About the Off-Season: Unfinished Business
by Tim Kabel
January 4, 2023
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We have begun a new year and there are about six weeks before pitchers and catchers report to spring training. So far, the Yankees have made a couple of big additions by acquiring Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo via trade. At this point, they have not signed any free agents. They did aggressively pursue Yoshinobu Yamamoto but he decided to go play for the Dodgers. Since then, the Yankees have done nothing major. This is eerily reminiscent of last year, when the Yankees re-signed Aaron Judge, signed Carlos Rodon, but didn't do anything else. They cannot do that again this year.
The fact the Yankees were willing to spend 300 million dollars to acquire Yamamoto indicates that they have money to spend, and they are ready to use it. Well, that's what they need to do. The Yankees surrendered a great deal of their pitching depth to acquire Verdugo and Soto. They need at least one, if not two, starting pitchers. They could also use more help in the bullpen. In addition, many of us feel Cody Bellinger would be a tremendous piece to add to the greatly improved offense. The worst thing they can do is nothing.
If they make no other moves and don't bring in any other pitching,They will not have improved greatly from last year. They will just be different, not better. Yes, Soto and Verdugo will help the lineup a great deal but, in order to do that, the Yankees weakened their pitching. It's like saying you're going to remodel your house, but you just repaint two rooms and shift furniture around. You wind up leaving the home in disrepair. The Yankees need to finish the job.
The Yankees have been linked to Shota Imanaga, Jordan Montgomery, Josh Hader, and to a lesser degree, Blake Snell. There have also been rumors about possible trades for Shane Bieber, Dylan Cease, Corbin Burnes, and now Jesus Luzardo. Considering the Yankees have already traded away several prospects this off-season, as well as those they traded away in 2022, they may not have the sufficient resources to make another big trade. Free agency may be a more viable and practical route for the Yankees.
Whether it's via trade or free agency, the Yankee still need to do more. If they stop now, after not signing Yamamoto, this offseason would be close to a disappointment. Of course, they did acquire Juan Soto. Verdugo has the potential to help the team as well, But they will be considered to have lost out on Yamamoto and then done nothing else. They will have lost quite a bit of Major League pitching and not replaced it.
I believe very strongly that the Yankees will make a few more moves. The point is they have to. They got off to a tremendous start by acquiring Soto and Verdugo, but they need to do more. They need to finish the project. It would be like writing one third of a great novel. No one wants to read it. They might be curious to look at it, but the question would be, where's the rest of it? That is the question that Yankee fans have as they look at Brian Cashman's off-season work:
Where is the rest of it?
