Sunday, January 31, 2016

Yankees the Only Team to NOT Sign a Free Agent this Winter


Here we stand on the final day of January and on the final day before we kick off Prospects Month and I don’t quite know how to feel. The Yankees have had a successful winter in some minds, they did acquire Aroldis Chapman for essentially very little and they did acquire Starlin Castro is a bit of a buy-low situation, but to some the winter has been a failure. The Yankees have not done much to address their starting pitching rotation and the team, surprisingly to some even though Brian Cashman revealed his plan early on, has not signed a single free agent this winter. New York is in fact the only team to not sign a major league free agent this winter.

Times be a changin’, no? In years past the Yankees would have not only signed the top free agent pitcher David Price and positional player Jason Heyward but they would have likely also signed Zack Greinke as well as Ben Zobrist. That’s a lot to feel nostalgic about but at the same time the Yankees would have likely traded Luis Severino by now as well as Robert Refsnyder, Aaron Judge, Jorge Mateo and Gary Sanchez as well.

The Yankees made additions to the ball club without breaking the bank or really adding much payroll whatsoever. They did it via trade and they traded other not-so-useful contracts like Brendan Ryan in those deals to offset a bit of the salary. It’s a new strategy we haven’t seen used in New York, at least not in my lifetime, and I think I kind of like it. Sure I love sitting by my computer constantly refreshing MLB Trade Rumors like the next guy but I also hate mortgaging the future and giving a guy an extra year or a few million dollars too much just because the team is bidding against themselves.


It’s a new era in New York and it’s a new era in Major League Baseball. I wonder what the league will do to counteract this in their next collective bargaining agreement. Maybe a fine for not signing free agents now? Seems like something Bud Selig would do so thank goodness for Rob Manfred. 

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)