Extending These Three Yankees Should Be a Priority This Winter

The New York Yankees are known to be stingy with contract extensions, but they should seriously consider locking up these three players this offseason.

For a long time the New York Yankees had a team policy of not negotiating a new contract with players until their old deal had expired. When their tremendous financial advantage was at its peak and they could outbid every other MLB club for whatever player they wanted, this policy made a lot of sense.

The Yankees no longer play by their own set of rules for a variety of reasons. The luxury tax and other revenue sharing measures have been pretty effective in leveling the playing field. In addition, current principal owner Hal Steinbrenner is more, *cough*, financially minded than his father was, meaning the product on the field is often secondary to making sound business decisions.

Now that they have apparently bumped up against the ceiling of their payroll, it probably makes sense for New York to adopt some of the strategies of the peasants they used to laugh at and look for some players on their roster who could be extended at a discount rather than waiting and paying full price for them on the open market.

The team made it clear they have moved on from their no-extensions policy when they locked up Brett Gardner to his four-year $52 million deal before the 2014 season. That move has worked out pretty well for them, as Gardner is one of their few veteran trade chips this winter because of his reasonable contract.

Hopefully, the success of Gardy’s extension pushes them to explore similar deals with these three players this winter.