Yankees should be afraid of latest Dodgers-DJ LeMahieu update

Are the Dodgers making the DJ LeMahieu move the Yankees have always been concerned about?

The Yankees have made DJ LeMahieu their top priority, and despite current monetary differences (and disagreements in contract length) between the two sides, he’ll likely return unless he’s someone else’s top priority, too.

The Dodgers are certainly a team to worry about in that regard, but the conversation was always framed as both theoretical in nature and contingent on Justin Turner’s return to Los Angeles.

Apparently, those two things might not be related, though?

A recent report out of LA indicates the Dodgers are firmly in the conversation for LeMahieu, and could sign the second baseman away from the Yankees and still add Turner as a utility man, saying goodbye only to Kiké Hernández.

As described by LA sports insider David Vassegh:

"“From what I’m hearing, DJ LeMahieu is on their radar,” David Vassegh of 570 LA Sports said Tuesday on MLB Network’s Hot Stove. “They are definitely in talks with LeMahieu.”It’s unknown if the Dodgers’ interest in LeMahieu has intensified since the San Diego Padres made three big additions in a span of 24 hours this week by trading for aces Blake Snell and Yu Darvish while signing Korean star infielder Ha-Seong Kim.“No, that’s not Andrew Friedman style,” Vassegh said. “He doesn’t feel like he needs to counterpunch. He just feels like he has to continue to add to whatever their plan was during the offseason. And what that plan was is solidifying the bullpen, which they’ve done to a certain extent already. Also, Andrew did say at the beginning of the winter that he would like to add a right-handed bat.”"

Now, this is the natural order of things. We went from speculating about the Blue Jays, Mets and Dodgers as potential LeMahieu competitors to watching them all get involved, to some extent, one by one.

Our jaws aren’t on the floor yet.

But “Yankees are the favorites”-ing aside, the Dodgers are the one team here that might potentially blow the Bombers away, if they really do intend to make LeMahieu theirs. They can offer five years. They likely won’t, but they could.

If the Dodgers do make this calculus on LeMahieu’s cost — and the indication is his current ask is still five years and $110 million — they, too, might be pulling away from Corey Seager and the 2021-22 shortstop market.

Or they could simply be planning to go absolutely crazy — which is what makes the Dodgers so scary.

Los Angeles may very well be the only team that could blow the Yankees away in the LeMahieu bidding. Now that the two sides are talking, as we always suspected they would, it’s time for us to clench slightly and hope LA is simply another team that would like the infielder for a maximum of four years.

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