What is the Yankees Outfield Plan B If Not Soto?

What is the Yankees Outfield Plan B If Not Soto?

by EJ Fagan

November , 2024

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.

Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.

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I think that the Yankees are favorites to land Juan Soto. I’m not super confident about that opinion, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise. The Yankees can afford him. Soto seemed to enjoy his time here. Everyone is saying exactly what you would expect them to say in the middle of a half billion dollar negotiation.

But, he’s also probably not going to sign with the Yankees. You always take the field when the field is this big. Maybe he wants to play on a Dodgers superteam. Maybe the Mets are going to offer a stupid amount of money. Maybe the Rays want to give him an ownership stake or something. The good news is that he’s pretty likely to land in the Bronx.

What should the Yankees do if not Soto? Given the age of Judge and Cole, the team is built to win now. At the same time, the successful debuts of Volpe, Wells and Gil, and sort of Dominguez, gives the Yankees more budgetary room than normal. They can spend money to make the team better.

Soto’s absence opens up an 8 win hole on the team, but also saves them in the neighborhood of $50 million annually.

What could they do with $50 million? Here is my plan.

Free Agents

We don’t talk about it a lot, but Judge and Soto play the same position. Judge ended up moving to center for 2024, but was kind of bad at it. Statcast has him at -9 OAA in range, good for the 9th percentile. His arms makes up for it a little bit, but Judge really should not be the Plan A centerfielder ever again. He’ll be a little better in left if they bring back Soto, but his range will be a bit of a problem in Yankee Stadium.

The best outfielder on the market is probably Anthony Santander, coming off a career power year. He hit 44 home runs and posted a career high .814 OPS.

That said, Santander is my pick this offseason to ask for too much money and not have a job heading into the Spring. Just check out his career year on Statcast:

That’s… not a great profile. Santander does a few things really well. He swings very hard, doesn’t strike out too much, and isn’t great at squaring the ball up. He’s a slow runner who isn’t a particularly good defender, probably too slow for left field at Yankee Stadium. There’s a reason why he hit 44 home runs and posted just 3.3 fWAR in his career year.

Would he improve the Soto-less team? Absolutely. Santander has a great swing for Yankee Stadium when batting lefty, and probably got hurt a bit batting righty in Baltimore. But he’s probably a little overpriced at MLB Trade Rumor’s projected 4/$80 million. I bet some team ends up signing him for something closer to 3/$60 million.

I like the other options out there. Teoscar Hernandez is similar to Santander, but with a little more consistent offense and worse defense. Jurickson Profar is more of a contact hitter, but has a less consistent track record. Tyler O’Neil is theoretically an option, but I’m not really a fan.

Of these, I kind of like Profar the best. He really was an elite bat last year, and could be a bargain at MLB Trade Rumor’s project 3/$45 million. Meet your new leadoff hitter:

Trade Options

There are pretty much no desirable outfielders listed on MLB Trade Rumor’s top trade candidates. The names there are pretty flawed: Leody Tavares, Luis Robert Jr, Lane Thomas, Chas McCormick.

Jazz Chisholm

I think it’s pretty likely that Chisholm ends up in the outfield if the Yankees don’t sign Soto.

Chisholm is at least an above average centerfielder. His speed plays there. He has a lot more time there than at third, although second base is arguably his best position. There are a few really interesting options in the infield that they might be interested in like Eugenio Suarez, Alex Bregman and Willy Adames.

It’s nice to have options. I think Chisholm’s bat is a little overrated, but he’s a strong overall player because of defense and base running. In fact, he’s probably better than any of the free agent outfielders.