2021 Yankees Offseason Overview Part 4: Potential Acquisitions (Free Agents)

 Here comes the most fun part: everyone loves to play pretend GM. I’ll refrain from serious trade returns and free agent contracts until Fangraphs posts their player values and free agent contract predictions when the offseason actually begins. I’ll try to order these by how strongly I feel about their fit to the team and likelihood of it happening.

Anthony Rizzo

It’s worth it to discuss Rizzo first because he seems to be a likely free agent signing, considering his successful half-season with the Yankees. Fans were excited to bring in Rizzo because of his reputation as a great defensive first basemen and to have his lefty bat in a very right-handed lineup. Rizzo didn’t exactly light the world on fire at the plate as a Yankee (.249/.340/.428) but it was plenty to keep everyone satisfied with how much his defense was an upgrade at first base over Luke Voit, plus his low strikeout rate (14%) and two-strike situational hitting was refreshing to the offense. When first acquired from the team, and seeing that Luke Voit was not traded, it was imaginable to see how the two could co-exist, but by season’s end, the Yankees’ message was clear that they had no intentions for that. Seeing that I think Rizzo may and should be re-signed, I believe Voit will be traded.

Andrelton Simmons

As mentioned in part 3, infield defense is one of the Yankees’ most glaring weaknesses, especially at shortstop. Well okay, the best defensive shortstop in baseball is a free agent. The Twins had a similar idea this past year. Simmons’ offense plummeted mightily but his defense stayed strong: a beautiful 16 outs above average. Simmons hit a putrid .223/.283/.274 this year, which is just gross to read out loud, but I believe infield defense is such a dire need that it is worth it. With many of the Yankees’ top prospects being shortstops, Simmons could provide a nice two-year gap in between if the Yankees don’t want to pursue a long-term deal, and address offensive needs at other positions. MLB Trade Rumors recently wrote that the Yankees were interested in Simmons at the 2021 trade deadline (although this was not well received on Reddit) so the writing is already on the wall.  I also believe that Simmons could be used as a guy who starts maybe 4/7 games a week and is a defensive substitution on others.

Kirby Yates/Trevor Rosenthal

Every year, good relief pitching ends up available in free agency, although we are seeing it becoming more and more popular to build great bullpens using diamonds-in-the-rough. However, the Yankees have shown in the past that if there is a relief pitcher available that they are confident in, they are willing to throw the money at them on a short-term deal. Great examples of this are Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, and to a lesser extent, Adam Ottavino. I would like to see the Yankees continue this trend, and I think two bounce-back candidates are Kirby Yates and Trevor Rosenthal. Both pitchers are coming off seasons where they didn’t throw a single pitch: Tommy John surgery for Yates and thoracic outlet surgery for Rosenthal. Yates likely wouldn’t be available until June considering his March surgery, while Rosenthal should be available from the start. Yates was arguably the top closer in baseball in 2019 but has only thrown 4.1 innings since. Rosenthal was brilliant in 2020, albeit in only 23.2 innings pitched, and he struggled mightily in 2019. That was enough for the Oakland Athletics to sign him to a big $11 million  contract for 2021; perhaps the Yankees see something in him too. I view these guys as great one-year contract candidates.

Raisel Iglesias


As a continuation of the last section of relievers, what about Raisel Iglesias? A lot of fans are concerned with Aroldis Chapman as a closer; perhaps he is re-signed after 2022 when he hits free agency but 2022 is likely his last year as Yankees closer. Many are anticipating a passing-of-the-torch to Jonathan Loaisiga, who was certainly the best Yankee reliever in 2021. I’m not so sure the team wants to move on from him as a multi-inning high-leverage guy. In fact, the team has built up a nice trio of those guys with staple Chad Green (who hopefully won’t get overworked again) and new guy Clay Holmes. I believe a lot of teams will be all-in on Iglesias for the same reason as the Yankees: he is the best closer available. I think it could be a good idea to pounce on Iglesias now as a three-out ninth inning guy and have him coexist with Chapman for the time being. Iglesias is a bit homer-prone (11 in 70 innings) but his 103 strikeouts versus 12 walks is staggering. I would imagine his salary would be over $15 million per season. Iglesias will be 32 next season.

Corey Seager

The Yankees have a serious need for upgrade at shortstop and luckily have a plethora of great shortstops to target in free agency. Which has the greatest fit with the team? I would argue Corey Seager. Seager will be only 28 next year and has achieved “stud” status at the plate over the past two seasons, slashing .306/.381/.545 with a 16.1% K rate and 10.1% BB rate. On top of that, he is a left-handed hitter, and we know how much the Yankees desire one of those. The bad news with Seager is he isn’t all that great of a defensive shortstop, and infield defense is another bullet point on the Yankee wish list. Seager was worth -6 outs above average in 2021 (5th percentile) and is seemingly headed for a position change in the future. If the Yankees are signing Seager as their shortstop in 2022, they may have to consider where he fits in 2023 and beyond.

Starling Marte



I’m very curious what kind of contract Marte will command. He will be 33 next year and was a 110 OPS+ hitter from 2017-2020. Meanwhile, the Marte that we saw in 2021 has a tremendous potential fit with the Yankees: .308/.381/.456 slashline, 47 stolen bases versus 5 caught stealing, 4.7 WAR. He is the perfect leadoff hitter that the Yankee lineup craves with DJ LeMahieu’s decline. On top of that, Marte was worth 4 outs above average in centerfield in 2021 and has consistently been an above-average defender, certainly a decent upgrade over what the Yankees would get defensively in centerfield with the current roster outlook. I don’t believe the Yankees will be interested if Marte commands a long-term deal, but if Marte’s camp is looking for four years or less at high annual value, the Yankees could jump at the opportunity if they believe his resurgent 2021 is legitimate.

Kyle Schwarber

This one is much tougher to gage due to team fit, so this is more speculation on my end. Brian Cashman has said in the past how in love he is with Schwarber (maybe he is even a white whale?) and it’s easy to see why: a high power, high on-base lefty bat is such a perfect fit for the Yankees offensively. Plus, what’s more Yankee-like than a slow guy who strikes out a lot and can’t field? Even though he is only entering his age 29 season next year, Schwarber at this point really needs to be a DH, so I believe his best comparison is JD Martinez entering his 2018 free agency with Boston: one of the best bats available with major negative baserunning and defensive contributions. The Yankees could use a lefty bat, and he might be the best offensive lefty bat available, slashing .266/.374/.554 in 2021. The only way Schwarber could be a Yankee is if the DH position becomes a revolving door between he and Stanton, and we know how much the Yankees want to DH Stanton. He would likely play some LF too of course (even though it should be avoided), and I would imagine he would sit most games against left-handed starters (2021 splits of .990 OPS against RHP and .788 against LHP, and similar differences throughout his career).

Risky Veteran Pitchers
Zack Greinke (38), Justin Verlander (39), Clayton Kershaw (34), Corey Kluber (36)

Crazy to think that these four brand-name pitchers are all free agents. Obviously, we are familiar with Kluber, who had an up-and-down season with the Yankees in 2021, but I think he remains a potential candidate to be re-signed. Greinke has remained relatively healthy into his old age but his effectiveness finally caught up a bit to his declining stuff in 2021. Meanwhile, Justin Verlander was literally a Cy Young winner his last full season in 2019 and is completely recovered from Tommy John surgery. Kershaw has exited his prime gracefully and has remained a great pitcher, and despite not needing his surgery, his recent arm injury is concerning. I believe the Yankees won’t target starting pitching heavily this offseason due to its strength in 2021, but I can certainly see them gambling on one of these risky pitchers to add a potential #2 or #3 starter so greatly desired for the playoffs. Matt Blake has had a successful tenure as pitching coach thus far, and I believe the Yankees are confident that they can continue the old success of these pitchers with a new team. I think Kluber and Greinke probably offer the least upside, while Verlander offers the most. Kershaw probably comes with the most risk but is the youngest, and Greinke the least risk. If I had to pick a favorite, I would choose Verlander, and how slowly he needs to be eased in will probably determine his salary. Noah Syndergaard is another interesting option in a similar situation to Verlander, but he likely comes with a bigger market competition due to his young age of 29.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Analyzing Strike Zone Data From the Statcast Database

Image
 With my Statcast database in Oracle nice and handy, let’s have some more fun and look at strike zone data. Strike zone data in Statcast is measured by two variables, plate_x and plate_z, which are like respective x and y coordinates of an axis. The strike zone is the width of home plate, which is 17 inches, although the rule book says specifically part of the baseball has to hit the strike zone for it to be a strike, so truthfully the strike zone is slightly wider than 17 inches. A baseball is three inches in diameter, so really the strike zone width is a number slightly smaller than 23 inches. Statcast measures plate_x and plate_z in feet, not inches. The middle of the strike zone width is a plate_x of 0 (like an axis origin of (0,0)), with pitches to the left being a negative value of plate_x and pitches to the right being a positive value of plate_x. For example, the strike zone is 17 inches wide (1.417 feet), so the left edge has a value of -0.7083 and the right edge has a ...
Read more

Introducing the Full Statcast Database (2019-2021)

Image
Back in July, me and my school partners created a similar data warehouse for every pitch thrown in the 2021 season up until June 23. The project was a lot of fun and you can read a PDF version of it here under the Data Warehousing section. I wanted to continue that project for all of 2021 and beyond, and have finally completed it. Baseball Savant contains data from every season since 2008, and Statcast metrics were measured starting in 2015. In a perfect world, I wanted my database to include everything since 2008, and at the very least 2015 to have a "Statcast Era" database, but unfortunately my student account in Oracle has a limited table space, so I was limited to 2019, 2020, and 2021. Across those three seasons, there were a total of 1,743,857 pitches thrown.  My database is set up in a similar dimension model "warehouse" style. The "fact table" contains all the pitches that I just described, with all their details such as velocity, spin rate, pitch ...
Read more

Player Stat Percentiles in R

Image
 A huge feature of Baseball Savant  is the player dashboards when you go on their page. Everybody loves them. It's a great first-glance visual to see if a player is generally performing well or poorly in Statcast's batted-ball metrics and expected statistics. These percentile visuals are perfect in that it gives us the context of how well a player is compared to the rest of the league. For example, Aaron Judge's .287 batting average sounds pretty good-not-great until you realize that it was a 89th percentile batting average, and that the median batting average in 2021 was .249.  The only thing missing in Baseball Savant's dashboards? Well, the fact that it's only Statcast metrics. If I want a first-glance look at a player, I don't want to just know how well he did compared to the league in Statcast metrics, but in all metrics important to me. I think of the situation where I'm in a time crunch during a fantasy baseball draft. I'll hop onto his Baseball S...
Read more