So as I've said earlier, if I were in Cashman's shoes, I would go nuts in FA this winter. Right now Cot's has them around $166M for tax purposes, so I'm wondering just how high all of the moves I'd like them to make would put them. Obviously my numbers are guesswork, just wanted to run through this and see how possible or ridiculous it was:
FAs signed:
Machado-10/280
Corbin-4/80
Eovaldi-4/72
Sabathia-1/10
Robertson-2/20
Andrew Miller-2/20
Also I have them trading Sonny Gray plus a prospect or two for Scooter Gennett. Both are FAs after 2019, both are scheduled to receive almost the same salary in arbitration, and Gennett is blocking Nick Senzel, plus Gray somehow had a 3.14 road ERA last year and his Vanderbilt pitching coach just took the same job in Cincinnati.
So this would be that team:
Hicks-CF
Judge-RF
Machado-SS or 3B
Stanton-LF
Andujar-DH
Sanchez-C
Gennett-2B
Voit/Bird-1B
Gleyber-3B or SS
Rotation: Severino, Corbin, Tanaka, Eovaldi, Sabathia (Sheffield, Loaisiga, German in AAA or maybe one as the long man)
Bullpen: ???, Tarpley, Green, Miller, Robertson, Betances, Chapman
Bench: Gardner, Romine, ???, Bird/Voit (Clint Frazier is getting regular ABs in AAA in this scenario)
That is obviously a ridiculously loaded team on paper, and would put NY at around $262M so over the highest level ($246M). There are two possibilities to bring it lower without impacting the team listed above, Didi is set to make around $12-13M in his last year of arb and will not be available for the bulk of the season if at all. It would be super cold-hearted and I love the guy, but they could non-tender him. Secondly, Ellsbury's deal is now down to essentially 2/48 (22/22/4) and it's possible that Cashman could get someone to take that by bundling prospects with him (an amped up version of the Headley/Mitchell for nothing to SD deal last winter).
I'm not saying this is likely, it is pretty financially aggressive, but I also think it's time for NY to go for it after holding back for the last few seasons. Also it doesn't make much sense to focus so much on resetting your tax rate unless you plan to really blast through the lowest level in the future (which is $206M this year),