Yankees: Players Who Will Be Screwed Out of Raises if 2020 MLB Season Doesn’t Happen

The 2020 MLB season may not even happen and it could save the New York Yankees some money.

As a fan, you’re very rarely hoping the franchise you cheer for saves money. Who cares? With rising ticket and concession prices, the average guy in the stands couldn’t care less if the billionaires in the executive suites suffer a net loss on the year. Just give us a good product if we’re paying this much! That’s it!

But in the case of the 2020 MLB season, everything has been turned upside down. Now, somehow, the owners are (seemingly) going to get their way in terms of the season length and salary payments based on the latest reports, and they stand to capitalize in another big way: not having to give raises to arbitration-eligible players in 2021.

We obviously don’t know the specifics surrounding this yet, but as things stand, players will gain a year of service time if the 2020 season doesn’t happen. How will that work financially for those still under arbitration? They’re judged year-to-year on performance, and with no stats in 2020, they’ll probably just have this year’s salary roll over to next.

For the New York Yankees, they’ll save some significant cash not having to give these guys a big raise.

4. Gio Urshela

It wasn’t until Gio Urshela arrived in New York that his career took off. The 28-year-old shined in his first full MLB season with the Yanks, slashing .314/.355/.534 with 73 runs scored, 21 home runs and 74 RBI while playing admirable defense at the hot corner. That earned him $2.48 million in his first year of arbitration eligibility this offseason, and assuming he picked up where he left off, his 2021 salary likely would have at least doubled. But if he’s unable to take the field in 2020, he’ll lose an entire year of building his value and proving his worth, which will drastically affect his earnings next year. Win for the front office, loss for the common man.

2. Gary Sanchez

Say what you want about El Gary, but the man is arguably the best slugging catcher in baseball. His defense still needs work, but he’s making only $5 million 2020. The two-time All-Star has 162-game averages of 46 home runs and 114 RBI, which we know seems moot given the fact he’s yet to eclipse 122 games in a single year, but he’s under arbitration through the 2022 season, which gives New York the upper hand, especially if this year is canceled (or honestly, if it’s even shortened to 60 games). Sanchez has played in a grand total of 372 games since making his debut in 2015 and he already has 105 home runs and 262 RBI. Those are tremendous numbers even if he’s not getting the timely hits when Yankee fans want him to or if he’s striking out a lot. You rarely ever see catchers with that kind of production and power, so Sanchez would totally be getting screwed if he can’t step into the batter’s box at all in 2020.

1. Aaron Judge

Who would’ve thought we’d be talking about Aaron Judge getting screwed out of money when he’s still not even ready to play baseball? Well, here we are. The former Rookie of the Year was slated to make $8.5 million this season, which was his first year of arbitration eligibility that came after playing a total of just 224 games across the last two campaigns. Just imagine what years 2 and 3 will bring if he’s able to stay healthy and swing a consistent bat. But that’s the problem! He once again will have a significantly shortened season under his belt even worse than the last, so he won’t have much of a case to earn a significant raise in 2021 (unless Rob Manfred enacts a 60-game season and Judge absolutely tears it up while appearing in all of them). Like Sanchez, Judge has been a force with his bat, producing 110 home runs and 246 RBI in just 396 career games and has two years of arb eligibility left. If he loses one of those years, it’ll obviously help him in terms of reaching free agency faster, but it’ll hurt his earnings  for 2021. It’s not exactly great for an oft-injured player who will be a free agent entering his age-31 season.