The Yankees decided to rebuild nearly their entire rotation with injury-prone arms that haven’t pitched in two years.
No one knows when spring training will begin or when the regular season will begin, but we’re getting closer to Yankees baseball returning, whenever that might be.
Scott Reinen of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the state of the Yankees as spring training approaches, including the Yankees’ decision to stay under the luxury-tax threshold, saying goodbye to Adam Ottavino and Masahiro Tanaka, bringing back the same exact lineup and why an expanded postseason field will ruin the regular season.
I’m going to miss Masahiro Tanaka, and if the Yankees’ rotation gamble doesn’t pay off, they’ll miss him as well.
When the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 1993, they signed CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett, spent $423.5 million, won 103 regular-season games and won the 2009 World Series.
So when the Yankees missed the playoffs again five years later after watching Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells fill out the heart of their order for the majority of the season and the Red Sox win the World Series, they decided to do what they had done the last time to resolve the issue. Instead of worrying about the $189 million goal, the Yankees signed Brian McCann ($85 million) and Jacoby Ellsbury ($153 million) and after losing Robinson Cano to the Mariners, they signed Carlos Beltran ($45 million). Then they went out and signed Masahiro Tanaka to a seven-year, $155 million contract despite him having never thrown a pitch in the majors.
The Yankees’ strategy of getting back into contention by monopolizing the free-agent market didn’t work the second time around. After being a .277/.350/.473 hitter for the Braves over eight-plus seasons, McCann became a .235/.313/.418 on the other side of 30 for the Yankees. The Yankees eventually paid him to play the last two years of his contract for the Astros (and help beat them with a huge double in the ALCS). Ellsbury turned out to be the worst contract in the history of the team and possibly the sport. Of a possible 1,134 regular-season games, he appeared in 520 (46 percent) over seven years. He was benched for the wild-card game in 2015 and lost his starting spot by the time the 2017 playoff run came. He never played another game for the Yankees after 2017. Beltran’s first season with the Yankees was what you would expect from a 37-year-old right fielder in his 15th season: a disaster, posting a .703 OPS. The next year he was better (.808 OPS) and then at age 39 in 2016, he was his old self (.890 OPS). The Yankees traded him to the Rangers at the 2016 deadline and the following year at 40, he celebrated an elusive championship with McCann as an Astro.
Tanaka was the only one of the bunch to live up to his contract (and then some). He was the only one to either play out his entire contract with the Yankees (McCann and Beltran) or play it out period (the Yankees released Ellsbury).
Tanaka was the perfect Yankee. Good, consistent, accountable and likable. He took each start as seriously as someone making somewhere around $700,000 per start should. He might have never had his best stuff, but he never took a start off, working to grind through the outings when he couldn’t locate his fastball or when he didn’t have a feel for his offspeed stuff. He expected to win every fifth day, and he expected perfection from himself in an imperfect game.
In his first year in the majors, Tanaka was arguably the best pitcher in the league before an elbow tear disrupted his season. The New York media with their medical degrees argued he should undergo Tommy John surgery and just get it over with as if it were the equivalent of having a cavity filled, while the world’s leading orthopedic surgeons and sports medicine doctors recommended rest and rehab. Tanaka listened to the doctors over the sloppy sportswriters and went on to return at the end of the season and pitch six more seasons for the Yankees with the elbow tear.
Post-elbow tear, Tanaka wasn’t the same pitcher. He was still really, good and reliable, he was just no longer in the same class as the game’s top names. The postseason was a different story. For as pedestrian as Tanaka might look at times over a full season worth of starts, October was where he was truly at his best.
In the 2015 wild-card game, Tanaka pitched well (5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, 2 HR) against a young Astros team on the verge of becoming a championship team. Tanaka was never going to win that game as he was set up to lose with the offense facing their kryptonite at the time in Dallas Keuchel. The game could still be going on and the Yankees still wouldn’t have scored.
He saved the Yankees’ season in 2017 in Game 3 of the ALDS. Facing elimination at home, Tanaka shut out the 102-win Indians for seven innings (7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K). He followed that up by pitching good enough to win in Houston in Game 1 of the ALCS at the height of the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme (6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K). Five days later in Game 5, he shut out the Astros at Yankee Stadium the way he had the Indians a round earlier (7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K).
A year later when the Yankees were embarrassed by the Red Sox in the 2018 ALDS, it wasn’t because of Tanaka. He won the only game the Yankees won in the series with a series-saving performance (at the time) in Game 2 in Boston: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HR. He had swung home-field advantage in the series in the Yankees’ favor. It’s not his fault his teammates, and mainly Aaron Boone, ruined that advantage the next two games.
In the 2019 postseason, Tanaka was tasked with facing the Twins who had set the all-time record for home runs in a season (307) at homer-happy Yankee Stadium. He held the Twins homerless in his five stellar innings (5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K). A week later in Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS, back in Houston for a rematch, Tanaka shut out the Astros, holding them to one hit over six innings (6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K). The Astros got to him in Game 4 (5 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 HR) as his historical postseason performance finally had its first blip.
This past October, Tanaka didn’t look himself. In Game 2 of the wild-card series against the Indians, he allowed three doubles and four earned runs in the first inning in the pouring in an inning that would eventually would be paused and delayed for hurricane-like conditions. The Yankees came back to win the Game 10-9 to prevent that from being Tanaka’s last start as a Yankee. Boone’s idiotic managing push Tanaka from getting the ball in Game 2 of the ALDS to Game 3, so Boone’s could unleash his genius J.A. Happ plan. Tanaka struggled again, putting the Yankees on the brink of elimination (4 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 2 HR).
I didn’t think that would be the last time Tanaka would pitch for the Yankees. Even though he was an impending free agent, there seemed to be mutual interest for both he and the Yankees to continue the relationship. The Yankees were also losing Happ and Paxton to free agency, Luis Severino wouldn’t be back until mid-2021 (at the earliest), and the Yankees’ lack of starting pitching made a Tanaka reunion appear inevitable. Yet somehow, it didn’t work out.
The Yankees chose to sign the once-dominant Corey Kluber but now a virtual unknown to a one-year deal, and they decided to trade for another unknown in Jameson Taillon. Those moves coupled with Hal Steinbrenner’s desperation to stay under the $210 million luxury-tax threshold meant the end for Tanaka.
Tanaka likely set a price for himself, and if the Yankees weren’t going to meet it, he would return home to Japan to pitch. It was either going to be th Yankees or Japan. He wasn’t going to pitch for another team in North America and he wasn’t going to pitch for less than his worth just to remain a Yankee. The allure of going home and living in Japan full time likely made it easier for him to accept the Yankees’ decision to move on.
The Yankees’ 2021 rotation is an enormous gamble with Gerrit Cole being the only reliable arm. When Severino returns (whenever that might be), he will be coming off Tommy John surgery, which was preceded by a lat issue, which was preceded by a shoulder issue. Kluber is coming back from a shoulder injury. Taillon is coming back from his second Tommy John surgery. Jordan Montgomery is 52 innings removed from Tommy John surgery. Since the start of the 2019 season, Severino has made five starts and has thrown 20 1/3 (and again, he won’t be available until midseason), Kluber has made eight starts and thrown 36 2/3 innings, Taillon has made seven starts and thrown 37 1/3 innings and Montgomery has made 12 starts and thrown 52 innings. After that, there’s Deivi Garcia and his six career starts (seven if you count whatever Game 2 of the ALDS was), and Clarke Schmidt and his one career start.
The Yankees strategy for 2021 is praying a lot of things go right for them. They’re hoping to hit on both Kluber and Taillon, hoping Severino comes back healthy from surgery and three injuries and is immediately his old self, not needing the seemingly mandatory time and innings to regain form after surgery. They’re hoping the team that set the all-time single-season record for players on the injured list in 2019 and the team that was equally as injured and unhealthy in 2020 is suddenly healthier despite being a year older.
The Yankees wouldn’t have to worry about Tanaka. Sure, any pitcher can get hurt on any pitch at any moment, but Tanaka had been a model of consistency for the Yankees. Even with his elbow injury in 2014 and missed time in 2015, he still made 44 starts in those two seasons and had made 31, 30, 27 and 31 starts from 2016 through 2019 respectively. This past season he made all 10 of his starts. Without his feel for his signature pitch, Tanaka’s ceiling might not be what Kluber or Taillon’s are when healthy, but who knows if they will be healthy. With Tanaka, the Yankees knew who would be getting the ball when his turn came up each time through the rotation, yet they chose two lottery tickets over a guaranteed paycheck.
Tanaka became a Yankee because the team missing the postseason in a season in which the Red Sox won the World Series was too much for Steinbrenner to keep his team’s payroll under the luxury-tax threshold. Apparently, 11 straight years without a World Series appearance, let alone a championship, and coming off an ALDS exit with one reliable starting pitcher in the rotation isn’t enough for Steinbrenner to change his mind again, and as a result, Tanaka is no longer a Yankee because of the luxury-tax threshold.
I’m going to miss Tanaka, and when the Yankees’ season actually begins (whenever that might be) I will miss him even more. If the Yankees’ rotation gamble doesn’t pay off, they’ll miss him as well.
A lot has happened this week. It was easily the busiest week for the Yankees this offseason as the team made two trades, finalized two contracts and let a great Yankee leave.
A lot has happened this week. It was easily the busiest week for the Yankees this offseason.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.
1. I wrote all there is to write about the Yankees’ approach to the imaginery salary cap and said all there is to say about the team’s decision to cut payroll by $50 million this offseason for the second time in three years, and here it is for the last time. It’s sad, disappointing, frustrating, annoying and embarrassing, but it is what it is at this point. Hal Steinbrenner would rather save a homestand’s worth of hot dogs than do everything he can to win the World Series for the first time in 12 years.
2. The Yankees dumped Adam Ottavino’s salary on the Red Sox. But not all of it. The Yankees will pay Ottavino $850,000 in 2021 to pitch for their hated rival and to pitch against them. The Yankees will play the Red Sox 19 times (if the season goes as planned) or 12 percent of their season. Not only did the Yankees essentially give Ottavino to the Red Sox, they also attached a prospect to him. So when the Red Sox are buried in the standings at the trade deadline, they can then move Ottavino, who’s an impending free agent, as a rental and acquire even more prospects. The Yankees not only made the Red Sox better and set up their own right-handed heavy lineup to fail against Ottavino, they are also helping the Red Sox expedite their rebuild. When the prospects the Red Sox obtain for Ottavino in July become cornerstones for them and haunt the Yankees for the next decade, Steinbrenner’s fear of the luxury tax will be to blame.
3. The Yankees traded away Ottavino and then turned around and signed Darren O’Day, who does what Ottavino does from a different arm angle. The 38-year-old side-winder is as tough ones right-handed hitters out of the bullpen as anyone in the league, but what attracted the Yankees to O’Day was his price: around $2 million.
4. Why did it have to be O’Day instead of Ottavino? Why couldn’t it be both. Two years ago, the Yankees were going to go into the 2019 season with six elite relief options: Ottavino, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, Dellin Betances, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapaman. Unfortunately, Betances got hurt and they never got to experience the full “super” bullpen, but they still had five elite relievers for 2019. Then they let Betances walk and sign with the Mets, and they had five options for 2020. Then Kahnle got hurt, and they had four for 2020. Then Ottavino fell out of Aaron Boone’s bullpen circle of trust, and they had three. They Kahnle leave and sign with the Dodgers and traded Ottavino to keep it at three for 2021. Adding O’Day gives them four again, but that’s still not enough. After O’Day, there’s Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga, Michael King and Nick Nelson. The bullpen is top heavy and old. Britton is 33. Chapman will be 33 next month, and O’Day is 38. The Yankees need to be adding to their bullpen like they did with O’Day, not subtracting from it like they did by moving Ottavino. The illusion of the luxury tax is preventing the Yankees from putting together the best possible roster.
5. Thankfully, DJ LeMahieu finally signed. The delay was waiting for a 40-man roster spot, but now the Yankees have their best player back. (I wish Aaron Judge were still considered to be the team’s best player, but you have to actually play to be the team’s best player, and not just half the season.) I lost a lot of sleep, staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, wondering if the Yankees were going to let LeMahieu walk, so I’m glad his contract is finalized.
6. The Yankees also traded for Jamseon Taillon to bolster their rotation. On paper and when healthy, the Yankees have a great rotation: Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon and Jordan Montgomery. But “on paper and when healthy” can’t be a thing for the Yankees. A year ago right now, the Yankees’ rotation “on paper and when healthy” was Cole, Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ with Montgomery as insurance. How did that turn out?
7. Taillon gives the Yankees another unknown. This is the Yankees’ potential rotation at full strength:
Cole: Nothing wrong (knock on all of the wood) Severino (unavailable until midseason): Five starts and 20 1/3 innings since start of 2019 Kluber: Eight starts and 36 2/3 innings since start of 2019 Taillon: Seven starts and 37 1/3 innings since start of 2019 Montgomery: 12 starts and 52 innings since start of 2019 Deivi Garcia: Seven career starts and 35 1/3 innings (including his “start” in Game 2 of the ALDS) Clarke Schmidt: One career start and 6 1/3 innings
Severino is coming back from Tommy John surgery, which was preceded by a lat issue, which was preceded by a shoulder issue. Kluber is coming back from a shoulder injury. Taillon is coming back from his second Tommy John surgery. Montgomery is 52 innings removed from Tommy John surgery.
8. Taillon does give the Yankees’ depth. Before the Kluber signing and Taillon trade, Montgomery was the No. 2 starter. Now he’ll be the No. 4 to start the season if everyone stays healthy (knock on all of the wood again) and the No. 5 when Severino hopefully returns (knock on all of the wood again). Garcia and Schmidt go from getting rotation spots on Opening Day like Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy did in 2008 to insurance options in the event of injury (knock on all of the wood again) or underperformance.
9. Unfortunately, Masahiro Tanaka won’t be returning to the Yankees. The seven-year Yankee is returning home to pitch for the Rakuten Golden Eagles. I think Tanaka only wanted to remain in North America if it were with the Yankees. He probably said he wanted $X and if he didn’t get it, he would just go home and pitch, and the Yankees’ desire to not go past $210 million meant he wouldn’t get what he wanted. I wanted Tanaka back, but the non-existant salary cap ended his time with the team. (I will have more on Tanaka in a separate blog.)
10. The 59-day gauntlet that is January and February is about halfway over, and that means there’s less than three weeks until scheduled spring training. Less than three weeks! I’m afraid to get too excited for the return of baseball because I still think the league and the owners will do everything they can to delay the start of the season. If they don’t, there will be baseball in no time. That makes me happy.
For the second time in three years, the Yankees have cut payroll by $50 million while in their championship window.
The Red Sox were happy to take Adam Ottavino in the Yankees’ salary dump of the right-hander. Why wouldn’t they be? He makes the Red Sox better and his removal from the Yankees makes them worse.
Sure, the Yankees then went and signed Darren O’Day, but why couldn’t they have both? Why couldn’t they have five elite relievers? For 2019, on paper, they had six. Now they have four.
For the second time in three years, the Yankees have cut payroll by $50 million in the middle of a championship window.
The Yankees say their goal each season is to win the World Series, but after the trade of Adam Ottavino, Hal Steinbrenner made it clear there’s a limit to how badly the wants to win it.
The Steinbrenners are poor. At least that’s what they want Yankees fans to think. That’s why Hal Steinbrenner went on the radio after the team’s disappointing postseason loss to the Rays and made sure to mention how the team didn’t make as much money as they normally do because of the shortened, fan-less season. And that’s why Adam Ottavino was traded to the Red Sox as part of a salary dump on Monday.
The Yankees didn’t have to trade Ottavino, especially to the Red Sox, but it’s clear Brian Cashman was told to keep the 2021 payroll below the $210 luxury-tax threshold. So rather than keep the right-hander in the Yankees’ bullpen during the team’s supposed championship window, Ottavino will now come out of the Red Sox’ bullpen and likely embarrass the Yankees when he does.
Ownership was so desperate to avoid paying any sort of luxury tax for 2021 that they were fine with Cashman sending Ottavino to their direct rival. The Steinbrenners are so worried about losing a home game’s worth of beer sales to payroll tax that they are completely accpeting of trading a right-on-right specialist to a team they play 19 times when eight of the Yankees’ nine everyday bats are right-handed hitters. The Yankees play 12 percent of their season against the Red Sox, and that means there will be an abundance of opportunities for Ottavino to strike out Aaron Judge, Luke Voit and Giancarlo Stanton in order with sweeping low-and-away sliders. I’m scared to think of what a Gary Sanchez at-bat against Ottavino will look like. There will come a game this season when the Yankees need a big hit against the Red Sox and Ottavino will come in the game and get the job done against them. Actually, there will likely be many games when the situation arises considering how many times they play each other.
Not only did the Yankees trade Ottavino within the division and to their hated rival, they will be paying him to pitch against them this season. As part of the deal, the Yankees are paying $850,000 of Ottavino’s salary, as he becomes the latest ex-Yankee in a long list of former Yankees who were paid to play and pitch against the Yankees (and beat them while doing so).
Ottavino wasn’t expendable either. Not the way he might have been, at least on paper, during spring training in 2019 when the Yankees had Dellin Betances, Tommy Kahnle, Chad Green, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman. But then Betances got hurt and eventually became a Met and Kahnle got hurt and became a Dodger. For as inconsistent as Ottavino might be at times and for as bad as he is at holding runners on, he would still be at worst the Yankees’ fourth-best reliever to start 2021, and could very well become their best the way he was for a large part of 2019.
Now that Ottavino is gone, the Yankees have three trustworthy relievers in Green, Britton and Chapman, and I only put Chapman with the other two because of his career numbers. At this point, I don’t trust Chapman to tell me what day of the week it is. After those three, it’s Jonathan Loaisiga, Luis Cessa and I guess Michael King and Nick Nelson? Maybe Tyler Lyons and Nestor Cortes? It’s some combination of pitchers you never want to see warming up and pitchers you never want to see come into games. The Yankees gave away a valuable reliever in the middle of a championship window. Actually, they didn’t even just give him away. They are paying him to not pitch for them!
There’s no salary cap in baseball. If there were, maybe this move could be praised since it keeps the Yankees under the $210 million threshold and gives them the ability to re-sign Brett Gardner and still have enough money for midseason call-ups and potential trade deadline acquisitions. But there’s no salary cap in baseball, just the illusion of one, and because of that, this move is simply disgusting.
The Yankees’ payroll is now $50 million less than it was a year ago. $50 million. Whenever the Yankees don’t win the World Series, Hal Steinbrenner likes to apologize to the fans the way his father used to, but at least when his father would, it meant something. It wasn’t an empty gesture made between figuring out how to best keep fans out of the lower bowl during batting practice and making sure concession stand workers were putting the right amount of fries in each container to maintain margins. After the Yankees’ ALDS loss to the Rays, Steinbrenner said:
“I’m very disappointed, obviously. We invested a lot of time, energy, money into the team last offseason, and we all felt that we had a team that could win a championship, and we failed to do that. We didn’t even come close. So right now, at this point in time, all I can do is apologize to our fans. They deserved a better outcome than they got. Period. I mean, they just did.”
If the Yankees fail to win the World Series for the 12th straight year in 2021, he needs to have a better apology than that one. Cutting payroll by $50 million for the second time in a championship window (the team did the same thing after coming within one win of the World Series in 2017) is inexcusable for the franchise which makes more than any other in Major League Baseball.
The Yankees say their goal each season is to win the World Series, but after the trade of Ottavino, Steinbrenner made it clear there’s a limit to how badly he wants to win it.
