3 front office decisions that put Yankees in this offseason mess

The Yankees have their work cut out for them this offseason, and it’s because of these previous moves.

The New York Yankees are bringing Zack Britton back (woo!), but there’s still a lot of work to be done, and it couldn’t come at a worse time due to the global pandemic, which is going to limit the spending across Major League Baseball as long as fans aren’t guaranteed in the stands come 2021 before the season starts.

Yankees fans thought that Britton might not be back because the team exercising his 2022 option meant he was locked in to a two-year $27 million deal, but a tweet from the left-hander on Thursday solidified his return.

Now, what about DJ LeMahieu? Masahiro Tanaka? James Paxton? Brett Gardner? We don’t know. And we can attribute that to a few premature decisions over the last few years. While we wouldn’t exactly fault general manager Brian Cashman for making these, we do have questions as to why they were made based on what we’ve seen ever since.

3. Signing Aaron Hicks to 7-Year Extension

Did the Yankees really need to sign Aaron Hicks for almost a decade?

In February of 2019, the Yankees surprised fans a bit when they announced a seven-year, $70 million contract agreement with slugger Aaron Hicks. Yankees fans no doubt like Hicks, especially since he was acquired for John Ryan Murphy, but did the front office really need to sign him on for the better part of a decade?

Hicks gets on base a ton, which we no doubt love, but he had only played in 348 games from 2016-2018 with the Yanks. Perhaps his 2018 campaign swayed the front office. After all, he clubbed 25 homers and sported an .833 OPS in his first season playing more than 123 games. He finished 22nd in the MVP voting as well.

But they gave him that deal when he was entering his age-29 season, which ended up being a disaster. He was limited to just 59 games and had to undergo Tommy John surgery. He undoubtedly has a good glove, but his arm isn’t exactly a cannon and he doesn’t make a whole lot of contact (he’s a career .235 hitter).

We wouldn’t say the Yankees are hamstrung by this contract, but it’s costing them $10 million per season for quite a while.

2. Signing JA Happ to a 2-Year, $34 Million Contract

There were so many better pitching options, but the Yankees settled with JA Happ.

This one’s kind of hard to fault the front office for when you look at JA Happ‘s performance after he was acquired via trade. During the second half of 2018, Happ went 7-0 with a 2.69 ERA in 11 starts with the Bombers and the team decided to give him a two-year, $34 million deal that could’ve ended up being a three-year, $48 million deal if his 2021 option vested.

Thankfully it didn’t, because Happ’s 2019 season was all anybody needed to see. He registered a 4.91 ERA across 31 games (30 starts), and it’s not his fault. Happ is a career 4.00 ERA pitcher. The Yankees thought that was worth $17 million per season? Maybe it is in some regard, but some would argue not for a soft-throwing lefty entering his age-36 season.

The worst part? That offseason the Yankees could’ve just invested in a much better lefty in Patrick Corbin, who won a World Series title with the Washington Nationals in his first year under contract. He’s much younger and had much more upside. Dallas Keuchel was available. Charlie Morton was available. Michael Brantley was available. Nelson Cruz was available.

ANY of those players would have been a better investment and would’ve lasted longer than Happ, who the Yankees are jettisoning this offseason. It would’ve made more sense for the Bombers to just pay another $106 million for Corbin. They would’ve gotten four more years out of him and would’ve still been able to sign Gerrit Cole.