Updated Perspectives: YAMAMOTO SAYS NO TO NYY

by Paul Semendinger

December 22, 2023

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YOSHINOBU YAMAMOTO IS GOING TO THE DODGERS...

I have a lot of thoughts, please bear with me as I get them all posted...

1.) I have been very positive about the Yankees' off-season thus far. The Juan Soto trade was FANTASTIC! I do believe the Yankees are playing to win, and that pleases me, but...

2.) The Yankees just LOST the biggest sweepstakes of the off-season.

3.) The other day I opined that the Yankees should have set a deadline for Yoshinobu Yamamoto to sign with them so they would be in front of the situation if they failed to land him and they had to revert to their back-up plans. Well... they didn't set a deadline and now they have to fall back to their next plans. Wouldn't it have been better if the Yankees had pivoted a few weeks ago and were ahead of the market - and didn't spent a month in limbo waiting for a player who said "NO!" anyway? Now the Yankees have to play catch-up, but a brand new market for pitching (and player acquisition) has been set. The Yankees let the player and now the market dictate their off-season. Smart clubs work to set the market. It's always better to be proactive. All too often, the Yankees are reactive. Now they have to react after losing the biggest stakes of the off-season.

4.) A team like the Yankees, one of the sport's powerhouses (though I believe the Dodgers have shown over the last many years that they are baseball's biggest power broker) cannot and should not ever negotiate from weakness. Ever. This idea that the player would walk away because the Yankees would set a deadline at the start of a negotiation is preposterous. For anyone who claims that, please let me know of the situations when you were hired. Did the company, firm, or whatever, tell you, "Let us know if you're going to take the job whenever you feel like it?" or did they give a date they'd have to know your intentions by? When you have hired people (if you have) do you give them an open window for weeks on end? ("Just let us know. The job will be waiting for you. We're in no rush.") (I have to say that if a company said that to me, leave a door wide open for me to make up my mind over weeks and weeks, in most situations, I'd have to conclude that they weren't all that serious. I'd like my employer to have a sense of urgency (to a point).) In the end, waiting didn't help the Yankees. It only hurt them. They didn't get the player. They wasted a month waiting on that player. Their fans are very disappointed. And they are back to Square One with fewer days to operate and now within a market that has been re-set and is going to be much more expensive.

5.) I have said, a lot, that the Yankees' brand has taken a hit, big time, these last many years. The Yankees are not seen as winners. This is because it's been a long time since the Yankees were winners. And they just lost again. Today, the Yankees are just another team. Players, fans, the sports industry, etc... do not see the Yankees as the greatest team. They're the team with the greatest history, sure, but Ruth, Gehrig, Berra, DiMaggio, Mantle, and the rest - and yes, that includes Jeter and Rivera and Posada and Pettitte are not relevant today. That history has no impact on a player's decision to come to New York because they are all, today, ancient history. They are all yesterday's news. They are, in a very real sense, last century's news. This is what the Yankees have created by not winning since 2009 and by not being serious about winning for much of the last five plus years, and longer.

6.) A player given the choice between the Dodgers and the Yankees, I think, is going to choose the Dodgers every time. The Dodgers are baseball's biggest power player. They simply are. That can't be argued. It was once the Yankees, but it's not the Yankees any longer. The Yankees gave that status away. The Dodgers play bigger. They are more exciting. They have acquired the bigger player year-after-year, and they win more. To all our readers, taking your fandom away, if playing baseball was your profession where would you play? The answer for me is simple. It's the Dodgers. The Yankees, with their poor decision making all of these last many years, have given up their status as baseball's most exciting and most dynamic team.

7.)  I'm sorry, I have to make the point because it is relevant and it does matter. Months ago, I wrote that Brian Cashman's comments about Giancarlo Stanton would be problematic. Stanton's agent seemed outraged. Stanton's agent said, out loud, what so many have thought might be true - that playing for the Yankees isn't a dream. And, of course, Stanton's agent is also Yamamoto's agent...

We have seen this time and again with the way the Yankees treat their biggest stars, and have continually under Brian Cashman's tenure. This includes the way Aaron Judge's contract was handled, so in this regard, we're not talking ancient history. I believe that Yamamoto took that into consideration when making his decision. I'm sure the agent's critique of the Yankees played a role in his client's decision. It absolutely did. 100%. Again, looking at the way so many of the Yankees' stars' negotiations have gone, and the way they've been handled by the team, and the lack of respect, would the Yankees be your number one choice to play for? (Is it crazy for me to suggest that the agent just got the last laugh? For all of those who said he would cost his client money by not going with the Yankees... I guess he didn't. He also, purposefully or not, made the Yankees look bad.)

8.) The Yankees better have some good back-up plans. This all reflects poorly on the franchise. It does, absolutely. Being stood-up at the alter hurts. It has to. I hope that the Yankees management and owner feel some embarrassment. Big decisions like this don't happen in isolation. All of the factors I shared above matter. They do. No one can honestly argue otherwise. What the Yankees need to do now is pivot. They need to get pitching. I still think they need a plan to keep Aaron Judge out of centerfield. They Yankees need a third baseman. The Yankees need to now bring some energy again. They don't need a high powered firm to come in and tell them all of what I just wrote. (I just did it for them for free.) If the Yankees don't understand all of this, that's part of their problem. The Yankees have lost their market status as baseball's most prestigious team. At the same time, the whole market just got a lot more expensive. There is now a lot of work to be done. I hope the Yankees are up to the task.

UPDATE -

The Yankees were unwilling to go the extra mile, it seems.

Again, they played big enough to play, but small enough to lose. Curry says that the Yankees went to, "the $300M range." To mean that means they went "short of $300M."

Either:

(A) The Yankees were unwilling to pay what the market determined he was worth (two teams were willing to go that high) OR

(B) The Yankees made an offer to try to make themselves look good ("Hey, we tried!") but one they knew Yamamoto would turn down.

If it's B, that makes no sense to me. Losers make excuses. It would make no sense to try that approach. We've heard that a lot from the Yankees in recent years. "The market was too rich," "They wanted too much from us..." etc... This would be an especially foolish approach to take after getting the fans' hopes for signing Yamamoto as well. The fans won't be placated by "We tried."

As such, I think it's A. The Yanks weren't willing to go all in. They were bested by the Dodgers. This makes me think, for the first time this off-season, that the Yankees are not "all-in." This looks like the Yankees are frightened by dollars (even though they're the most valuable franchise in the game - and worth BILLIONS more than the Dodgers (the next most valuable franchise)). This all concerns me about the Yankees' willingness to make the big and necessary deals to win in 2024. We might be seeing more of the same that we've seen for many years - a franchise unwilling to do what they need to do to win. They dug a deep hole. It's going to cost a ton to get out of it.

If this doomsday scenario is true, I don't see Soto resigning at the end of the year. I also see Cole opting out (he might anyway), but without Yamamoto, that prospect becomes more likely - and it'll cost the Yankees another year to keep him. But, if they're not all-in, why would they extend Cole? Why would they sign Soto?

The Yankees let the market beat them (again). It's a bad look. Very bad. Again, the hope is that they have a back-up plan ready to go. I'm less confident now that they have the guts and willingness to make this off-season what it needs to be. This is the critical year... and now, for the first time, we're seeing the team lose because they came up short.

"The Dodgers offered my client $325..."

"We'll stay in the $300 range. How's $285?"

"He's going to the Dodgers..."

As I stated above, this is a big reason why the Yankees are not the team that players flock to. They used to be. The Yankees used to represent winning.

They do not any longer.

And they just lost again - because, it seems, they weren't willing to go to distance.

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