,” Theo Epstein told Gordon Wittenmyer earlier this month -- and Schwarber is a non-tender candidate given his projected $7.9M salary. He’s a year away from free agency and he hit .188/.308/.393 (90 wRC+) this past season. I don’t see the Yankees making a trade for Schwarber, but once he gets non-tendered? Oh yeah, they’ll be all over him. They’ll push Clint Frazier aside and put Schwarber in left field no questions asked … The Gold Glove finalists were announced yesterday and two Yankees are among them: Gio Urshela at third base and Clint Frazier in right field. Masahiro Tanaka continues to get snubbed. Sigh. Also, Clint winning a right field Gold Glove before Aaron Judge would be weird even by 2020 standards. The Gold Gloves will be determined by statistics this year, which is kinda silly because defensive numbers in small samples aren’t very reliable. At the same time, the managers and coaches (the guys who usually vote on Gold Gloves) didn’t see players outside their regional this year, and that’s not any better. No good solutions here. In short, don’t get too worked up over Gold Gloves this year, even though Tanaka did get snubbed again … And finally, Joel Sherman spoke to Brian Cashman about the decision not to hold Instructional League. Cashman called it a “strategic decision” and “not a safe financial bet” given the COVID-19 situation in Florida, and the fact the team had two players test positive in Spring Training (the Athletics had to shut down Instructs because of a positive test). The Yankees took some coaches and instructors off furlough and are holding remote instruction, and there is a chance they hold Instructs in the Dominican Republic at some point. I hope so. So many players going a year with no real baseball is horrible for the organization and the sport in general. “I can’t even begin to measure how much of a setback that will be whenever things are back to normal,” Cashman said regarding the lack of a proper minor league season.

Mailbag Questions of the Week

Mark asks: My question for the mailbag is whether the Yankees should pursue trading Chapman during the offseason or even next year's trade deadline. If they ate some of the salary, I think they could still get significant value for him and perhaps this is their last chance to do that. His velocity is declining and he's had some notable postseason failures, but he's still an ace closer and therefore might have some trade value (though replacing him in the bullpen would admittedly be tough).

Aroldis Chapman has a full no-trade clause -- he would’ve picked up 5-and-10 rights next year anyway -- and that is probably the biggest obstacle to a trade. By all accounts he loves being a Yankee. If he didn’t, he would’ve tested the free agent waters last offseason rather than agree to an extension. Getting Chapman to agree to a trade may not be possible.

The heartbreaking postseason home runs are not a reason to trade Chapman. The declining velocity is …

… though that hasn’t stopped Chapman from being great. Give the guy credit, he realized he was losing velocity, so he started going to his slider more often, and then this year he broke out a splitter. Chapman is figuring out ways to remain elite even while his velocity declines into his mid-30s. Still, at some point you run out of adjustments, and it would be cool if the Yankees weren’t on the hook when that happens.

This was a weird season and it’s hard to evaluate Chapman based on 11.2 innings when he didn’t pitch in Summer Camp at all, but when he was on the mound, he was really good. And he’s been great in the postseason throughout his career. He has a 2.40 ERA with 62 strikeouts in 41.1 career postseason innings (the Rajai Davis, Jose Altuve, and Mike Brosseau homers are the only three homers he’s allowed in those 41.1 innings). The Yankees are in it to win it and I have a hard time seeing how trading Chapman makes them more likely to win in 2021 or 2022.

Hypothetically, the Angels, Braves, Phillies, and White Sox stand out as potential suitors. Maybe he’d be willing to go to Chicago given their Cuban contingent (Jose Abreu, Yasmani Grandal, Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert)? Chapman is owed $16M each of the next two seasons and I think that would be workable. The Yankees would probably have to eat a little something, but it is workable. Eat a little money and get an actual prospect or two in return.

The Yankees should listen on Chapman because they should listen on all players at all times. I have no reason to think he would be willing to waive his no-trade clause, and even if he were, I’m not sure how the Yankees replace him and come out a better team in the end. Saying they get to redistribute the money is easy, but even $16M ain’t much, and how do they do it anyway?

John asks: If the Yankees do decide to try to address the lineup balance, does Joc Pederson make sense? He has some of the most extreme splits in the game and could do some damage to right field in Yankee Stadium. He could slide into the rotation over Tauchman or Gardner and mainly platoon with Frazier in LF. I'm not sure if this would leave them without a true backup CF if Hicks goes down.

Yes, definitely. I think it’s fair to say the Dodgers didn’t give Joc Pederson a chance to improve against lefties -- he hasn’t had more than 57 plate appearances in a season against lefties since 2016 -- but, either way, the result is extreme splits and a top lefty platoon bat:

• 2018-20 vs. LHP: .207/.239/.288 (42 wRC+) with 20.5 K% and 4.3 BB%
• 2018-20 vs. RHP: .246/.335/.543 (131 wRC+) with 21.1 K% and 9.8 BB%

Pederson’s lefty pull power would play very well in Yankee Stadium and he’ll turn only 29 in April. This isn’t a player on the wrong side of 30 and into his decline phase. Joc can play all three outfield spots as well as first base, he’s a good baserunner, and he’s a great clubhouse dude who does a ton in the community. A true A+ makeup guy.

The Yankees could effectively replace Brett Gardner with Pederson. He’d fill the same role -- lefty hitting platoon left fielder and backup center fielder -- except be much better at it (maybe not defensively but certainly offensively), and also be able to play a little first base as well. Joc is an obvious fit for the Yankees. He’d go a long way to balancing the lineup.

The only question is money. Pederson will be either the second best (behind George Springer) or third best (behind Springer and Michael Brantley) outfielder in free agency this winter, so he’s going to get paid well. Not as well as he would have before the shutdown, but well. I don’t see the Yankees spending big on an outfielder given their current roster. Their big offensive expenditure, if they make one, will be re-signing DJ LeMahieu.

Dan asks: What about Jameson Taillon as a buy low option for the starting rotation?

It would have to be a very buy low situation, I think. Taillon has not pitched since last May because of his second career Tommy John surgery, though he was facing hitters as of last month, so I guess the rehab is going well. Still, two Tommy John surgeries is a big red flag, and it means he will have to be handled carefully going forward.

When last healthy in 2018, the soon-to-be 29-year-old Taillon had a 3.20 ERA (3.46 FIP) with good but not great strikeout (22.8%) and ground ball (46.2%) rates. That was during Pittsburgh’s “just throw sinkers” era. Taillon is into analytics and his spin rates indicate he could really be something with more elevated four-seamers and breaking balls in general.

Taillon is under team control through 2022 and the Pirates have spent so much time rehabbing him that they’re best off hanging on to him, and hoping he rebuilds value next season. Selling low at this point, when he’s so close to completing his rehab, doesn’t make sense. I like the idea but you can’t pay full freight for a guy with his injury history, and it doesn’t make sense for the Pirates to sell low now.

Benjamin asks: I can't shake the feeling that the Yankees will look to flip Clint this offseason. They've seemed to look for every excuse to keep him in the minors, and his value is as high now as it might ever be. MTPS, but is there a framework for a deal with the Royals around some combo of Bubic, Keller, Staumont etc.?

Yeah, I know the feeling. The Royals have a lot of outfielders (Franchy Cordero, Hunter Dozier, Whit Merrifield, Edward Olivares, Bubba Starling) but none are “this guy will be part of the next contending Royals team” types (they missed their chance to trade Merrifield for a significant package). Clint Frazier is a good fit for Kansas City, on paper.

The Royals have lots of young pitching and that’s presumably what the Yankees will seek in any Frazier trade. A quick rundown on their arms:

• LHP Kris Bubic: Pitchability lefty had a 4.32 ERA (4.75 FIP) in 50 innings in his MLB debut this year. A slightly shorter version of Jordan Montgomery. Under team control through 2025.
• RHP Brad Keller: Former Rule 5 Draft pick has a 3.59 ERA (3.93 FIP) in over 300 innings as a starter. It’s all grounders (52.1%) with few strikeouts (16.8%). Under team control through 2023.
• RHP Brady Singer: Former first rounder had a solid rookie year (4.06 ERA and 4.08 FIP) and did well against lefties (.298 wOBA), which have long been his bugaboo. He’s under team control through 2025.
• RHP Josh Staumont: Breakout reliever had a 33.0% strikeout rate with huge velocity and huge spin on everything. You never quite know with relievers long-term but he’s as good as they come.

I’m a big Daniel Lynch fan (MLB.com ranks him the third best prospect in the system) but he’s never pitched above High-A and he just lost a full year of development to the shutdown. That can’t be the guy to front a Frazier trade package. You need immediate help for the MLB roster, I think, otherwise just keep Clint. The Yankees will need him.

I assume Singer is not available, and if he were, it would take more than Clint to get him. Keller seems like the most realistic target and he’s fine. That’s all. He’s fine. After hanging on to Frazier for so long, I would be really underwhelmed with trading him for Keller (and even Staumont) at this point. Like, that’s it?

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