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Hot Stove Rumors: Machado, Gray, Kahnle, Holder, Roman

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Hurry up and sign, Manny. I’m running out of photo options. (Getty)

Every time I say I think the Yankees are done with big offseason moves, they sign someone else. It was Adam Ottavino yesterday, DJ LeMahieu last week, and Zach Britton the week before that. I’ll have some thoughts on the Ottavino deal early next week. Until then, here are the latest hot stove rumblings.

Yankees have made Machado an offer?

Manuel Machado, Manny’s father, told Hector Gomez his son has received offers from several teams, including the Yankees. “Manny has received offers from different teams. Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies. Now there’s a lot of interest from the White Sox,” said Manuel. Not that long ago it was reported the Yankees hadn’t made Machado a “concrete” offer, which is not a big deal. If there’s an offer in front of him now though, it indicates the Yankees are getting serious.

I’m passing this nugget along because it’s out there, so you might as well read it on my site, but I caution you to be extremely careful not to read too much into these comments. Machado’s father has an obvious incentive to pump up Manny’s market — it’s good for business when the Yankees and Dodgers are involved in the bidding — and get his son the best deal possible. The Dodgers haven’t been connected to Machado at all this winter. Now they’ve made an offer? Not sure about that. You’re welcome to believe what you want. This doesn’t strike me as all that reliable.

Yankees getting closer to trading Gray

According to Jack Curry and Jon Heyman, the Yankees are getting closer to trading Sonny Gray and it could happen soon. They’re talking to several teams with the Giants newly into the mix. That makes sense. Their new president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and new pitching coach Curt Young know Sonny from their days with the Athletics. San Francisco seems perfectly positioned to buy low on Gray, then sign him long-term if he bounces back.

I have the Yankees’ luxury tax payroll at roughly $228.5M following the Ottavino deal. Cot’s has them at $220.2M. My number includes a larger estimate for benefits and also something for in-season injury/September call-ups. Anyway, point is the Yankees are dangerously close to the $226M second luxury tier, if not over it already. Now that the Ottavino deal is in place, trading Gray and finding a cheaper swingman to get the payroll in order feels inevitable. For 40-man roster purposes, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Sonny moved before the Ottavino deal is made official.

Kahnle, Holder drawing interest

2018 Kahnle in picture form. (Hannah Foslien/Getty)

According to Heyman, the Yankees are getting calls about righty relievers Tommy Kahnle and Jonathan Holder. I’m not surprised teams are looking to buy low on Kahnle. Seeing whether he can bounce back this year is worthwhile, but no way would I make him off-limits in trade talks. He’s owed $1.3875M this year and shedding that money could be a priority. Holder had a very nice 2018 and is both dirt cheap and under team control another five years. Of course teams are asking about him.

With Britton re-signed and Ottavino agreeing to a deal, the Yankees are in better position to consider trading away a reliever. It’s a position of depth. Trading Holder or especially Kahnle when you have Britton, Ottavino, Aroldis Chapman, Dellin Betances, and Chad Green is an easy pill to swallow. The Yankees love their big velocity bat-missers and Holder is decidedly not that. Could they cash him in as a trade chip when his value is as high as it’s ever been and maybe as high as it’ll ever get? Hmmm.

Yankees trade Locastro to D’Backs

Earlier this week the Yankees traded utility man Tim Locastro to the Diamondbacks for lefty pitching prospect Ronald Roman and cash, the team announced. Locastro had been designated for assignment last week to clear a 40-man roster spot for LeMahieu. The Yankees got him from the Dodgers for 2015 third round pick Drew Finley earlier this offseason. Locastro, like Hanser Alberto, didn’t make it to Spring Training after being acquired earlier in the winter and spending a few weeks on the 40-man roster. I’m going to start calling this The Dan Otero Club.

Anyway, Roman is a just turned 17-year-old kid the D’Backs signed as an international free agent last July. He has not yet made his professional debut. He’ll do that this year. Roman was a small bonus signing and I can’t find any information on the kid. Sorry. Roman is almost certainly a player the Yankees wanted to sign last July but didn’t because either the D’Backs beat them to him (maybe) or because they ran out of bonus pool money (probably). Either way, he’s in the organization now. In a roundabout way the Yankees turned Finley, a busted prospect, into a young lottery ticket arm.

Update: Yankees sign DJ LeMahieu to two-year deal, designate Tim Locastro for assignment

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(Justin Edmonds/Getty)

January 14th: It is a done deal. The Yankees announced LeMahieu’s two-year contract this afternoon. Tim Locastro was designated for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot, the team says. Locastro came over from the Dodgers in a minor trade earlier this offseason. Decent chance he clears waivers and remains in the organization as a non-40-man roster player.

January 11th: The Yankees have a new veteran infielder and it is not Manny Machado. According to multiple reports, the Yankees have agreed to a two-year contract with DJ LeMahieu. It’ll pay him $24M and the Yankees are expected to use him at first base, second base, and third base. The Neil Walker role, basically.

LeMahieu, 30, is a natural second baseman and an excellent one at that. He is a legitimate Gold Glove caliber defender and lordy did the Yanks need to improve their infield defense. This accomplishes that to some degree. LeMahieu has a little experience at first (13 innings) and third (245 innings) bases, so they won’t be completely new to him, which I guess is good.

As with every Rockies player, the question is how much will he hit outside the Coors Field? There is evidence of a Coors Field hangover because coming down from altitude requires an adjustment, so you can’t really take a dude’s road numbers and declare that the real him. That is overly simplistic. Here are the numbers, for what they’re worth:

  • LeMahieu at Coors Field: .329/.386/.447 (96 wRC+)
  • LeMahieu everywhere else: .267/.314/.367 (84 wRC+)

Jeff Sullivan wrote a post a few weeks ago looking at LeMahieu. Long story short, he’s posted sneaky great exit velocities while managing an elite contact rate. LeMahieu rarely strikes out and he absolutely wears out right field as a right-handed hitter, so much so that teams sometimes use no left fielder and two right fielders against him. If nothing else, he brings a very different offensive look to the lineup.

The Yankees now have LeMahieu, Troy Tulowitzki, Gleyber Torres, and Miguel Andujar for the non-first base infield positions. Tulowitzki figures to get regular days off given his injury history, so LeMahieu will get playing time that way. I also have to think he’ll be Andujar’s late-inning defensive replacement at third base. LeMahieu’s going to get 450+ plate appearances next season. You watch.

Based on my quick math, the LeMahieu signing pushes the luxury tax payroll to roughly $222M, so the Yankees are now well above the $206M threshold. Even if the Yankees trade Sonny Gray and his entire projected $9.1M salary, they’ll still be over the threshold. Imagine going over the threshold to sign LeMahieu but not Machado? Oy vey. Maybe they have another signing (Adam Ottavino?) coming.

At this point there doesn’t seem to be much remaining on the offseason to-do list. Another reliever would be nice. Otherwise the Yankees are more or less set going into Spring Training. Will they splurge for Machado or Harper? The LeMahieu signing all but confirms a no for Machado. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Harper either.

Taking stock of the 2019 Yankees with two months to go until Spring Training

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Where does Bird fit in? (Omar Rawlings/Getty)

At the moment the Yankees are a little more than halfway through their offseason. It has been 68 days since their ALDS Game Four loss and there are 58 days to go until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. Hooray for being closer to Spring Training than the ALDS. Baseball is approaching.

The Yankees have been fairly busy this offseason, most notably adding James Paxton and re-signing several players (Brett Gardner, J.A. Happ, CC Sabathia). They also added some depth pieces through waiver claims and minor trades. Still on the offseason to-do list is find a Didi Gregorius replacement and also bolster the bullpen. That’s the short version. There are still other needs as well.

With the Winter Meetings over and the Yankees slightly more than halfway through their offseason, I figured this was as good a time as any to take a step back and examine the current state of the roster. The projected 25-man Opening Day roster, that is. Here’s what we know right now:

Catcher Infielders Outfielders Rotation Bullpen
Gary Sanchez 1B Luke Voit LF Brett Gardner J.A. Happ Dellin Betances
2B G. Torres/OPEN CF Aaron Hicks James Paxton Aroldis Chapman
SS G. Torres/OPEN RF Aaron Judge CC Sabathia Chad Green
3B Miguel Andujar OF Giancarlo Stanton Luis Severino Jonathan Holder
Masahiro Tanaka OPEN
BENCH DISABLED LIST OPEN
Austin Romine Didi Gregorius LIMBO OPEN
OPEN Ben Heller Jacoby Ellsbury OPEN
OPEN Jordan Montgomery Sonny Gray

Also on the 40-man roster: RHP Albert Abreu, RHP Domingo Acevedo, RHP Chance Adams, RHP Parker Bridwell, RHP Luis Cessa, RHP A.J. Cole, RHP Domingo German, RHP Joe Harvey, RHP Tommy Kahnle, RHP Jonathan Loaisiga, LHP Stephen Tarpley, C Kyle Higashioka, IF Hanser Alberto, 1B Greg Bird, IF Thairo Estrada, UTIL Tyler Wade, UTIL Tim Locastro, OF Clint Frazier.

That is a sneaky number of OPEN spots! I count seven. Four in the bullpen, two on the bench, and one at either second base or shortstop. The Yankees of course have in-house options for those seven OPEN spots and, in some cases, the in-house options are preferable to spending on a back of the roster player(s). Why spend money on a utility infielder who is no lock to perform better than Wade or Albert or Locastro, you know?

There are 18 healthy players on the 40-man roster who are not part of my projected big league roster in that table. We can drop those 18 players into one of five buckets. Let’s do exactly that.

1. Going to the minors (4). I think we can safely assume Abreu, Acevedo, Higashioka, and Estrada are going to begin 2019 in the minors. Higashioka is the third catcher and both Abreu and Acevedo have development remaining. They’re not MLB ready. Estrada missed basically the entire 2018 season with various injuries and needs to catch up on lost at-bats. The Yankees have plenty of other infield options.

2. Out of options (6). Six of those 18 players can not be sent to the minors next year without passing through waivers: Alberto, Bridwell, Cessa, Cole, German, and Kahnle. Chances are a few of these guys will be gone before Spring Training begins — the Yankees still have to open a 40-man spot for Happ, for example — but they’re on the roster right now, so they get dropped in this bucket.

Being out of options does not guarantee a player an MLB roster spot but it can be a tiebreaker. If, for example, the final bench spot comes down to Alberto or Wade, it could go to Alberto because he can’t be sent down and Wade can. Give the Yankees a truth serum and I think they’d tell you they want German (long man/spot starter) and Kahnle (middle reliever) to shove in Spring Training and grab bullpen spots. But, if Bridwell or Cessa or Cole appear to be better options, then they’ll get the Opening Day bullpen assignments.

3. Other bullpen candidates (4). Adams, Harvey, Loaisiga, and Tarpley are bullpen candidates in addition to those out-of-options arms. Tarpley strikes me as most likely to win an Opening Day roster spot simply based on the fact he impressed enough in September to get an ALDS roster spot. Also, he and Chapman are the only lefty relievers on the 40-man roster, and Chapman’s the closer. He’s not going to be brought into a sixth inning matchup situation. Left-on-left relievers are largely disappearing from baseball, but Tarpley could crack the Opening Day roster.

Tarpley. (Getty)

My hunch is the Yankees want Loaisiga to go to Triple-A to begin next year. He impressed in his four-start cameo this summer (not so much in September) but the kid has never pitched in Triple-A and he has 196 career innings to his credit. I don’t think the Yankees would hesitate to carry Loaisiga in their bullpen next year if he’s one of their best options — he has a scary injury history and you might as well get whatever you can out of him before he gets hurt again — but, in a perfect world, they’d be able to send him to Triple-A for more tune-up work.

Adams and Harvey are straight up bullpen candidates. Surely the Yankees hope to have better options come Spring Training, but, if they don’t, Adams and especially Harvey could win bullpen jobs. Adams might be at a disadvantage given his ability to start. The Yankees could send him to Triple-A to remain stretched out as the sixth starter and go with someone else in the bullpen. Adams wouldn’t be the first guy to lose out on a big league bullpen gig because the team wants stash him in Triple-A as a starter.

4. Second base/shortstop options (2). Assuming Estrada is indeed ticketed for Triple-A, the top in-house second base/shortstop candidates aside from Alberto are Locastro and Wade. I expect the Yankees to add a middle infielder at some point between now and Spring Training, but, if they don’t, those are the internal options. Locastro and Wade (and Alberto). Seeing how Wade was the Opening Day second basemen this year, and Locastro is more of an outfielder who can play second base than the other way around, I think Wade would be the guy right now. If the season started today, Wade and Gleyber Torres would be the starting middle infielders. That’s what I think.

5. Other bench candidates (2). We’re down to two names: Bird and Frazier. Two former top prospects who have lost a lot of time to injuries in recent years. We know all about Bird’s problems. Last year’s oblique injury and this year’s concussion issues have limited Frazier to 745 plate appearances and 182 total games the last two years. That’s a real bummer. Had he been healthy this past season, Clint could’ve filled in for Judge in August and who knows, perhaps he plays well enough to win the 2019 left field job outright and convince the Yankees to move on from Gardner.

As for Bird, gosh, I don’t know what the Yankees will do with him. Voit has clearly jumped him on the first base depth chart, but the Yankees do love Bird, and would it really shock anyone if they carried him on the bench next year? I mean, they did this year, right? It’s one thing to do it in August and just buy time until rosters expand on September 1st. It’s another to do it on Opening Day. The Yankees are an eight-man bullpen/three-man bench team and using two of those three bench spots on a backup catcher and a backup first baseman seems … unwise.

The x-factor here is Ellsbury. He’s coming back from major hip surgery and Brian Cashman is already hedging against Ellsbury being ready for Opening Day, but, if he is ready, he might get a bench spot by default. I think it is far more likely the Yankees will release Ellsbury than carry him on the roster next year, but what do I know? If he’s healthy and Frazier needs Triple-A time after all the injuries, carrying Ellsbury as the reserve outfielder could very well be in the cards. As for Gray, the other guy in limbo, he’s a goner. He’ll be traded at some point.

* * *

To me, Locastro is the under-the-radar guy to watch. He can play almost anywhere, he’s a .307/.402/.443 (128 wRC+) hitter in 471 career Triple-A plate appearances, he’s a great runner (169-for-208 career stealing bases, an 81% success rate), and he doesn’t strike out much (career 11.5% strikeouts). I’m not saying I want Locastro on the Opening Day roster. I’m just saying he’s currently the odds on favorite to be this year’s “no one expected him to make the team but he did” guy.

Anyway, we had seven OPEN spots in our original table and this is how I think the Yankees would fill them if the season started today, which thankfully it does not.

Catcher Infielders Outfielders Rotation Bullpen
Gary Sanchez 1B Voit LF Gardner Happ CL Chapman
2B Torres/Wade CF Hicks Paxton SU Betances
SS Torres/Wade RF Judge Sabathia SU Green
3B Andujar OF Stanton Severino MR Holder
BENCH Tanaka MR Kahnle
C Romine DISABLED LIST MR Tarpley
IF Alberto Ellsbury Heller LG Cessa
UTIL Locastro Gregorius Montgomery LG German

That leaves the out-of-options Bridwell and Cole out in the cold — the Yankees really seems to like Cessa — Loaisiga and Frazier getting regular playing time in Triple-A, and Bird in Scranton. As much as the Yankees like (or liked, once upon a time) Bird, I think they’re at the point where they need to see health and production before giving him a roster spot. That Voit is around as a viable first base alternative makes this even more likely.

Would the Yankees play Wade at second base and Torres at shortstop, or the other way around? Either way works, really. I think I’d prefer Wade at short and Torres at second because second base is Gleyber’s likely long-term position and he still has only 132 career games worth of experience at the position. My preference, whether the Yankees go internal with Wade (nah) or bring in a middle infielder from outside the organization (yup), is to keep Torres at second base. I’d have no problem with him at short. Second would be my preference though.

Anyway, this is all a very long way of me saying the Yankees still have some unresolved roster spots, maybe more than anyone realized. The middle infield is unsettled, two bench spots are unclaimed, and there are four open bullpen spots. It’s easy to see why the Yankees want two relievers, right? Yes, they can fill some of those spots internally and I’m sure they will. Filling all of them internally seems like a non-option though. The good news is there’s lots of offseason remaining. The bad news is the Yankees still have a sneaky large amount of work to do this winter.

Yankees acquire utility man Tim Locastro from Dodgers

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(Christian Petersen/Getty)

In a minor trade, the Yankees have acquired utility man Tim Locastro from the Dodgers for minor league righty Drew Finley and cash considerations, the team announced. Los Angeles designated Locastro for assignment yesterday as part of their Rule 5 Draft protection deadline 40-man roster cleanup. The Yankees now have a full 40-man roster.

Locastro, 26, is a native New Yorker from Auburn. The former 13th round pick hit .279/.389/.409 (118 wRC+) with four homers, 18 steals, 14.6% strikeouts, and 7.4% walks in 83 Triple-A games this season. The right-handed hitter has a knack for getting hit by pitches. He averages — averages — 39 hit-by-pitches per 150 games in his career. Huh.

After starting his pro career as a middle infielder, Locastro is now a true utility guy with experience at every position except third base, right field, pitcher, and catcher. Supposedly he’s better in the outfield than on the infield. Locastro’s best tool is his speed. The dude can really run. He’s gone 2-for-12 (.167) in 21 career big league games.

The Yankees are currently stockpiling utility types with Didi Gregorius expected to miss the start of next year. They claimed Hanser Alberto off waivers and re-signed Gio Urshela. And don’t forget Tyler Wade and Ronald Torreyes. Now they’ve added Locastro, who has two minor league options remaining and figures to be an up-and-down guy.

Finley, 22, was the Yankees’ third round pick in 2015. He’s been dogged by injuries throughout his career and has a 5.47 ERA (5.37 FIP) in 120 minor league innings, all in short season leagues. Finley’s father David is the Dodgers vice president of international and amateur scouting. I imagine he had some input into the trade.