Yankees Rumors: Patrick Corbin’s free agent decision coming soon

With the MLB Winter Meetings just a week away you can expect some of this offseason’s top free agents to start signing with teams soon. One of those players expected to make a decision in the coming days is Patrick Corbin, the top starting pitcher on the market who the Yankees are very hopeful to sign.

Less than a week ago Corbin and his wife were welcomed to Yankee Stadium to meet with the club he grew up loving as a kid. The Yankees brass wooed him in what GM Brian Cashman called more of an “educational effort” than a recruiting pitch in an interview with the YES Network’s Jack Curry.

"“He’s getting a chance to see the facilities from the home side because clearly he’s played here as a visitor and clearly he’s traveled to New York as a visitor.“He’ll get access to all aspects of what we’re about … the brand, our efforts, the people with Aaron Boone and our coaches and myself, and hopefully he’ll walk away getting a better feel of who we are.”"

Given Corbin and his family’s connection to the Yankees growing up near Syracuse, New York there’s not really much for the organization to pitch to him to convince him to sign with the team. When you’re a franchise like the New York Yankees that’s usually enough to get a player to sign on the dotted line as long as they’re willing to pay him what he’s looking for.

Now that the Yankees are under the luxury tax threshold for the first time in years they have plenty of money to spend on Corbin. So if they can meet his asking price the expectation around the league is he’ll be in pinstripes next season.

Although, according to Jon Heyman of Fancred, two other teams are still in the mix to land the 29-year-old left-hander.

Before Corbin met with the Yankees last Thursday the only other two teams he reportedly met with were the Nats and the Phillies. Like the Yankees, both teams have money to spend and need a pitcher like Corbin to boost their starting staffs.

The free agent market for starting pitchers is strong but when it’s all said and done Corbin is expected to be the highest paid among the bunch and should sign a contract of at least six years. Of course, if there ends up being a bidding war one of these teams could offer him a seventh year and that could be enough to land him. Whether the Yankees would be willing to add on another year to their offer remains to be seen, but for their sake let’s hope he’s fine with just six years for around $130 million.

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Offering a seven-year deal to a pitcher entering his age 29 season is a very risky move especially when he’s likely to make over $20 million a season. I’ve said all offseason that the Yankees should pay whatever it takes to get Corbin but that was when I thought it would only take a six-year offer, instead of a five-year offer to get him.

I could understand why the Yanks would be hesitant to add in that extra year and if that leads to Corbin signing elsewhere than so be it. In that case, then they could shift their attention to signing another top free agent starter such as J.A. Happ.

Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that because on paper Corbin and the Yankees are a perfect match. They still need to add another elite starter even after trading for James Paxton and Corbin is the best available option out there. It also can’t hurt that his family wants him to sign with New York as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic recently tweeted.

In the end, the decision will obviously be up to Corbin and not his brother but at this point, I’d be shocked if he doesn’t sign with the Yankees in the coming days.