The Yankees could pick up All-Star closer Brad Hand from the Indians for essentially nothing. What a country!
Just a few weeks ago, it seemed like we were musing about ways the Yankees might be able to pluck Brad Hand away from the Cleveland Indians in trade.
Now? He’s pretty much just sitting on the open market! Man, 2020 sucks for MLB players. S-U-C-K-S, sucks.
In the wake of the Cardinals deciding they’d rather ditch Kolten Wong instead of pay his $12.5 million team option for 2021, the Indians have now placed Hand, their All-Star closer, on waivers, all to explicitly save $1 million. If unclaimed by the end of the weekend, his $10 million will simply be declined.
The Indians have placed Brad Hand on outright waivers with the intention of declining his $10 million club option if he goes unclaimed, sources say. If a team does claim him, the Indians won't be responsible for paying his $1 million buyout. Hand posted a 2.05 ERA in 2020.
— Zack Meisel (@ZackMeisel) October 29, 2020
On the one hand, the Brett Gardner buyout just became a likelihood, and the Zack Britton option has been picked up, shrinking the budget a little bit. On the other Hand, it’s time to start low-balling the Indians in trade offers so they can save a million bucks!
Perhaps Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake can sell the front office on shelling out very little for Hand, who doesn’t even need to fix his form or anything? He was very recently great? What a country.
This offseason is going to be such an outright disaster that even if a team like the Yankees only makes a few facade moves to pretend they care as much about spending as they have in years past, they’ll look like gigantic winners and philanthropists. Don’t love that, but that’s reality.
The following thread indicates that the likelihood of a Hand trade before the supposed deadline is quite high, but that would also mean that Cleveland is resigned to not being able to pull an impressive package in exchange for their All-Star closer.
2/would be traded by Sunday when his option had to be picked up. I am going to trust that baseball ops as good as Cleveland's alerted 29 teams Hand was available and not much of a return would be needed. Clearly, Clev did not want to pay $10M for a closer next yr and would take
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) October 29, 2020
Whether through monetary value or in a trade package, it’s clear Hand will soon be handed over to the competition.
Bad for baseball. Disgusting in general. Good for the Yankees.

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