April 3rd, 2020: Lindor, Paxton, Hale, Opening Day, Mailbag

The Yankees were supposed to play their 2020 home opener yesterday. It was a gorgeous day in New York -- chilly, but gorgeous -- and that made me miss baseball even more. I hope y'all are hanging in there. Sitting at home sounds great until you're forced to do it. Anyway, here are today's thoughts. I look forward to the day we have actual baseball to discuss.

1. The Expos and the Indians. MLB and the 30 teams are going to lose a lot money during the shutdown and some teams will be hurt more than others. The Yankees are better equipped to weather the financial storm than most, I assume. The Indians probably are not. Cleveland's Opening Day payroll topped out $134.9M in 2018, the year after their attendance spiked following their 2016 World Series berth. It dropped to $119.6M last year and a projected $90.6M this year. Their television deal isn't great and the Indians consistently rank in the bottom third of the league in attendance, Revenue is always an issue and it will be an even bigger issue after the shutdown, and I can't help but wonder whether the pandemic will push the Indians into an Expos-style sell-off once the transactions freeze is lifted. Here's what Montreal did around the 1994-95 strike:

• Aug. 12th, 1994: Players go on strike
• Oct. 24th, 1994: Released Larry Walker to avoid his arbitration salary
• April 2nd, 1995: Strike ends
• April 5th, 1995: Traded John Wetteland to the Yankees and Ken Hill to the Cardinals
• April 6th, 1995: Traded Marquis Grissom to Braves

The Expos lost 29 home games to the work stoppage (plus postseason dates seeing how they had MLB's best record at the time of the strike) and GM Kevin Malone was ordered to cut payroll to compensate. Maybe the Indians won't have to cut payroll as drastically once baseball resumes. I hope they don't, honestly, because it would suck for baseball, but it is a possibility. In that scenario, I imagine the Indians would get serious about trading Francisco Lindor, who was slated to make $17.5M this year and would've been up over $25M through arbitration next year (who knows what'll happen now though). The MLB-MLBPA agreement ensures Lindor will still accrue enough service time to become a free agent next offseason, and he cut off contract extension talks before the shutdown. The Indians almost certainly couldn't afford to give him a $300M+ contract even before the shutdown cut into their revenue streams. It'll be all but impossible to lock him up now. Before the shutdown, a trade felt likely. Now it feels inevitable. The Yankees swooped in to acquire Wetteland when the Expos had to cut payroll and, as the local Francisco Lindor admirer, I can't stop thinking about the Yankees swooping in to get Lindor after the shutdown. He's elite in every way and the trade price shouldn't be prohibitive with only one year of control remaining. Look at the Mookie Betts trade, though Mookie's record arbitration salary ($27M) and the David Price component complicate that comparison a bit. DJ LeMahieu will be a free agent after this season, and although I think the Yankees will re-sign him, going into next season with Lindor and Gleyber Torres on the middle infield is a hell of an alternative. Betts and Price fetched two good prospects (Alex Verdugo and Jeter Downs) and a third player (Connor Wong). How's this work for a Lindor trade?

• Yankees get: Lindor and Carlos Carrasco (owed $12M in 2021 and again in 2022)
• Indians get: Miguel Andujar, Deivi Garcia, and Thairo Estrada

The Yankees get one year of Lindor and two years of Carrasco (plus an option for a third year), who'd help fill out the rotation with James Paxton and Masahiro Tanaka set to become free agents after this season (and Luis Severino still rehabbing early next year). The Indians get payroll relief, something they'll likely need after the shutdown, plus three cheap young players they can plug directly into their MLB roster (they have the rotation depth to part with Carrasco). You won't find a bigger Andujar fan than me, but you have to give to get, and it's not like the Yankees would be trading him for scraps. It's Francisco Lindor! I know that offer may seem light. Just look at what the Dodgers gave up to get Betts and Price though. The Indians probably won't have much leverage given what we know about their current cash flow problems combined with the financial impact of the shutdown, and while it's easily to think there would be a bidding war for Lindor, other teams may face cash flow problems too (including the Yankees!). The trade market may not be robust. It wasn't for Betts, weirdly. I dunno. Trading for Lindor is constantly on my mind and Walker's recent Hall of Fame selection had me thinking about the 1994-95 Expos. The parallels are there. Montreal had to cut payroll drastically after losing a chunk of their season to the work stoppage and the Indians may have to do the same following the shutdown, which would bring an already very likely Lindor trade that much closer to reality. The Yankees, as the ultimate win-now team, would be in great position to capitalize, just like they did with Wetteland way back when.

2. The latest on the Yankees. Now that my latest Francisco Lindor fantasy is out of my system, let's focus on the real life Yankees, shall we? Florida recently (finally) issued a stay-at-home order and the only players allowed at the Tampa complex are guys rehabbing injuries. Aaron Judge (rib), Luis Severino (elbow), and Giancarlo Stanton (calf) are "likely" the only players there, according to George King. (Stanton is technically considered a rehabbing player even though he's game ready.) Aaron Hicks (elbow) is doing his rehab work with a physical therapist at home in Arizona and James Paxton (back) is going through his throwing program at home in Wisconsin. "James is doing well, actually. Typically, in those early phases of the return-to-throw program, there’s a lot of just trying to feel your way through it. Obviously, this wasn’t an arm injury. It was a back surgery. But kind of carrying along with how he was moving in the weight room and getting proactive in his recovery timeline. The throwing program is looking similar to that. The ball was coming out with good life to it and the delivery looked like it was in a good spot. He’s been able to build on that in Wisconsin and we’ve been able to keep tabs on his throwing program. Overall, we feel really good about his progression so far," pitching coach Matt Blake told Brendan Kuty. I think we're all worried about the potential for increased injury risk following the shutdown. How could you not be? Pitchers are the main concern but it's not just them. Position players are going to put their obliques to the test once they start swinging with intent again. Here's what Blake said about the injury risk, via Kuty:

"I think there’s definitely a possibility of it. Just like any start and stop throughout the season. Anytime you stop and idle guys and then try and ramp them back up, that's where the concern would be. It’s that, if you do it too quickly and they don't have enough of a base of stress to kind of fall back on, that's when you might get to that threshold and kind of end up with some stress on the arm that's not prepared for.”

The Yankees set up a Google doc so pitchers can log and share their workouts. A Google doc, eh? Would've guessed the Yankees have some sort of elaborate proprietary system, but whatever works. "It’s nice that they’re monitoring it and there’s some accountability there," Adam Ottavino told Lindsey Adler (subs. req'd). Jordan Montgomery, who was more or less ready for the regular season before the shutdown, said he's been following what Gerrit Cole and J.A. Happ, two veterans who were also regular season ready, have been doing to stay sharp. Smart move. Say what you want about Happ's performance last year and his expected performance this year (I've certainly said plenty), but I don't think anyone has ever doubted his work and preparation. That's a good dude to follow if you're Montgomery. Aside from all this, there's not much actual baseball news right now. Players are figuring out ways to stay sharp without overdoing it, and, like the rest of us, they're waiting to hear when the season may begin. "There’s no playbook here. Nobody's ever gone through it, so there's no tried-and-true recipe to fall back on. You don't have your eyes on everybody. You don't want to be burdensome because we want to give them a breather. This is something very stressful for a lot of people and there are a lot of different circumstances. They're trying to get home and take care of their families, make sure they're healthy and then still focus on baseball. I think that we've been trying to be sensitive to the idea that this isn't normal," Blake told Bryan Hoch.

3. Hale released. In a surprising bit of news, the Yankees have released right-hander David Hale, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle. Hale threw three shutout innings on March 12th, the day the shutdown was announced, so he was released at some point while baseball was on hiatus. I call this surprising for two reasons. One, Hale did nice work last year (3.11 ERA and 3.32 FIP in 37.2 innings) and the improved velocity and spin are reasons to believe his success was real and not a small sample fluke. And two, pitching depth will be of paramount importance when baseball returns since the schedule is likely to be condensed. The potential for regular doubleheaders and playing regular season games into October, plus increased injury risk, is going to stretching pitching staffs thin. Hale can give you multiple innings and I had him on my recent 29-man roster projection. Seemed like an obvious fit for one of those extra pitching spots. Hale had a crummy spring (seven runs and 11 baserunners in 7.2 innings), though it's really just one terrible outing skewing the numbers, and the Yankees typically don't make decisions based on Grapefruit League performance anyway. Maybe he requested his release to go elsewhere? That wouldn't make sense given the transactions freeze. Hale spent 2018 with the Hanwha Eagles in South Korea and it looks like the KBO will begin their season in early-May. Maybe he's hoping to return to the KBO to collect real paychecks rather than trying to live on that $400 weekly allowance MLB is giving non-40-man roster players? Dunno. Otherwise I'm not sure why the Yankees would cut a useful depth arm with a condensed schedule on the horizon. The Yankees are pretty good at not just finding useful role players, but also moving on before it's too late, and it could be they didn't like what they saw out of Hale in Spring Training. I trust the Yankees when it comes to decisions like this. Besides, we're talking about a depth arm here. It's not like they non-tendered Chad Green or something. Still surprised me though. Hale seemed like a candidate for the 14th or 15th pitching spot on an expanded roster. Maybe the Yankees will re-sign him (again) and I'm sweating this for nothing.

UPDATE: The Hale release was a paper move. The Yankees have already re-signed him to a new minor league contract, according to Brendan Kuty. The release/re-sign was to rework an end-of-spring opt-out clause in his contract. "It’s just a paperwork thing. The Yankees were very classy about it and I think it was the fair thing to do. When those opt-outs came along, they were kind of pointless, with how Spring Training was canceled. Obviously, no one was going to use their opt-out. It was a pointless thing. So they were classy about it," Hale told Kuty. So there you go. Got all worked up about it for nothin'. (No word on similar opt-outs or release/re-sign moves with any other non-roster guys yet, like Luis Avilan and Chris Iannetta.)

4. Possible start dates. The City of Toronto recently banned all public events that require a city permit through June 30th. The ban does not include sporting events but I have a hard time believing MLB would play games in a city where the local government has halted their sanctioned events. The Yankees are supposed to be in Toronto for a three-game weekend series beginning Friday, July 3rd. Bill Shaikin says MLB has floated July 4th as a potential Opening Day and I can absolute buy the league targeting that date for a huge "baseball's back hell yeah America!" blowout, which would likely make the Yankees and Blue Jays the first sporting event in Toronto following the shutdown. MLB is currently shut down through mid-May and a July 4th Opening Day would mean Spring Training starts no later than mid-June. I dunno, seems optimistic to me, but I totally buy this as something MLB is kicking around. Matt Spiegel hears MLB is discussing a 100-game season with no All-Star Game and a neutral site World Series at Dodger Stadium (as compensation for losing the All-Star Game). I am unfamiliar with Spiegel and his track record with reports from unnamed sources, though this rumor sounds plausible. A neutral site World Series indicates the postseason will get pushed back into mid-to-late November (as rumored), so a 100-game regular season would have to start when, mid-July at the latest? Even with doubleheaders and regular season games in October, the season would have to start no later than mid-July to play 100 games, I think. Again, that seems optimistic, but I understand MLB planning for various contingencies. Ultimately, MLB (and sports) will return once the pandemic is contained to the required degree, whatever that is. The worst case scenario is resuming Spring Training and starting the regular season, and then having to shut down because a player(s) gets sick. It happened in Japan. NPB teams started spring workouts a few weeks ago and the league was targeting an April 24th Opening Day, then three Hanshin Tigers players tested positive for COVID-19 (including star pitcher Shintaro Fujinami), and everything had to be put on hold. That is MLB's nightmare scenario. Hard to see baseball returning in 2020 should a player test positive after the season begins. There is no reason to pretend this will be anything close to a regular baseball season. Wait out the virus, play as many games as possible while keeping everyone safe, and embrace the on-field chaos. If that means a 30-game regular season and a 30-team round robin postseason, so be it. MLB keeps saying they hope to play 140 games and there's just no way that'll happen. A 100-game season starting in July feels like the best case scenario to me.

5. Remembering a random Yankee: Oscar Azocar. Today's random Yankees comes by request and is a player I don't remember at all. I guess that's the entire point of this series, right? In my defense, I was only eight when Azocar wore pinstripes. We've already covered Erick Almonte, Nick Green, Aaron Guiel, Brandon Knight, and Blake Parker. The Yankees signed Azocar as an 18-year-old left-handed pitcher out of Venezuela in 1983. Despite a 3.31 ERA in 168.1 minor league innings through 1986, Azocar gave up pitching and transitioned to the outfield in 1988. He was not a good hitter -- he hit .275/.291/.373 in Double-A in 1988-89 and was hitting .291/.306/.412 in Triple-A when he got called up as a 25-year-old in July 1990 -- but he made a great first impression. Azocar had a pinch-hit single in his MLB debut and went 3-for-4 with a double and a home run the next day. The homer tied the game in the sixth and the double contributed to the go-ahead rally in the eight. He was a lineup mainstay after that. Azocar went 1-for-3 in each of his next two games and, five games into his big league career, he was the regular No. 3 hitter for the New York Yankees. This is the most of the time lineup the Yankees used after Don Mattingly went down with a back injury in late-July:

1. CF Roberto Kelly
2. 2B Steve Sax
3. LF Oscar Azocar
4. DH Mel Hall
5. 1B Kevin Maas
6. C Matt Nokes
7. RF Jesse Barfield
8. 3B Jim Leyritz
9. SS Alvaro Espinosa

"I like this lineup now. It's fun playing with Leyritz, Maas, Azocar, and Deion (Sanders). You see some serious talent there. And they've been impressive," Mattingly told Michael Martinez at the time. Azocar went deep in his first game as the No. 3 hitter and, 20 games into his career, he was hitting .350/.346/.500. Yes, a higher batting average than on-base percentage. You can blame that on one sac fly and zero walks. Azocar drew his first walk in his 130th plate appearance and the extreme aggressiveness would be his undoing. After topping out at .350/.346/.500 on Aug. 5th, Azocar hit .186/.204/.239 in his final 45 games and he finished the season with a .248/.257/.355 (70 OPS+) batting line and five homers (and two walks) in 218 plate appearances. One-hundred-and-forty-four of those 218 plate appearances came as the No. 3 hitter, or almost exactly two-thirds. George Steinbrenner was suspended for the Howie Spira fiasco in July 1990, so, free to build the team in his image, GM Gene Michael emphasized on-base ability and traded Azocar to the Padres for a player to be named later in Dec. 1990. From No. 3 hitter to dealt for a player to be named in a matter of months (the player to be named was up-and-down outfielder Mike Humphreys). Azocar played parts of two seasons with San Diego, hitting .204/.239/.240 in 242 plate appearances, before spending 1993-2001 as a megastar in the Mexican League. Here's a home run from 1993. Azocar was inducted in the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame in Feb. 2009. He died following a heart attack in June 2010. He was only 45.

6. Rapid fire thoughts. During an MLB Network Radio appearance, Yankees union rep Zack Britton said MLB and the MLBPA have "slightly discussed" up to "four or five" sites for neutral site games. My guess on those five sites: Angel Stadium, Dodger Stadium, Marlins Park, Petco Park, and the new Globe Life Field in Texas. Tropicana Field is horrible, but if it's the only option for neutral site games, MLB will go there. Minute Maid Park is really nice, not gonna lie, but I don't think MLB would "reward" the Astros with neutral site games following the sign-stealing scandal if at all possible. Looking forward to the Yankees playing home World Series games in Texas or San Diego, you guys ... Masahiro Tanaka is back home in Japan -- "I returned to Japan at the end of March. I have no symptoms now, but even so I could be infected by someone without knowing it. And my family could, too," he told Jim Allen -- and gosh, I sure hope players who left the country to go home aren't held up by travel restrictions when Spring Training 2.0 begins. Pro athletes and sports leagues have a way of skirting around such inconveniences, but these aren't normal circumstances. These are unprecedented times ... And finally, the Yankees announced a $1.4M "distress fund" for Yankee Stadium game day employees yesterday. That is the $1M each team pledged to help stadium workers plus another $400,000 the Yankees are including on top of it. Here's the press release. The program doesn't replace lost wages. Instead, employees must apply for assistance and demonstrate they suffered a hardship and can not pay for it, and the Yankees will decide who gets help and who doesn't. That application asks how much you spend on housing, food, utilities, etc. Means testing employees during a pandemic is incredibly gross and yet I am not at all surprised. Don't ever count on large corporations to do the right thing and provide no strings attached assistance to their employees in a crisis. They've shown time and time and time again they won't do it.

Mailbag Question of the Week

John asks: Question on the Cole contract. What's your thoughts on the shortened (or nonexistent) 2020 season and the Cole contract. At the time of the signing you were paying $324M for his age 29 through 37 season. Now it looks like you will lose part or all of his age 29 season. That obviously stinks because the real value of the deal was being able to get arguably the best pitcher in baseball for a few years of his prime. Now the Yankees are going to lose one of those prime years. How are you thinking about that and is that one of the biggest losses for the Yankees if there is no baseball this year?

Yeah, it's a bummer. The Yankees are losing some or all of Gerrit Cole's age 29 season, a high value peak year, to the pandemic. They're also losing Gleyber Torres' final dirt cheap pre-arbitration year, Gary Sanchez's age 27 season, Aaron Judge's age 28 season, and lots of other incredibly valuable peak years. Every team in the league is dealing with the same thing, but damn, that stings.

The Yankees are fully aware the last year or two (or three) of Cole's contract will probably be ugly. That's just how it goes. They were willing to pay that premium to add an elite pitcher in his prime to a championship core because the short-term reward is so great. I wrote it I don't know many times over the winter: 2020 is the club's best chance to win a title with his group given the ages and salaries on the roster. Now this year might be wiped out. 

There are bigger and more important things going on in the world, that goes without saying, but we're allowed to lament a potentially lost 2020 season, including the first year of Cole's 20s. It's a major bummer. It doesn't really change the long-term outlook of the contract for me -- the Yankees should still get a few years peak from Cole -- but yeah, it sucks.

Bonus Mailbag Question of the Week

Greg asks: What do you think about a one time use franchise tag if the season is ultimately cancelled? The Dodgers can't be happy if they loose Mookie Betts without him playing in a game. A one time use (as in only can be used next 'offseason') for players that were acquired, giving them a one year deal (with no trade clause) at an average of lets say the top 5 AAV salaries. 

I don't like it. This would really only apply to Mookie -- would the Yankees make James Paxton one of the five highest paid players? doubt it -- and I think the players should be allowed to become free agents. When you trade for one year of player, you assume the risk that it is a zero value year. Usually that risk involves injury or poor performance, not a pandemic, but this is the cards we were dealt this year. 

Maybe there's a larger discussion to be had about franchise tags in general. As a one-time thing this year as a result of a shortened or lost season, nah, I don't like it. Free agency is a hard-earned right and I don't like changing the rules on the fly to give teams another year of a player at a below market salary. Betts, even at the average of the top five salaries, would be underpaid. He's earned the opportunity to sign a $400M+ contract this winter and should not have to wait any longer. 

Bonus Bonus Mailbag Question of the Week

Brian asks: Let's get way ahead of ourselves and say the season starts at the All Star Break (I heard that idea somewhere) and they tack on another month of mostly divisional play in October to help sort out those races. November becomes the postseason. How will losing a month affect free agency and the offseason? Players are already signing later and later and with 40 man decisions being pushed back how will trades change? I can't imagine a shorter off season being used in anyway than against the players.   

We spend so much of the winter sitting around waiting for things to happen that I don't think cutting a month off the offseason would change much, honestly. Teams will absolutely try to use the shorter offseason against players, but a shorter offseason means less time to scour through alternatives, so it could help the players too. Clubs could rush into deals.

Set the Rule 5 Draft protection deadline three days after the end of the World Series and keep the offseason calendar the same as much as possible (non-tender deadline and Rule 5 Draft in December, arbitration dates in January, etc.) and just wing it. In theory, no November means January would be more active than usual. Teams are always going to look for ways to squeeze players. I don't think a shorter offseason makes it any more or less likely they will succeed.

(Send your questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)