It wasn’t just the Yankees trying to land Andrew Benintendi. The Mets were among the other clubs who were in until the lefty-swinging left fielder accepted the White Sox’s five-year, $75 million offer.
Benintendi appealed to the Mets for multiple reasons, including that Steve Cohen liked him as a player. But — this will be hard to believe now — even this version of the Mets had some financial parameters, if not limitations. They were among several clubs around the four-year, $60 million mark in bids for Benintendi, with many teams offering perks such as opt-outs.
But once they landed Kodai Senga after reaching accords with Justin Verlander and Brandon Nimmo — plus Jose Quintana and David Robertson — the Mets hit a bit of a pause button on any other substantial deals. The only way they would break from that pose is if Cohen believed he saw a difference-maker who would greatly impact the club’s near future. Which is why Carlos Correa is now in agreement with the Mets. Cohen saw Correa as that kind of needle mover worth elevating both his record payroll and the fury of his competitors.
Once Aaron Judge was retained, the Yankees let the Benintendi camp know he was a priority, but within their budget, it was either Benintendi or Carlos Rodon as their next move, not both. And Rodon was the priority. They landed Rodon on a six-year, $162 million pact.
Both the Yankees and Mets wanted more time in Benintendi talks to see whether they could clear payroll. But the Benintendi camp could not risk other teams coming off the board. The White Sox, as a policy, do not give opt-outs, so they were willing to go to five years — which separated them from the pack.
And so the Yankees’ No. 1 choice to play left field got away from them.
At the Judge press conference on Wednesday, Hal Steinbrenner said the Yankees were not done adding pieces and had payroll room to do so, though he would not say what the maximum number is. At the moment, they project to about a franchise-record $288 million payroll. If they plan to stay under the $293 million top tax threshold, they have limited maneuverability without subtracting a contract — and it is not as if clubs have expressed undying desire to obtain the bad deals of Josh Donaldson or Aaron Hicks.
Brian Cashman acknowledged a lefty-hitting left fielder probably is the most obvious place to add. But there is this from an executive from another team about the market for good, available lefty bats: “You are trying to find something that doesn’t exist. Outside of [Pittsburgh’s Bryan] Reynolds and giving up a haul, there’s not really a left-handed bat to get that you will feel great about.”
Because the Mets are at least curious about that item too and the Yankees a lot more interested than that, why don’t we use 3Up to take a look at this field?
1. The Yankees talked to Matt Carpenter’s camp before he signed with the Padres. For six weeks last year, Carpenter used a reworked swing to be among the best hitters in the majors before fracturing his left foot. He returned for the playoffs and just wasn’t ready, striking out in nine of 12 at-bats.
The Yankees remained interested. But Carpenter accentuated a clear path to 500 plate appearances with a good chunk of them coming at designated hitter. With Giancarlo Stanton on the roster, the Yankees could not offer that. And Carpenter cannot handle the outfield regularly.
So where does that leave the Yankees with their internal options? At this moment, they only have one definite lefty bat in the lineup in Anthony Rizzo, but their three best options for left field — Hicks, Oswaldo Cabrera and Estevan Florial — all hit lefty.
Cabrera probably would get the first opportunity. But that is based on two very good months to end last season. And if those last two months are reflective of who Cabrera can be, the Yankees would prefer he be their Swiss Army Knife, moving about the diamond to accumulate 400-500 plate appearances.
Can Hicks rebound to even league-average numbers? He had a combined 83 OPS-plus the past two seasons. He will play at age 33 in 2023. He often is injured. The booing at home seemed to get to him as much as anyone not named Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The defensive metrics liked Hicks in left field, but the eye test did not match that.
Florial, meanwhile, put up strong numbers at Triple-A last season, but in cameos was not able to translate that success to the majors. Would he be able to over an extended period? The Yankees would have to feel pretty strongly about that because he is out of options and therefore must be exposed to waivers if he does not stick with the big league club all year. And he surely would get plucked off waivers. His minor league numbers, age (25) and tools would make him attractive in particular to rebuilding teams that could give him regular at-bats to see whether he can translate the tools into major league performance.
I think all of that makes it more likely that Florial’s destiny is to be the third or fourth piece in a trade than to be on the 26-man roster to open the season.
Besides Cabrera, the other Yankees position prospects closest to impacting the 2023 team are Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe, and both are right-handed. The Yankees have operated in the recent past on the policy of obtaining the best players and not over-valuing the lefty/-righty balance. But they began to change when they acquired Rizzo and Joey Gallo at the 2021 trade deadline. There is a greater belief these days that balance is valuable, especially in the playoffs.
The Yankees’ past three first-round picks — Austin Wells, Trey Sweeney and Spencer Jones — are lefty hitters. Plus, Jasson Dominguez is a switch-hitter. Of that group, though, only Wells may impact the 2023 club and not from the start.
So the Yankees may have to live with their current group as a placeholder until something better arises toward the trade deadline. But the reality is the Yankees would be best served with the switch-hitting Cabrera as a better version of the switch-hitting Marwin Gonzalez — in other words, as someone Aaron Boone actually wants to play regularly — and with Hicks as the fourth outfielder with the Yankees hoping at least his on-base percentage remains high enough to bring value.
That version would compel them to find a lefty bat for left field. But it is not easy. So let’s use Nos. 2-3 in 3Up to consider the trade and free-agent markets.
2. Reynolds requested a trade just before the Winter Meetings. The Pirates countered with a statement that said they expect him to be on the team in 2023. It did not exactly say, though, they would not trade him. But if they did trade Reynolds, would the Pirates be opening themselves up to other players knowing they can push the public eject button and potentially force their way out?
It just further complicates a trade, as does the fact that Reynolds is an attractive player. He is due just $6.75 million in 2023, and he cannot be a free agent until after the 2025 season. He is a switch-hitter with good power and on-base skills. He turns 28 in January, so he is amid his prime. He may be the type of player who might be even better surrounded by excellence.
But the teams I talked to view him as a very good player, not a great one. He has played center field in Pittsburgh, but is not a center fielder. Yep, he may be better with a good team. But he is asking out because he has been with a terrible team — the Pirates have the worst record in the major leagues (211-395) since 2019, when Reynolds was a rookie. There always has to be some concern (see: Gallo, Joey) about going from only playing inconsequential games to only consequential ones in a demanding market.
Teams that have inquired have expressed that the Pirates are asking for a star-level return in a trade. And why wouldn’t they, considering his age, control years, dearth of good lefty bats in the market and wanting to stand up against the trade request? And as one rival executive noted, the Pirates have done a good job in recent years building up their farm system with depth, so in exchange for Reynolds, it is all about quality prospects, not quantity.
That would mean someone such as Volpe, and I think that is a no-go for the Yankees. Peraza may be too vital to their 2023 plans as a starting shortstop — perhaps from the outset of the season — to include him. Thus, if the Yankees are going to get Reynolds, it might come down to this question: Just how much do the Pirates like Dominguez?
“The Martian” hype not only over-inflated Dominguez’s status, but did a disservice to a novice who had not played a lot of baseball. But he has settled in as a very good prospect with a high ceiling. Do the Pirates see that ceiling — switch-hitting outfielder — and project him to be a player of Reynolds’s caliber one day? Dominguez does not even turn 20 until February. Does Dominguez, Sweeney and Clarke Schmidt form the nucleus of a workable deal?
Remember: The Pirates and Yankees were simpatico on significant deals twice in recent times, when the Yankees obtained Jameson Taillon and Clay Holmes. But will Pittsburgh steer away because in those deals they only received one attractive (to date) piece in starter Roansy Contreras.
If the cost for Reynolds proves too prohibitive and/or another contender starving for bats outbids them, where else can the Yankees look in the trade market?
The Diamondbacks are saturated with lefty outfield bats, and the Yankees have been in touch with Arizona. But Corbin Carroll is almost certainly untouchable, and Daulton Varsho is not far behind.
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According to teams who have spoken to Arizona, the Diamondbacks are trying to equate Alek Thomas with Carroll and Varsho. Thomas’ ability to handle center field (a position the Yankees do not need to fill with Harrison Bader in place) increases his value. For example, before re-signing Brandon Nimmo, the Mets were talking to Arizona about Thomas. Will teams believe that Jake McCarthy’s 2022 breakout is real? He certainly will be marketed that way by the Diamondbacks.
A player who I like is the Diamondbacks’ Josh Rojas, who mainly plays third base now, but has history in the corner outfield. But playing the spacious left field at Yankee Stadium is not for a below-average outfielder.
I asked about Cincinnati outfielders Jake Fraley and TJ Friedl, but there have been no conversations between the Yankees and Reds on those players. The A’s are always open for business, and while Seth Brown has an interesting bat, his defense is just not good enough.
Is it possible a team such as the Cardinals (Alex Burleson), Guardians (Will Brennan) or Tigers (Kerry Carpenter) would move a lefty-hitting outfield prospect who appears major league-ready? Maybe. But prospect-for-prospect deals are hard to pull off. Plus, looking good at Triple-A is different than doing the same in the majors — if that weren’t true, the Yankees could just go with Florial.
My hunch is the best road to a trade is with the Twins and involves Max Kepler. I am going to suggest a trade here (note to aggregators: I am making this up as something I think might work for both teams, this is not something I heard): Kepler and Nick Gordon for Kiner-Falefa and Gleyber Torres.
Why would the Twins do this? There are few teams with more lefty hitters to choose from than the Twins, who added one more by signing Gallo. What they need most is pitching. But if they could get desirable pitching in exchange for Kepler, they would have done so already.
The Twins did trade for Kiner-Falefa to play shortstop last year before the Yankees called to pick up the threads of talks they had begun with the Rangers to land Kiner-Falefa. The Twins were hoping to retain Correa at shortstop this offseason, but didn’t. They traded for Kyle Farmer. But, clearly, they like Kiner-Falefa.
So do the metrics, by the way. He failed the eye test with the Yankees, particularly playing yippy defense in big spots. But Baseball Reference had him as a 3.0 WAR player and Torres at 4.1. Last season, Kepler was 2.1 and Gordon 1.6.
The Twins, with Jorge Polanco at second base, would have to believe Torres could play third (which he probably can). But the DH spot also is available to rotate. The Twins would only make this trade if they believe in Kiner-Falefa as a stopgap one-year shortstop (he is a free agent after the year) and/or that last season was Step 1 toward Torres being a high-level offensive player again.
The Twins have not dissuaded teams from asking about AL batting champ Luis Arraez this offseason. And though Arraez has played some outfield, it is not a comfortable fit. Plus, to move him, the Twins almost certainly would need pitching.
Why would the Yankees do it? They also might not. Their analytics folks like Kiner-Falefa too. Torres’ bat is a factor, especially with DJ LeMahieu and his injured foot not a certainty to be at full health, at least to begin 2023, and the offensive nosedive of Donaldson leaving him untrustworthy. But Kepler can play left field defensively if he is healthy (a big if) and Gordon, another lefty swinger, could pair with Cabrera to give the Yankees a duo to move around the chessboard. Gordon does not fit the Yankees model because he walks too infrequently to justify his strikeout rate. But did I mention he bats lefty? And his OPS-plus (113) last season nearly mirrored Torres’ 114. And Gordon is not even arbitration-eligible yet.
Kiner-Falefa is due $6 million in 2023, and MLB Trade Rumors projected Torres to earn $9.8 million in his next-to-last year of arbitration. Kepler is due $8.5 million in 2023, and has a $10 million option or a $1 million buyout for 2024.
In 2019, Kepler had 36 homers and an .855 OPS. He has not been close to that offensive player since due to injury and/or the shift and/or that was just an aberrational season. In the past three years, he has a combined 37 homers and a .706 OPS.
For the Yankees, though, he would be at worst a placeholder in left that they would hope stays healthy enough to defend and produce league-average offense. But there is the possibility that the ban on extreme shifts helps someone such as Kepler. His .249 batting average on balls in play tied him for 18th-lowest among those with 400 plate appearances last year.
Kepler put 326 balls in play in 2022. Eighty of them were grounders to the pull side. That rate of 24.5 percent ranked 17th out of 199 hitters with 275 or more batted balls. Does Kepler get 10 more hits without extreme shifts? Last year, that would have taken Kepler’s batting average from .227 to .253.
The Twins essentially are banking that the prohibition on extreme shifts will help Gallo as much as anyone in the sport. And his presence — plus still having young lefty outfielders Alex Kiriloff and Trevor Larnach — makes Kepler extremely available.
3. So who else is available in free agency now that Benintendi is off the board? The most intriguing name is Michael Conforto.
But there are two big problems with Conforto. He did not play in 2022 after needing right shoulder surgery. His agent, Scott Boras, has said his client is throwing regularly in his prep for the upcoming season. But any team that signs him must brace for the possibility that they would only have a DH. And then what kind of DH? Conforto performed poorly in 2021 and did not play in 2022 — and what is the impact on his swing of now having had major issues with both shoulders.
And Boras also has said he is seeking a two-year contract for Conforto with an opt-out after one year. But that is putting a lot of risk on the team side. The only way Conforto would not opt out is if he either were hurt or performed so poorly that he could not do better financially on the open market.
When he reaches agreement, Conforto is a player whose physical exam will not be rote. A team is going to have to be really comfortable with the condition of his shoulders (plural), especially his right (throwing) shoulder.
There has been a market established for damaged-goods lefty-hitting outfielders. Kevin Kiermaier, coming off of hip surgery, signed a one-year, $9 million deal with the Blue Jays. Gallo, having fallen from an All-Star to a bench player for the Yankees and Dodgers, signed for one year at $11 million with the Twins. Michael Brantley, off of shoulder surgery, signed a one-year, $12 million pact with the Astros. Cody Bellinger, who plummeted from NL MVP to a non-tender by the Dodgers, signed a one-year, $17.5 million pact with the Cubs.
Note these were all one-year contracts, and Bellinger and Kiermaier gain a boost by playing center field at a high level. Bellinger and Gallo are represented by Boras, who also negotiated the bigger deals for lefty-hitting outfielders to send Brandon Nimmo back to the Mets (eight years at $162 million) and for Masataka Yoshida to join the Red Sox (five years at $90 million).
Considering what the other comparable players signed for, Conforto probably belongs at around $10 million for one year with perhaps a chance to make more with games played and/or plate appearance bonuses. But without confidence he can play the outfield, he would be a tough sign for the Yankees.
In the remaining group, there also are switch-hitters Robbie Grossman and Jurickson Profar (another Boras client). Profar used to tempt the Yankees. And his on-base skills are desirable. But he opted out of a $7.5 million contract for 2023 with the Padres, and I am not sure the Yankees want to go to a second year or much higher in the first to have him.
Jackie Bradley Jr., Kole Calhoun, Alex Dickerson, Corey Dickerson, Ben Gamel, Tyler Naquin, David Peralta, Magneuris Sierra, Dominic Smith and Ramiel Tapia remain. Smith is intriguing because of his Mets ties. But he cannot play the big Yankee Stadium left field. Bradley’s defense is a huge asset, but his offense has regressed to near-non-playable. If someone such as Gamel or Sierra or Tapia falls to where they only get a minor league deal, I could see the Yankees jumping in to create depth. They might even do the same with Bradley, just for the defense.
Of the group, Peralta is the player I think would have the most appeal to the Yankees as a stopgap until something potentially better comes along in July. He was performing well for Arizona last year (12 homers, 118 OPS-plus in 310 plate appearances) before being traded to Tampa Bay (0 homers, 92 OPS-plus in 180 plate appearances). He will play at 35 next year, so that might be a sign of an approaching end.
But he was a productive player until the trade last July 30. I don’t see why he would not be a league-average player who handles left field, albeit not nearly as well as Benintendi. Benintendi was the ideal fit because he could play left field well. He was a contact lefty hitter to balance against so many righty bats with strikeout penchants. He was tested in big markets in Boston and New York.
Once he came off the board, in this environment, the Yankees were moved into a far more difficult spot to find a solution.
