November 6, 2024

64 thoughts on “Yankees.com: Cole opts out; Yanks can void it by adding $36 million to contract (source)”

  1. We’ll probably be disappointed that the announcement will just be that the Yankees voided his opt out by giving him the extra year. Only the Dodgers can do creative accounting shenanigans.

  2. From FanGraphs:

    Weirdly, I think he’d actually get less than what was left on the deal he opted out of, though I think his remaining contract is quite close to market value, and thus that he isn’t taking a big risk by doing so. The Yankees are the ones bearing the risk here, which is likely why he made this decision.

    1. Passan Right-hander Gerrit Cole is remaining with the New York Yankees on the four-year, $144 million deal that he had opted out of, sources told ESPN. Discussions on a potential contract extension will continue. Essentially, it’s the same as if Cole did not opt out

    1. Especially when the best strategic move for him might very well be to take a pillow contract so that he can take another crack at a good platform reason. He’ll still be on the right side of 30 next offseason.

    2. i think that top free agents list mentioned that he was getting beat by fastballs and the bat speed was way down. obviously he looked great in the post but if that was true in april and may wouldn’t they try to fix it?

    3. He’s lost some bat speed, certainly, and it shows against four-seamers — 63 percent of the time he put that pitch in play, it was to the right side of the field, and he hit four times as many of those fastballs to right field as he did to left. His .257/.330/.378 line with below-average defense was only worth 1.7-1.8 WAR in 2024, making him a below-average regular. Maybe some team can get him to pull the ball again and get back to some power — if it can help stem the drop in his bat speed, too.

    1. Judge AAV is 40, that was two years ago, so 46 AAV for Soto, entering his prime years, is not unreasonable. I don’t like the ever spiraling numbers in MLB, but it is what it is. I believe Boras said they weren’t interested in deferments, but that may simply be a negotiating ploy.

  9. They have Gleyber at #20 FA making 2/36m with Mariners and Royals as most likely landing places.
    Holme 3/30, Kahnle 2/13 and Rizzo nowhere to be found. Verlander 1/12?

    3. With Scherzer, you could even give him the Clemens treatment and only bring him back to pitch in the second half. He’d probably still be worth, like, $8 million.

  10. Apparently, it sounds like Cash just outright called Cole’s bluff, and Cole backed down, and now the whole “We’re discussing extensions” stuff is just a smokescreen to soothe Cole’s ego over the Yankees calling his bluff, as Cash has said that they’re NOT actually discussing an extension. Wow.

    1. Yeah, Cole was unlikely to get a better offer on the open market. But the Yankees also wanted to be able to focus on addressing the many holes in the offense – if they were OK with more uncertainty, they probably could have played even harder. Ultimately though, I think Cole wanted to stay on the team and the Yankees wanted him to stay.

    1. That looks awful.
      Why would they need an animated version instead of the actual play? It reduces my level of trust.

    3. That’s what I was saying in the moment. I don’t even know if Cole beats Betts to the bag, but I’m pretty sure Rizzo does.

    4. That’s a pretty damning angle. I thank Rizzo for his service as a Yankee and that he remains an ambassador of the game. Other than that, enjoy retirement.

      The best Yankee 1B over the last decade by WAR or wRC+ has been Luke Voit. Let that sink in and also know that they’ve had 44 different players for at least 1 game at the position and the list includes such luminaries as Ji Man Choi, Chris Parmalee, Brendan Ryan, Dustin Ackley, Jay Bruce, Matt Holliday AND Matt Carpenter, Billy Butler, Scott Sizemore, Kelly Johnson, etc.

    6. I really think the brain injury was clouding his reaction time. He was just slow to react to EVERYTHING. Plays that didn’t require instant reaction time he still made flawlessly, but anything that required quick thinking he seemed to fuck up.

    7. He might come out of it. He was really HITTING much better. I’d have thought that to be harder, and require far MORE in the way of reaction time, than fielding.
      But for whatever reason, it didn’t work that way.
      Still, if the HITTING came around, I really bet the fielding will be back by next spring, if he plays.

    8. Yeah, that’s the killer thing about it, he probably WILL recover for at least one more decent season, but how could you possibly trust him to do it here? I actually wouldn’t hate bringing him back on a small money deal, but I get why it might make more sense to just make a clean break.

      Jazz 2B
      Soto RF
      Judge LF
      Dominguez CF
      Stanton DH
      Wells C
      Volpe SS
      Rizzo 1B
      Waldo 3B

      Really isn’t a bad lineup next season, and if you can upgrade from Waldo (or at 2B, with Jazz staying at 3B), then you’d really be cooking with gas.

    9. If you get something clearly better, you can’t.
      But I actually think you can see him recovering and that he’d be pretty good next year. That would be my guess. It’s a risk, though, I certainly agree.
      If you actually get someone really good to man first base, that’s another story.

    10. I was into Walker before he got a QO. I’m not sure he’s good enough to be worth losing a draft pick. I wouldn’t be thrilled about Rizzo returning, but the alternative is probably Weekend at DJLM’s, so…

      I would also not be happy with a roster that has Waldo as a fulltime starter.

    11. I was into Walker before he got a QO. I’m not sure he’s good enough to be worth losing a draft pick. I wouldn’t be thrilled about Rizzo returning, but the alternative is probably Weekend at DJLM’s, so…

      I would also not be happy with a roster that has Waldo as a fulltime starter.

      Yeah, I put Waldo in there as a placeholder, I think they will do something different at third and second, even if it’s something as simple as giving second base to Durbin, a la giving shortstop to Volpe. I really think Jazz could be an interesting leadoff hitter. A walk or a single is almost an automatic runner in scoring position for Soto and Judge with his speed.

  12. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=okamot002kaz

    this guy might get posted. he’s not a flashy star but he would be a dependable 3b/1b. move jazz back to second. cabrera gets lots of at bats to spell all three. or see what else is available. obviously everything depends on price but all of the japanese talent i’ve seen plays better baseball than our farm products.

    of course we are only a couple months away from dj coming back in the best shape of his life though.

    1. The relatively low ba/obp numbers are a bit concerning – I just don’t think he his enough to be anything better than a utility guy, and without up the middle defense, does he really have an mlb role?

  13. YUK
    Cashman said the Yankees’ deadline on Aaron Boone’s option was 10 days after the World Series. No decision made yet. Called Boone a “great manager,” didn’t rule out the possibility of an extension rather than just picking up the 2025 option.

    1. Between how excitedly they talk about bringing Boone back and how “we’ll do our best” about bringing Soto back they are, I don’t have a great feeling about this winter.

    2. Does this improve your outlook on the offseason?

      “Brian Cashman said the Yankees’ director of speed development and baserunning, Matt Talarico, is currently interviewing for three different MLB jobs.

      “I think we’re considered one of the best in the business with our baserunning program.” “

    3. Baserunning?
      That’s some Trump-level stuff there.
      I mean, he can’t not know how Yankee baserunning looks to… to everyone.
      How is it possible that that statement was ever made?

    4. We’re in a post-fact society. Companies now have internal confidential communications and public relations which are not grounded in anything considered factual.

    5. A lot of truth to that, Chris. But not utterly so.
      They don’t deny that they lost the WS. Because everybody just saw it.
      And the results of their baserunning “program” has been remarkably, unusually evident, and the subject of much discussion.

    7. Not defending, but this sounds like more of an overall organizational position, so he might be really good when it applies to developing and teaching speed/baserunning in the minors.

    8. I’m sure that it’s closer to what Clay posted. They may be able to improve their baserunning better than anyone else, but the players at the MLB are mostly so bad that it the staff can only get them to a certain level, but it’s a level that the metrics show is better than what could be expected.

    9. It’s interesting that even we can manage to think ourselves from the fact that they have what is surely the worst baserunning in the league to possibly accepting the idea that they have a really good baserunning staff.
      Color me unconvinced.
      If the staff were that good, they might not be able to do as well with the MLB players, but there’s no way it would be THIS bad.

    10. I was shocked to learn from a poster here that Gleyber is in the bottom 1% of baserunners in all of baseball in terms of speed (Stanton has to be even lower, right?).

    11. Gleyber isn’t that slow, his sprint speed was 29th percentile this year. His base running value was 6th percentile though.

      Stanton’s speed is 3rd percentile, which make me curious as to who is slower than him.

    12. Stanton was the 20th!!!!! slowest running in baseball this year.

      Behind:
      Mike Ford (former Yankee) – DH
      Martin Maldonado – C
      Omar Narvaez – c
      Yasmani Grandal – C
      Daniel Vogelbach – DH
      Jacob Stallings – C
      Wilmer Flores – 1B
      Triston Casas – 1B
      Rowdy Telez – 1B
      Chadwick Tromp – C
      Willie Calhoun (Former Yankee) – DH
      Tucket Barnhart – C
      Victor Carantini – C
      Elias Diaz – C
      Curt Casali – C
      Jhonny Pereda – C
      Jose Trevino (Current Yankee!) – C
      Anthony Rizzo (Current Yankee!) – 1B
      Salvador Perez – C

      and tied with Matt Carpenter (Former Yankee) – DH

    15. Amazing. Well, doesn’t that sort of lead towards the belief that maybe the Yankees’ baserunning coaches just didn’t have anything to work with? Soto seems to be a terrible baserunner, as well.

    16. Nah, I still think they suck at teaching/managing baserunning at the ML level. They have for years.

    1. Agree to disagree. How many times were they bounced out in short series? No WS titles. I am not impressed.

      Joe Torre:
      76 and 47

      4 World Series titles: 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000.
      6 American League (AL) pennants: 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2003.
      Playoff Appearances: Every year from 1996 to 2007.

      Joe Girardi
      28 and 24

      1 World Series title: 2009, when the Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies.
      3 playoff appearances: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2017.
      ALCS appearances: 2009, 2010, and 2017.

  15. Kirschner Scott Boras when asked if he’d consider a deferred deal for Juan Soto:

    “I don’t think the tax considerations are the focal point when you’re talking about a business opportunity where you can make literally billions of dollars by acquiring somebody like him.”

    1. I’d like to see how Boras figures Soto will make any team ‘billions’ of dollars. Hyperbole is Boras’ stock-in-trade.

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