2020-2021 Yankees Offseason Discussion

axx

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Shenanigans? They gave him a longer than expected deal. That's it.
Like as if he's getting the 4/84 he asked for but they tacked on a 2/6 he'll never see to lower the AAV. I don't know what is actually possible which is why I am curious.
 

Rwillh11

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Like as if he's getting the 4/84 he asked for but they tacked on a 2/6 he'll never see to lower the AAV. I don't know what is actually possible which is why I am curious.
What do you mean "2/6" he'll never see? The contract is guaranteed, he is getting that money. It looks like the choice was between something like 4/78 and 6/90 and he preferred the latter.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, baseball doesn’t work like football, ‘AAV shenanigans’ are almost impossible.
 

jon abbey

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NY lands Kluber, I've had my eye on this for a few months and so evidently did Cashman. I posted here on 11/18:

There will presumably be a lot of demand for Corey Kluber as a cheap-ish, short-term, potential high ceiling bounce-back candidate, so it's worth noting that Kluber has trained with Eric Cressey (now the Yankee conditioning coach, although he still works with other players too) since 2010.
 

jon abbey

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NY needs to clear 40 man space once these deals are official, so more moves coming. This would be the perfect time for a Musgrove deal, I wonder if Clint might be involved in that (lots of smoke around Brantley to NY, although no way they could stay under $210M then).
 

jon abbey

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The reported $10-$11M for Kluber puts them around $205M. They could clear two 40 man spots with small deals (DFA Allen, trade Abreu for someone who doesn't need to be protected yet) and go into the season with this team, but I still think Cashman needs to consolidate pitching prospects as he has too many on the 40 man right now. Musgrove makes a lot of sense, as I've already said.
 

jon abbey

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Current team:

Cole
Kluber
Montgomery
German
Garcia/Schmidt/King

(Severino, back late in the season)

Loaisiga
Nelson
Cessa
Kriske
Ottavino
Green
Britton
Chapman

LeMahieu 2B
Judge RF
Stanton DH
Hicks CF
Voit 1B
Torres SS
Urshela 3B
Frazier LF
Sanchez C

bench: Higashioka, Tauchman, Ford, Wade (Andujar, Estrada)
 

jon abbey

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Gardner and Tanaka still out there, both would like to come back to the Bronx but looking increasingly unlikely.
 

jon abbey

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Really curious what Cashman does from here, this seems like it would be an ideal time for NY to be somewhat aggressive. I'm not sure they have enough for Luis Castillo (although I am open to moving Gleyber in the right deal, signing Didi or Simmons for a year, and then signing a stud next winter). How about if NY made all of these three trades? Humor me...

1) Ottavino coupled with a prospect or two to clear his $9M salary, maybe Abreu and a younger player.
2) Musgrove for Clint Frazier plus a prospect or two to even it out, Volpe or Vargas works in the trade simulator or NY has plenty of pitching prospects if PIT prefers.
3) Joey Gallo for Clarke Schmidt plus a bit, they are pretty close in the trade simulator.

Then the team would be:

Cole
Kluber
Musgrove
Montgomery
German

Garcia in AAA

(Severino, back late in the season)

King
Loaisiga
Nelson
Cessa
Kriske
Green
Britton
Chapman

LeMahieu 2B
Judge RF
Stanton DH
Gallo LF
Voit 1B
Torres SS
Hicks CF
Urshela 3B
Sanchez C

bench: Higashioka, Tauchman, Ford, Wade (Andujar, Estrada)

That would give them a solid #3 SP in Musgrove and the big lefty hitter they want in Gallo. Salaries are $11M going out in Ottavino/Clint, $10.6M coming in with Musgrove/Gallo, so NY stays under $210M also, and holds onto 4 of my personal 5 'untouchable' prospects (Dominguez, Deivi, Medina, Gil), giving up only Schmidt. And 4 guys out on the 40 man and 2 guys in gives them the space to add DJ/Kluber also.

I'm available for paid consultation, Brian. Or unpaid if you want to just keep following SoSH... :)
 

terrynever

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Really curious what Cashman does from here, this seems like it would be an ideal time for NY to be somewhat aggressive. I'm not sure they have enough for Luis Castillo (although I am open to moving Gleyber in the right deal, signing Didi or Simmons for a year, and then signing a stud next winter). How about if NY made all of these three trades? Humor me...

1) Ottavino coupled with a prospect or two to clear his $9M salary, maybe Abreu and a younger player.
2) Musgrove for Clint Frazier plus a prospect or two to even it out, Volpe or Vargas works in the trade simulator or NY has plenty of pitching prospects if PIT prefers.
3) Joey Gallo for Clarke Schmidt plus a bit, they are pretty close in the trade simulator.

Then the team would be:

Cole
Kluber
Musgrove
Montgomery
German

Garcia in AAA

(Severino, back late in the season)

King
Loaisiga
Nelson
Cessa
Kriske
Green
Britton
Chapman

LeMahieu 2B
Judge RF
Stanton DH
Gallo LF
Voit 1B
Torres SS
Hicks CF
Urshela 3B
Sanchez C

bench: Higashioka, Tauchman, Ford, Wade (Andujar, Estrada)

That would give them a solid #3 SP in Musgrove and the big lefty hitter they want in Gallo. Salaries are $11M going out in Ottavino/Clint, $10.6M coming in with Musgrove/Gallo, so NY stays under $210M also, and holds onto 4 of my personal 5 'untouchable' prospects (Dominguez, Deivi, Medina, Gil), giving up only Schmidt. And 4 guys out on the 40 man and 2 guys in gives them the space to add DJ/Kluber also.

I'm available for paid consultation, Brian. Or unpaid if you want to just keep following SoSH... :)
Pretty sure you are behind Joel Sherman on Cashman’s must-read list!
 

Murderer's Crow

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I'm not opposed to Gallo, as a matter of fact, I agree with that entire post. However, I think doing all that and leaving catcher alone is a mistake. I'd prioritize a suitable backup first.
 

jon abbey

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I'm not opposed to Gallo, as a matter of fact, I agree with that entire post. However, I think doing all that and leaving catcher alone is a mistake. I'd prioritize a suitable backup first.
They’ve made it clear they’re not moving Sanchez, Higashioka isn’t a good enough backup for you? I agree they could use optionable depth there but that is something they can work on later.
 

Murderer's Crow

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They’ve made it clear they’re not moving Sanchez, Higashioka isn’t a good enough backup for you? I agree they could use optionable depth there but that is something they can work on later.
My issue is that I believe Sanchez is cooked and I'm not comfortable with Higgy as the primary catcher. I'm willing to make the call now that Sanchez will not be catching by the end of May.
 

jon abbey

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My issue is that I believe Sanchez is cooked and I'm not comfortable with Higgy as the primary catcher. I'm willing to make the call now that Sanchez will not be catching by the end of May.
OK, but if NY agreed with you, they would have non-tendered or traded Sanchez. I have been saying for years they need better MLB-ready depth behind him but it has yet to happen, and you can’t carry three catchers on a 26 man roster when you also have a fulltime DH in Stanton.
 

jon abbey

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I'm trying to remember, is Kluber and one of those guys who is particularly hard to catch? Like Cole and Britton seem to be?

This is going to be a hugely important season for Sanchez. I wonder if the challenge got just a little bit bigger on the defensive side, or not. I have a half buried memory of something being different about Kluber, but it has been so long since I've really thought about him or seen him pitch that I can't place it.

It's probably nothing at all.
 

jon abbey

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Not sure, Kluber doesn't throw especially hard and he pounds the strike zone, but he also throws a lot of sliders out of the zone to strike guys out, but I would tend to think he's not super tough to catch, as an educated guess.

Increasing smoke this weekend around Luis Castillo to NY, which would be a blockbuster if it happened. Now Hector Gomez is saying it is done:

View: https://twitter.com/hgomez27/status/1350981631243390978


If it happens, it would likely be something like this (and NY would go over $210M):

Yankees:

- Luis Castillo
- Nick Castellanos

Reds:

- Clarke Schmidt
- Clint Frazier
- 2-3 more prospects

If Castellanos is worse defensively than Stanton (almost certainly true), NY could move Stanton back to LF and make Castellanos the DH.
 

jon abbey

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Castillo is under contract through 2023, and to give a sense of how good he is, these are the only SPs that Fangraphs projects to be better in 2021, numbers are projected fWAR:

DeGrom 6.1
Bieber 5.5
Cole 5.2
Scherzer 4.9
Darvish 4.4

Castillo at 4.0 is ahead of everyone else, Buehler, Strasburg, Snell, Woodruff, Nola, everyone.
 

Murderer's Crow

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Very weird. All the reputable people, including Castillo's agent said no deal and totally false. However, the 3 sources who said there's a trade happening all had basically identical information. They either fed off each other or coordinated a random bs campaign.
 

Sad Sam Jones

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Kluber pounds the strike zone, takes a great deal of pride in efficiency (he's one if the rare pitchers who could throw a complete game with a pitch count under 100 and still strike out 10) and averages 4 wild pitches per season. He should be one of the easiest in the game to catch, although he's always had the best receivers in the league (Perez and Gomes). The only issue I could see is he doesn't want his catcher stabbing at his cutter, but he has the reputation to get borderline calls anyway.
 

jon abbey

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Very weird. All the reputable people, including Castillo's agent said no deal and totally false. However, the 3 sources who said there's a trade happening all had basically identical information. They either fed off each other or coordinated a random bs campaign.
The interesting part of this to me is that the guy who 'broke' this initially today isn't backing off, and he is the same guy who said on December 2 that Kluber would sign with NY (!!). Passan said he was wrong then too, who knows.

https://twitter.com/RicardoGibbon
 

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The early report on Kluber could easily be a high probability guess based on knowing who Cressey worked for and the general situation.

To me, the fun speculation about this source isn't that he might have the inside scoop on a deal with Castillo (unlikely), but that he found out about some kind of connection between Castillo and the Yankees that makes a deal more likely than most people realize.
 

jon abbey

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If Cashman is willing to bundle Frazier and Andujar plus 2-3 young pitchers, that is a huge huge package for Castillo, especially if NY takes back Castellanos or Moustakas. The only guy that is genuinely off limits for me is the Martian, but NY has so many great pitching prospects that they can really change a system's depth depending on how far Cashman is willing to go to get Castillo. I would be sorely tempted to push in many many chips myself here, but I definitely do not have the patience to be a GM.
 

jon abbey

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I wrote in December in the NY rotation thread:

"So I have been talking a lot in recent years about how NY has been doing a nice job stockpiling prospects with high-ceiling arms, and you can see the depth with NY now losing three guys who would be at AA or higher for them in the last 2 rule 5 drafts: Rony Garcia with the #1 pick last year, Garrett Whitlock to the Red Sox and Trevor Stephan to the Indians this year. It's very hard to know as a fan what your team actually has in the minors and even more so now after no 2020 minor league season. So it's worth noting which young pitchers NY protected ahead of Whitlock/Stephan, it is still a long and exciting list.

Deivi Garcia
Clarke Schmidt
Alexander Vizcaino
Luis Gil
Luis Medina
Roansy Contreras
Yoendrys Gomez

My guess is that those seven NY would like to keep stretched out as SP options, they also protected Yajure and Abreu and Nick Nelson as SPs who might be moved to the bullpen and Heller and Kriske who are mostly untested relievers, plus King and Loaisiga still in the mix somewhere.

So as a Yankee fan, it's exciting that they believe that all of these guys have either more long or short-term upside (or both) than Whitlock and Stephan, either or both of whom might stick in the majors all year this year."

Vizcaino/Gomez/Yajure is a serious pitching prospect package and I would put them maybe 5/7/9 of the guys above. Cashman has a lot of cards to play if he chooses, also many ultratalented teenage position players to sweeten things even more (I think three in the Fangraphs top 100 plus a bunch more).
 

jon abbey

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Moustakas actually might be a good fit now that I think about it even though NY has Gio and DJ at his positions already. He could essentially get Mike Ford's bench spot but be able to play 3B and 2B also, similar to when NY signed DJ originally. Some may remember that I argued for NY to sign Moustakas a couple years ago once it became clear they wouldn't sign Machado but then Gio blossomed and all rejoiced. MM would be a good lefty bat addition too, much better fit than Castellanos (a DH and bad OF and another RHH).

Come on Brian, you know you want to go for it this time. This is your window, so few other teams are trying, especially in the AL. Bring us the arm of Luis Castillo!

 

jon abbey

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Include Gleyber, sign Didi for a year, sign Lindor next winter. Spend, win, profit.
 

jon abbey

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So when Gibbon doubled down on his own reporting answering Passan's mocking of him, he answered in English:

View: https://twitter.com/RicardoGibbon/status/1350992809885577217?s=20


No one knew what this meant but I think now maybe I know, he is saying the deal has been agreed to but CIN gets to choose from lists of players for a few of the spots and they are taking time deciding. That doesn't mean that is actually happening obviously, but that was bugging me and that is my guess.
 

terrynever

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Jon, I think you are close on that analysis. Cincy just wants the right package. Give this a few days. Maybe it doesn’t happen in the end. But Cashman wants Castillo. Very few teams, if any, can give Cincy the package they could extract from NYY.
 

jon abbey

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And I’m not sure any others who could, would. Tampa Bay can easily top any prospect offer now, but it doesn’t seem to make too much sense to get Castillo when you just moved Snell at the same point in his deal (signed through 2023).
 

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The Yankees may have the chips to get it done, but I guess I'd like to understand how interested the Reds really are in moving Castillo at all, or not.

I mean, I hope the Yankees can get him, but my enthusiasm will be tempered a bit if the Reds aren't interested unless they get an offer that blows them away. And I say that knowing that the Yankees do need to move some of their surplus at some point, and Castillo is a fine player to target for that.

Anyway, glad to see the roster coming into focus. In Cashman I trust.
 

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And I’m not sure any others who could, would. Tampa Bay can easily top any prospect offer now, but it doesn’t seem to make too much sense to get Castillo when you just moved Snell at the same point in his deal (signed through 2023).
Castillo for Snell would be a great trade if the prospect package to the Reds wasn’t a massive, massive overpay. Plus the Rays have a bit of a logjam in the prospect pipeline. Need to clear some stud infielders. There’s not enough room for Adames, Lowe, Walls, Brujan and Wander. Castillo has been my silent target ever since the Snell deal, but it looks like Cashman is going to stymie it.
 

jon abbey

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I would say yes to Gleyber for Castillo but I’ve made that clear already.
 

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I think Gleyber has one extra year of control compared to Castillo. Gleyber for Castillo straight up seems relatively close to fair.

I wonder what the Reds' Gleyber+ request looked like and if there were other pieces coming back.