The New York Yankees’ main goal this offseason is to keep Aaron Judge. They have made him an offer that is somewhere around $300 million for eight years. It comes out to an average of $37.5 million per year and is going to be the highest-ever annual salary for any position player. But, Is the latest Yankees offer enough to keep Aaron Judge and shut down the Giants?
MLB Network’s Jon Morosi has the latest news about the Yankees slugger’s plans as a free agent. Morosi said Thursday on MLB Network:
“The Giants are a very realistic possibility. This is not a Yankees at 70% likelihood and the Giants at 30. I think that we are very close to 50/50, where if the Giants really step up and get that AAV up closer to $40 million a year, there’s a legitimate chance that Aaron Judge becomes a San Francisco Giant.”
Aaron Judge went to see the Giants last week because he was a free agent. When Judge became available after the World Series, San Francisco was the first team besides the Yankees to meet with him.
Farhan Zaidi, the president of the Giants, told during the GM Meetings in Las Vegas that the team’s owners have given him “no explicit ceiling” on how much he can spend this winter.
Steve Phillips, who previously worked as the general manager of the New York Mets, does not believe that this offer will be sufficient for the Yankees to keep their superstar outfielder. According to what he says:
“San Francisco has made it clear that they can play on anybody and they can go to any level and anybody because they do have a lot of money that’s come off the books. And so I think it’s going to take more than that. And and I’m not sure it’s gonna stop at eight years. I know he’s 31 and it’s not where anybody wants to go, but I think that’s where agents really make their money, is not so much how much per year, but how many years can get for the player. And I think that sort of idea of sort to the Giants say listen, if you go to the ninth year you got a chance to get him. And if they do, then does he go back to the Yankees and say, ‘Listen, you know, if you go to a 10th year, then the deal is yours, we’ll make the deal and come back.’ And so I’m not sure that eight at $300 [million] is gonna get it done. And the timing of that really matters for the Yankees. Because I gotta tell you, I don’t know how to build the Yankees without Aaron Judge and make them competitive, especially if they’re going to go with the young kids and shortstop and second base. You know, at that point, I don’t know where they go to rebuild the team because you when they lost last year, it was because they didn’t score enough. And that’s where they got get a guy with 62 home runs. Like, you almost need three different impactful offensive players to match what Aaron Judge did last year. [The Yankees] might not be able to afford to keep him, but I don’t know if they can afford to not keep him at any cost. And so I think it’s going to be really interesting because I’ve seen so many people try to say ‘Let’s rebuild the Yankees without Aaron Judge’ and every one of those teams is less than what they would look like if they did have him on the club.”
Jeff Passan of ESPN says that Judge could make his choice at the Winter Meetings in San Diego next week. As the baseball world waits for a decision that could change the future of at least two teams and reset the free-agent market, I wanted to know which hot stove clichés, like the hometown team or the breakdown of an extension, have been true for other big-ticket free agents. But SNY’s Andy Martino claimed, “It would be a mild surprise if this wasn’t finished by the end of next week’s winter meeting.”
What does history teach us about Aaron Judge?
Let’s analyze the league’s 100 biggest contracts, the smallest one being Carlos Correa’s $105 million deal from the last offseason. Usually, a star of Aaron Judge’s standard turning free agent without signing an extension is not a good sign for a big club like the Yankees. Of those 100 deals, 46 were extensions and one was Masahiro Tanaka coming to MLB from Japan without a team already there.
All 30 teams had a chance to bid on the 53 stars who signed, but only six of them went back to their original teams. Only 22 of the 53 players on the market had played their whole careers for the same team with which they made their debut in the major league. Still, after the Nationals won the World Series in 2019, Stephen Strasburg, only one of those 22 players stayed.
But there are a few well-known Aaron Judge-shaped entries that don’t fit the pattern. After winning AL MVP for the Yankees in 2007, Alex Rodriguez used an opt-out clause to leave the team and become a free agent. But he didn’t stay away for long and quickly came back. Chris Davis, a power hitter for the Orioles, became a free agent after leading the MLB in home runs with 47 in 2015. He ended up re-signing with the Orioles. And it’s important to remember that talking about the Yankees in free agency is different from talking about the A’s, the Guardians, or even the Giants. If Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman are serious to have Aaron Judge, no one can outbid the Yankees.
Will Aaron Judge choose the Giants because they are close to his home?
Aaron Judge was just a kid before he won the AL MVP Award and hit 62 historic home runs in the Yankees shirt No. 99. His hometown Linden, California, is about 100 miles east of the Bay Area. Aaron Judge’s parents and in-laws still live there, and he still works out at his alma mater’s gym when he goes to see them during the off-season.
During Aaron Judge’s rookie year, when he only hit 52 home runs, the 6-foot-7 slugger used his first trip to Oakland as a big-leaguer to talk about his time in Little League. He told Randy Miller of NJ.com that he didn’t follow the A’s. Instead, he wore the number of his favorite player on the 2002 Giants team that was going to the World Series and even hit the ball in the same way. But Rich Aurilia, the shortstop, was Judge’s favorite player, not Barry Bonds.
“My dad’s favorite number is 35, so as a kid I wore 35, and Rich Aurilia was the shortstop for my favorite team, and he wore 35, the slugger said, liked watching him.”
The San Francisco Giants are now ready to pounce. Farhan Zaidi has been patiently waiting out the terms of several long-term contracts before giving out any new ones. The team surprised everyone by winning 107 games in 2021. Now that they want to compete with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres in the tough NL West. Cot’s Contracts says that the Giants have only $20.5 million in guaranteed money on the books for 2024 and nothing for 2026 and later. The Yankees, on the other hand, have already set aside $115.8 million for their payroll in 2024 and $51 million for 2027, which would be the fifth year of a possible Aaron Judge deal.
With San Francisco’s money, Yankees fans’ desperation, Aaron Judge’s upbringing in California, and his epic contract year, there will be one of the most explosive free-agent decisions in MLB history. To make things more explosive, the Giants will play the Yankees in the Bronx on Opening Day.
In fact, most big-ticket free-agent deals indicate that being close to home is not a big factor. Gerrit Cole, who grew up in Orange County, was once thought to be a top candidate to lead the Los Angeles Angels. However, this guess didn’t take into account the fact that he was a Yankees fan as a kid or the $25 million difference in offers. Mark Teixeira, another player who signed with the Yankees, grew up cheering for his local team, the Baltimore Orioles. However, he chose to play for the division rivals because there was a $30 million difference in offers.
It’s hard to define local ties and even harder to make money off of them. In 11 of the 100 biggest deals, a team was said to be interested in a free-agent star from the same area, but only one of them signed. Last offseason, when Freddie Freeman joined the Dodgers, it wasn’t exactly a happy homecoming.
After turning down a seven-year, $213.5 million contract extension from the Yankees before 2022, Aaron Judge had the best power season in baseball since Barry Bonds. The baseball business still thinks that Judge will re-sign with the Yankees, who have the upper hand.
What do you think about the bidding war over Aaron Judge? Leave your comment below.
