Eleven measly minutes - 660 seconds - before the Yankeapocaylpse.
That happens at exactly 5 p.m., the deadline for Food Stamps Hal Steinbrenner to rule on a matter that will reverberate throughout 2026... and beyond.
By Happy Hour, our pennywise owner must decide whether the Yankees will extend a $22 million, one-year qualifying offer to CF Trent Grisham, who hit 34 HRs last season. It's no slam dunk. While Grisham last year was third on the team (behind Judge and Giancarlo) in On Base Percentage, he is a) pushing 30, b) a career .218 hitter, and c) he fell apart - 4 for 29, without a HR or RBI - in the recent postseason.
Right now, nobody knows what Hal or Grish are thinking.
If Hal extends the qualifying offer:
1. Grisham could say yes. He'd receive $22 million next year, a chunk of money that would burn in Hal's fanny pack. It would leave the Yankees with an outfield surplus that, unless trades happen, will undercut their ability to sign either Kyle Tucker and/or Cody Bellinger, both of whom are viewed as priorities. If the Yankees bring back Grisham, it's easy to imagine Hal doing what he does best: finishing second in the bids for Tucker or Bellinger.
2. Grisham could say no. Good grief, he just had his breakout year. This should be his big, career, free agency payout. He wants a three-year deal, maybe five. If he rejects the offer, the Yankees might receive a compensatory draft pick (it depends on what else they do), and there could be draft-related strings attached to the team that signs him. Sometimes, those strings can really fuck up a player, especially one who is looking for his big, career payout. Ask Alex Bregman.
If Hal says no qualifying offer...
The Yankees flush the toilet, giggle the handle and turn out the lights. Grishman hits free agency free and clear, no strings, and the Yankees look for somebody - a burner who can play CF. Do they think Spencer Jones is real? Can The Martian, who certainly has the speed, improve defensively? Jazz Chisholm? Or would they find themselves pondering, gulp, Harrison Bader 2.0?
So, the Yankees could end up with Grisham, Mr. Cool, back in center, hoping last year was no fluke. Or they could face a clogged outfield into next November, when most people expect MLB to abruptly halt, due to a labor stoppage. There might be no baseball in 2027. (The Dodgers' dynasty ending at three?)
So what happens today, as you're lifting the cold one, could influence how we remember the Yankees for a long, long tme.
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19 comments:
The answer to the Grisham paradox is a big, fat NO, don't bring him back. But it's a paradox because you might want to extend a qualifying offer in order to get back compensation when someone signs him as a free agent. But then maybe he elects to take your qualifying offer and stay here, which is what you don't want. It'd be easy if Brain Dead Cashman was a capable GM: extend the qualifying offer and then, if it's accepted, simply turn around and trade the guy. But Cashman has so much trouble getting rid of dead wood, who are we kidding about a trade, right? All right, then the answer is clear: don't bother making the qualifying offer. Let him walk away. Let's just hope some team out there wants the guy, so that he doesn't come crawling back here with his tail between his legs.
The odds of the Dodgers winning a third WS in a row are entirely based on the ineptitude of whatever AL team bumbles into the Series.
Which probably means, pretty good odds.
I like Grisham. My wife likes Grisham. We both like Cody Bellinger, too, because we remember his father and because he's pretty damn good. We're not going to sign them both. Cody is the better choice, based on past performance. Which, as you know, does not predict future results.
The Martian and Spencer are just kids and I'm already tired of them. Between the hype and the extra hype and the way the team has handled Jasson so far, I don't have high hopes for either one. And it's wrong to think that Jasson will never be a better then average outfielder, if that, but that's what I'm thinking.
Cashman doesn't want to rebuild, he says the team was successful enough this year that he just has to do a little noodling, add a (not necessarily major) piece or two, then bask in the glory that is Hal's approval.
And the turnstiles will keep spinning, and we'll hope 2027 gets cancelled because after a more-of-the-same 2026, we won't give a damn. If we even do now.
Looks like Alonso will be available this winter. Rice to catcher, Wells to Palookaville, Pete to first? Possible, but unlikely.
The reason we don't (or shouldn't) want him back is that this year (regular season) was a fluke. I don't believe he'll hit 34 homers again next year. BTW, what was his batting average? Yeah, batting average matters. (It was a piddly .235.) Chances are, he'll revert to a sub .200 hitter again next year. Even if he does have some pop, do you really want another sub .200 hitter on this team? I'll believe the 2000 or so at-bats that he had before coming here, rather than one year here.
So he went 4 for 29 in the playoffs, eh? That's .138. Pretty close to what he will hit next year.
All year long, I noticed that opposing pitchers were throwing him a lot of cookies. I give him credit. When he got cookies, he hit 'em out. But you knew that would stop at some point. And it did, in the playoffs. Which is the way I saw it at the beginning of the year: that it'd be a mistake to play Grisham over Jasson Dominguez. You want to develop your young players, or if they're not good enough, find out their ceiling and trade them. You don't really get anything out of playing veteran bench players like Grisham. So what if Grisham had a good year? He never had what it takes to work a BB or scratch a single off guys like Yoshinobu Yamamoto. At 30 years old, he's not going to get there either. But they played Grisham all year. How far did they get? Who the hell really believed that Grisham was championship caliber? What did they get out of playing Grisham all year? Another year wasted. Another year that they failed to develop guys like Dominguez. Another year with no championship. Another year meandering in the forest, with no direction, like a rolling stone.
Wonder how many cookies Grisham got were a direct result of hitting in front of Judge? If you were a pitcher, wouldn't you rather challenge Grisham than Judge? But now that he's had a good power year, they'll be more careful to him next year.
JM, if it comes to signing either Grisham or Bellinger, the answer is pretty clear. Keep Bellinger, even if it means another big contract. If they don't believe in the kids, sign both Bellinger and Kyle Tucker. Then you have the outfield set. One of the kids will be the 4th outfielder when Bellinger can't play CF.
This is why they really have to unload Giancarlo Stanton. They have a logjam at DH. They'd do better to rotate Judge, Bellinger as the DH. They'd still have a chance to develop a kid too. With Stanton in there, development is impossible. And they can't really give Judge or Bellinger a rest with DH days. Too much inflexibility.
The Yankees should do a sign-and-trade, which might be their best move. It's the best of both worlds for the team. By the way, more than a few women have giggled at my handle.
Recently, Carl ?
And if so . . . Did any of them make a qualifying offer ?
There's nowhere the Yanks can unload Stanton. He's with us until his contract is up. That said, when he does play he's been doing pretty well, though sadly not in the postseason this year.
Isn’t there a player dumpster somewhere out of the way, behind and/or beneath the stadium.
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FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, no repeat of the Aaron Hicks mistake. They gave him a contract based on one good season and are still paying for it. Don’t do the same with Grisham.
Agreed, J .
If there is going to be an MLB apocalypse in 2027, no baseball, another lockout impasse, then I think the conservative move is to do nothing this winter, as far as free agents. So that means Jasson Dominguez in LF, Spencer Jones in CF. Keep Stanton as DH. Let Bellinger, Grisham go to greener pastures.
They can still try to trade Jizz Chasm, Wells. Volpe is hurt and, even if he wasn't hurt, his trade value is now close to zero. What's Volpe worth? Maybe a bag of balls. I don't know that they could even get a bullpen lugnut for him.
Alternately, they could sacrifice either one of Jasson Dominguez or Spencer Jones and trade for a LF like Steven Kwan. They'd finally have a leadoff man and a good LF. Of the two, Dominguez or Jones, I think I'd rather keep Dominguez. That would mean Dominguez plays CF next year. Jones could be a left handed Aaron Judge a few years from now, but it's still an awful long shot. Potential is a dirty word.
I think it's probably best to do nothing. Take a chance on the kids. The guys they need to move are Jizm & Wells. Jizz is just too out of control. Wells too sub-mediocre a hitter.
What really convinced me that Jizm needs to go is that infield pop up play when he decided that he must be halfway between 1st and 2nd base because the defender might let the ball drop to start a double play. (He got doubled off after the catch.) When you get to that level of absurdity and wheel inventing, it's high time to pull the plug. Don't you just cringe at the thought of what crazy stunt he'll pull next year?
The real move that the Yankees MUST make (but will never make) is expunging Aaron Boone, the entire coaching staff, the entire analytics department. They have to bring in real baseball pros who can get the players to their potential.
Look at the Dodgers pitching coach, Mark Prior. The guy was a really talented major league pitcher who had a short lived career due to injuries. But he was really good, and according to reports, he was a very smart pitcher who knew how to get hitters out. That's exactly the kind of guy who I'd want as a pitching coach. Not only did he have talent, not only was he a very good pitcher in MLB, but he also knew how to get hitters out.
I don't want a pitching coach who was never in the majors, who never even played professionally. College baseball alone does NOT cut it. There's got to be a huge difference between college baseball and professional baseball. They use aluminum bats in college. That makes everything different, would change how you pitch to hitters and how hitters try to hit pitchers.
Then again, there's the thing about whether major league pitchers will listen to a guy who never pitched in pro baseball, let alone in the majors. And how will a guy who never did either help a struggling pitcher to get through a tough year or a tough game or a tough inning? If he's never done it himself in the pros, let alone the major leagues, how does he advise major leaguers?
I said it from the get go when they hired Matt Blake that it was kind of like the Metropolitan Opera House hiring the glee club coach of Timbuktoo to be their vocal coach. No relevant experience personally & not enough experience as a pitching coach. I know everybody has to start from somewhere, and nothing prevents a high school science teacher from becoming the head of N.A.S.A. But let them get their experience elsewhere before coming here. A glee club coach from Timbuktoo is going to tell Pavarotti how to sing? A very stoopid hiring, in my opinion.
Then again, bringing in inexperienced noobs to coach & manage, that makes perfect sense if they're not really trying to win. If they're satisfied raking in money, and they don't want to rock the boat, it makes perfect sense to do these stupid things.
Aaron Judge didn't become a great player overnight. It took him a few years. Not 'til 2022, his 6th full year in the majors did he become the unofficial "best player in baseball". During that season, did you get the feeling that Yankee management did NOT want Judge to have that great year? I don't know about you, about I certainly got that feeling many times over the course of 2022. They didn't want him to play great. They did NOT want Judge to break records. They wanted mediocrity out of Judge, so that they could re-sign him to a piddly contract.
In much the same way, I've had the feeling over the past decade and a half that Yankee management doesn't really want to win a championship. They're fine with raking in profits, kicking the can down the street to the bank. They want to avoid any great success because it helps with cost control. It's risk management. They believe that they're better off (financially) with mediocrity than by winning championships.
Last night!
They offered
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