Yankees: Predicting which free agents they’ll bring back for the 2020 season

CL Aroldis Chapman

Chapman is enjoying another outstanding season as the Yankees closer and this offseason he’ll have a chance to opt-out of his contract and become a free agent. He has absolutely lived up to the five-year, $86M deal he signed to return to New York before the 2017 season so the odds are he’ll opt-out and cash in on another big deal.

If he wants more years of financial stability he’d be crazy not to opt-out but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to return to the Yankees. He’ll have plenty of teams interested in signing him but Brian Cashman and company are probably going to do everything in their power to make sure they bring him back.

If he doesn’t opt out Chapman is set to make $17.2M in each of the next two seasons which is a very high AAV for a reliever. He might not be able to earn a salary that high in free agency, but he should be able to get a deal for more than two years with an AAV of a couple of million dollars less. Something along the lines of a four-year, $60m makes sense for Chapman which is a figure I don’t think the Yankees would hesitate to offer him.

Again, I’d be shocked if Chapman doesn’t opt-out after the past couple of years he’s put together, but I’d be even more shocked if he isn’t back with the Yankees next season. He’s far too important to their team and they won’t let him slip away and sign with another club.

Prediction: Chapman opts-out and re-signs with the Yankees