Justin Turner’s contract demands could screw Yankees with DJ LeMahieu

Justin Turner’s wild demands might convince the Dodgers to steal DJ LeMahieu from the Yankees instead.

Are you among those still struggling to see a world where DJ LeMahieu leaves the Yankees, or are you terrified?

If you’re having a tough time mentally concocting LeMahieu leaving for any other team’s offer, then the latest insider report on the Dodgers’ free agent chase might help you realize they’re for real.

In order to secure LeMahieu’s services, the Dodgers would likely have to match the upper limits of his demands to turn their buzzworthy cameo in the conversation into a full-fledged pursuit.

But they’re more likely to ruin the Yankees’ master plan by giving LeMahieu five years if 36-year-old Justin Turner is out here drifting further and further away from their evaluation of him every day. After all, what would you rather? A 36-year-old Turner for FOUR YEARS, or a 32-year-old LeMahieu for five?

Does it still sound completely ridiculous for LeMahieu to be demanding five years of security if Turner is out here clamoring for four at a similar price?

Now, perhaps this is the same “early offseason” bluster that we dismissed surrounding the Yankees’ LeMahieu gulf a few weeks back. But it’s January 2021 now, and there’s no longer an indication Spring Training will be delayed. If Turner’s still asking for four and the Dodgers are dead-set on two, as the article posits, then will they really “meet in the middle” at three? Or will LA simply say, “We’ll take the younger, better player, please”?

The money isn’t flowing, and yet the demands are still in the upper echelon. What a strange offseason to the bitter end.

Per the LA Times article, LeMahieu seems like the top Dodgers option right now, which we’ve heard from the Yankees’ camp for weeks, with Kris Bryant and Eugenio Suarez lingering in the background.

To that, we say: Hey, LeMahieu is overrated! Bryant and Suarez are where it’s at! That’s where we’d go if we were you! Just saying!

Perhaps everything reverts to the mean, and the Yankees up their four-year offer to LeMahieu by just a bit and Turner settles his expectations back down. But it might not be a ridiculous power play for LA to give LeMahieu five years after all.

It might just be disastrously good business for the Bombers.

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