Analysis | The Yankees and DJ LeMahieu wanted this marriage to work, but both sides had to give a little
With this deal, both sides additionally achieved their secondary mission. For LeMahieu, 32, that meant securing a assured determine — $90 million — that represents by far the most important in baseball this offseason (although Trevor Bauer, George Springer or J.T. Realmuto ultimately may exceed it) and one which comes shut to the $92 million third baseman Josh Donaldson (over four years) acquired from the Minnesota Twins a 12 months in the past. The latter was thought to be LeMahieu’s goal in the beginning of the free agent signing interval.
For the Yankees, the secondary mission was holding LeMahieu’s common annual worth — $15 million, because it seems — low sufficient to permit room for the addition of a beginning pitcher whereas nonetheless holding their 2021 payroll beneath the posh tax threshold of $210 million. The Yankees could have made their transfer later Friday, once they reportedly agreed to a one-year contract with right-hander Corey Kluber, a two-time AL Cy Young winner. The fashionable phrase of this offseason is “financial flexibility,” and the Yankees — regardless of being on the hook for greater than a half a billion {dollars} to Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole by 2028 — achieved a measure of it with the LeMahieu deal.
But take into account the numerous concessions either side had to make to hold the marriage collectively. LeMahieu, coming off an MVP-caliber season during which he hit .364 with a 1.011 on-base-plus-slugging share, receives a median annual wage that in all probability received’t rank among the many high 60 within the sport in 2021. It is decrease, in actual fact, than the MLB-wide qualifying provide of $18.9 million that groups may provide their free brokers this offseason to keep for an additional 12 months — and that each one but two gamers rejected.
It is a stable guess LeMahieu may have made extra on a per-year foundation elsewhere — with the Toronto Blue Jays believed to have been essentially the most aggressive suitor — had he opted for that over the bigger assure. But it’s also attainable he encountered a free agent market that had been depressed considerably by the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Yankees’ concession was associated to LeMahieu’s age. He turns 33 in July, which suggests the group can be paying him a median of $15 million yearly by the top of 2026, by which level he can be 38.
Of course, if LeMahieu turns into unproductive within the late levels of his profession, the Yankees, with their huge sources, can afford to carry him — notably at such a comparatively low wage. But it’s nonetheless jarring, within the age of economic flexibility, to see a group overextend when it comes to years to signal a participant who’s quickly coming into his mid-30s, and it’s a protected assumption that, all different issues thought-about, the Yankees would have most popular a shorter deal. Just as LeMahieu selected assured {dollars} over AAV, the Yankees selected the other.
Ultimately, LeMahieu with the Yankees was a marriage both sides wanted to prolong. It took them lengthy sufficient to determine it out, and neither aspect obtained every part it wanted, but they in the end discovered frequent floor and labored out a resolution. Which, come to consider it, is just about the definition of a marriage.
