With the Yankees in want of infield assist, each Alex Bregman and Nolan Arenado have been linked to the membership this offseason, with the concept being that one would turn into New York’s new third baseman and Jazz Chisholm Jr. would turn into the full-time second baseman. Nevertheless, throughout an version of the YES Community’s “Yankees Scorching Range” present earlier this week, Jack Curry stated that the Bronx Bombers weren’t in on both Bregman or Arenado, and pushed again on the concept the Yankees ever had curiosity in buying and selling for Arenado.
This runs counter to final week’s report (from MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, John Denton, and Bryan Hoch) that the Yankees supplied Marcus Stroman to the Cardinals as a part of a commerce package deal for Arenado, although St. Louis rejected the deal. As at all times with seemingly contradictory offseason studies, the reality might lie someplace within the center. Hypothetically, it could possibly be that New York’s curiosity in Arenado was restricted to this state of affairs that might’ve seen Stroman’s wage moved off the group’s books.
Regardless of the depth of the Yankees’ curiosity in Arenado could be, it could possibly be a moot level if Arenado himself isn’t fascinated by becoming a member of the group. The Yankees aren’t one of many six golf equipment (the Angels, Dodgers, Padres, Phillies, Mets, Purple Sox) Arenado is reportedly prepared to waive his no-trade safety to hitch, and Arenado has already vetoed a proposed deal to the Astros. There was hypothesis that New York’s cope with Paul Goldschmidt was made partially to entice Arenado to just accept a commerce to the Bronx to hitch his outdated teammate, but Curry’s report appears to shut the door on that risk.
Along with signing Goldschmidt and Max Fried, the Yankees have additionally traded for Cody Bellinger, Devin Williams, and Fernando Cruz, as GM Brian Cashman has aggressively reloaded the roster after Juan Soto left to signal with the Mets. Even with some holes left to be addressed, New York is projected (by RosterResource) for a luxurious tax variety of $303.2MM, and thus the group is already over the utmost penalty threshold of $301MM.
The Yankees might scale back their tax invoice by making an attempt to maneuver Stroman or one other unfavorable contract, but the payroll state of affairs would possibly trace at why Arenado or Bregman aren’t (or now not are) on the radar. Signing Bregman would require a far larger funding than taking most or all of Arenado’s contract in a commerce, plus since Bregman rejected Houston’s qualifying provide, the Yankees would want to surrender two draft picks and $1MM in worldwide bonus pool cash. For the reason that Bombers already paid that additional penalty to signal one other certified free agent in Fried, the membership would very seemingly desire to keep away from additional depleting its draft pool and bonus pool by including Bregman.
If the Yankees are certainly out on Bregman, that leaves the Phillies, Blue Jays, Purple Sox, Mets, and Tigers as groups recognized to have some degree of curiosity in Bregman’s providers this winter. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press shed a little bit extra gentle on the Tigers’ hyperlink within the newest version of the Days of Roar podcast, noting that “there was a rise within the Tigers’ prioritization of Bregman” because the offseason has developed, with “extra dialogue, extra dialog” between the membership and Bregman’s camp.
Heading into the offseason, Detroit was considered as a logical touchdown spot for Bregman for a number of causes — his previous historical past with supervisor A.J. Hinch, the shortage of long-term cash on the Tigers’ books, and the notion that the Tigers have been going to be aggressive within the wake of their Cinderella run to the ALDS final season. The latter level hasn’t performed out to this point, as Alex Cobb’s one-year, $15MM deal represents the Motown group’s solely main funding of the winter.
Bregman’s reported asking value of at the very least $200MM seems to be the hold-up, because the Tigers aren’t prepared to spend to that degree. What stays unclear is that if Detroit is prepared to at the very least strategy Bregman’s calls for, or if the group is aiming decrease general. Many of the free brokers or commerce targets publicly linked to the Tigers in rumors this winter (i.e. Goldschmidt, Carlos Santana, Walker Buehler, Kirby Yates, Erick Fedde, Steven Matz, Andrew Heaney, Kyle Gibson) are both already below contract on short-term offers, or would seemingly require solely one- or two-year investments. Other than Bregman, Jack Flaherty and Ha-Seong Kim are the opposite free brokers on the Tigers’ checklist of targets that might require greater contracts, and even Kim’s state of affairs is fluid as a result of lingering uncertainty surrounding his shoulder surgical procedure.
Bregman already turned down a reported six-year, $156MM provide from the Astros earlier this winter, which was step one in direction of what now appears to be like like the tip of a reunion risk between the third baseman and his longtime group. Buying nook infielder Isaac Paredes within the Kyle Tucker commerce left open the chance that Bregman might nonetheless be re-signed and Paredes might play first base in Houston, however the Astros’ three-year, $60MM cope with first baseman Christian Walker has now addressed the group’s wants within the nook infield.
Whereas not formally stating that the Astros have been now out on Bregman, GM Dana Brown left issues fairly clear by stating “Paredes goes to play third and Walker goes to play first” when talking with reporters (together with the Houston Chronicle’s Matt Kawahara) earlier this week. Brown felt “the negotiations stalled” with Bregman’s camp, leaving the Astros in the hunt for another.
“I believed we made a very aggressive provide and confirmed that we needed [Bregman] again,” Brown stated. “However we needed to pursue different choices, we couldn’t simply sit there. We locked in Paredes early in that commerce understanding that he might play third or first. After which when the chance so as to add one other bat [Walker] got here up, we simply jumped on it.”
