As crosstown Mets splash with additions, Yankees pass on big names with different approach
TAMPA, Fla. — Hal Steinbrenner says he’s had lunch a couple times with Steve Cohen, that he seems like a nice, down-to-earth guy, and Steinbrenner acknowledges that New York’s a better city when both baseball teams are thriving.
The Yankees owner suddenly has a new shadow to chase, one far more tangible than that cast by his late father, whose epic spending sprees and tabloid-ready tirades fueled great interest in the ballclub and eventually resulted in four titles over five glorious years nearly a quarter-century ago.
While it’s chic to compare Hal to George when the Yankees come up short on the roster and in October – as they have every year since 2009, the final full year with the Boss in the owners’ box – it’s not entirely fair. The two men helmed the franchise through different eras, and Hal bears a greater familial burden than George, who answered to only himself.
In second-year Mets owner Cohen, though, Steinbrenner finds a more apples-to-apples comp, given that both share a market, work under the same parameters established by Major League Baseball and enjoy massive revenue streams unavailable to most teams.
Both men played key roles in the new collective bargaining agreement forged after a 99-day lockout – Steinbrenner sitting on an influential owners’ committee, Cohen the target of a new tax threshold that now unofficially bears his name. And as spring training finally began, the differing paths of both owners could be summed up in their state-of-the-franchise chats.
Cohen, who stunned the baseball world by paying pitcher Max Scherzer $43.3 million per year just months after guaranteeing shortstop Francisco Lindor nearly $341 million, was able to distill his relationship with his front office in just nine words.
“I have not told them not to do anything,” he said Sunday in Port St. Lucie.
Steinbrenner, in concert with longtime general manager Brian Cashman, opted not to pursue top-end shortstop Carlos Correa, hoping prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza someday fill that role, and laid out a modest $32 million over two seasons to retain first baseman Anthony Rizzo rather than allot the nine figures it would take to reel in former MVP and playoff hero Freddie Freeman.
As such, Steinbrenner needed some 250 words, over multiple responses, to explain how the Yankees – while still carrying a payroll that will near $260 million – don’t shop in markets befitting their clout.
He says he “can’t control what resources other owners or other teams have” and that he and Cashman “consider everything” and “left no stone unturned” and that it’s his job to “make sure we’re financially responsible,” with “a lot of partners, banks and bondholders to answer to.”
It was a rational answer to a fan base that’s often anything but, and a marked contrast to Cohen’s Mets, who after years of emaciated payrolls under the Wilpon regime are now expected to outspend their outer borough rivals, coming in at just shy of $290 million.
So be it.
“I think we have what it takes,” Steinbrenner insists. “I think we have a championship-caliber team.”
It’s true – the Yankees trot one out every year and have made the postseason nine of 12 seasons since winning the World Series. Yet why would this edition of the Yankees – who won 92 games but lost the wild-card game to dreaded Boston last October – cross the threshold to “championship team?”
For now, they are banking on a shuffling of the deck – and a cadre of uncomfortable incumbents – to provide a spark.
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‘We’re going after rings’
Isiah Kiner-Falefa couldn’t have been more thrilled in the moments after he lost his job.
It was late November, and the Texas Rangers had just signed shortstop Corey Seager to a $325 million contract, ending Kiner-Falefa’s four-year run at that position, all losing seasons, including a 102-loss clunker in 2021.
The Rangers’ sudden pivot to a half-billion dollar spending spree put Kiner-Falefa on the trading block, and a 99-day lockout had him dreaming of new destinations.
“I put myself in a position to get traded in the first place. I knew other teams valued me,” Kiner-Falefa says. “It was cool to see the Twins went after me first and then the Yankees as well. But this is the team I wanted to play for.
“Before the lockout ended and Seager signed, I was like, ‘Oh, let’s go,’ New York’s an opportunity. Minnesota came first and now I couldn’t be happier.”
Kiner-Falefa was a Twin for a day, as Texas traded him to Minnesota before the Twins packaged him with third baseman Josh Donaldson and catcher Ben Rortvedt for catcher Gary Sanchez and third baseman Gio Urshela on Sunday.
It was a transformative trade, with Donaldson bringing MVP credentials and a significant edge to his corner of the clubhouse. It marked the end of Sanchez’s powerful but occasionally adventurous stint as the Yankees’ primary catcher, while ending Gleyber Torres’ stint at shortstop.
And perhaps that’s the most symbolic shift on this club.
Torres dazzled and then dimmed, slugging 24 home runs in his 2018 debut season and 38 a year later as he eased into the shortstop role, before both his swing and his glove deserted him.
For now, he is penciled in at second base, although a preseason trade remains possible. Either way, the Yankees have done a 180 up the middle.
Kiner-Falefa finished third among major league shortstops with 10 Defensive Runs Saved, while Torres finished tied for 19th with -10. Kiner-Falefa has never hit more than seven home runs in a season. But after a season of peaks and valleys – a seven-game losing streak at the start of September nearly sank their playoff chances – the Yankees are asking for stability at key points on the diamond.
“They liked my defense,” Kiner-Falefa said of his Yankees intake interview, “they liked my baserunning, they liked my character.
“No matter what happens, I’m always going to play hard.”
A Correa-starved fan base may not want to hear it, but manager Aaron Boone insists he, too, dreamt of Kiner-Falefa in pinstripes during the lockout.
“Isiah is somebody I was kind of excited about all winter, kind of hoping maybe we’d be able to get him and plug him in,” says Boone. “He’s a really athletic guy, really good defender, really good baserunner. You can sense he really wants to be here and appreciates being here and expects to play well here.”
Indeed, Kiner-Falefa says that “the fact we’re going after rings is a good feeling.” Yet it’s still not determined who will join him on that chase.
With Rizzo agreeing to a two-year, $24 million contract – a jersey bearing his No. 48 hung in a locker stall Wednesday morning – the Yankees have a backlog of infielders. First baseman Luke Voit, who hit a MLB-high 22 homers in the shortened 2020 season, said he was prepared for the possibility of a trade, noting that it’s “two times, now” that a Rizzo acquisition will push him to the margins.
“I’ve enjoyed New York,” Voit said. “It’s the best place to play baseball. So we’ll see what happens.”
Torres’ move to second will push DJ LeMahieu into a rover role, between first, second and third, with the latter option particularly enticing to get Donaldson, 36, off his feet with some regularity. LeMahieu’s 2021 demise – his slugging percentage fell from a combined .536 in 2019-20 to .362 as he played through a sports hernia and other injuries – figured in the Yankees’ inconsistency.
Now, he’s a man without a full-time position in Year 2 of a six-year, $90 million deal. (A deal, it should be noted, roundly cheered by the fan base).
Torres, too, could find himself on the trade block but if he’s around, he should be more comfortable at second, where he started 104 games in 2018 before gradually becoming a full-time shortstop, with diminishing results.
“If you don’t do the right thing, there’s always pressure on yourself. This is the year I want to do the right things for my team and bounce back,” says Torres, still just 25 and three years from free agency. “I want to be the consistency guy. I know the game is so hard.
“I know I can’t hit 4 for 4 with two homers every day.”
A tight window
Perhaps there’s something to that. In an AL East that only gets more treacherous by the day, the Yankees are aiming for a more solid foundation. For now, respected receiver Kyle Higashioka (who batted .181 in 67 games) and Rortvedt are the catchers, which could create a soft spot in the lineup but provide greater levels of comfort and conviction for pitchers throwing to them.
Either way, good health from sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton is vital; they played in 148 and 139 games, respectively, in 2021 and often kept the club afloat. Judge is entering his final year before free agency, says he won’t negotiate during the season and Steinbrenner says the club remains focused on other additions before pondering Judge’s future.
Not much of a window to lock up the current face of the franchise.
After dipping under the luxury tax threshold in 2018 and again in 2021, the Yankees are certain to exceed it this year. There will be no shiny winter prize, not with bills to pay.
“You can talk about revenues, but you have to talk about our expenses too,” says Steinbrenner, citing an annual $80 million bond payment to the city for Yankee Stadium. “And we have some significant ones.”
Those won't include the $162 million over six years the Dodgers laid out to sign Freeman late Wednesday, giving them a payroll of $300 million, just past Cohen's Mets. Steinbrenner's clear-eyed pragmatism pales a bit when the new guy across town is winning headlines and hearts, mocking tax thresholds and creating the perception there’s always room for more.
The Yankees will not quiet that storm with their checkbook, leaving just one option.
“I make the same commitment every year – my family does – which is to do everything we’re able to do to field a championship-caliber team and try to win a World Series,” says Steinbrenner. “I will continue to do everything I’m able to do to accomplish that.”