3 free agents Yankees will absolutely not be signing

New York Yankees fans have been crafting a “dream offseason plan” for 2021-22 since the minute the 2020 season ended, knowing full well they had a weird below-the-luxury-tax season ahead of them.

2021-22, though? That was supposed to be the boom. Every shortstop your heart could desire. An ace or two in Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Just … glorious.

Unfortunately, it’s time to reset our expectations just a bit.

Everything we’re hearing over the past few weeks as been designed to let us down easily. Maybe the Yankees will sign Corey Seager or Trevor Story, sure … but maybe they’ll look for a stopgap option instead (then reverse course in 2024 and bury their top prospects anyway).

Maybe they’ll overpay to grab Verlande–well, no, they won’t. But maybe they’ll outbid the world and get Scherz–nope. But … maybe they’ll … who else is left on the pitching market, exactly?

Maybe they’ll trade Luke Voit for Matt Olson minutes before his wedding! Or maybe, though, they absolutely won’t. Your sources are short-order cooks at the River Ave. Taco Bell.

Brian Cashman has made it obvious the Yankees will be wading in every pool they can, but it’s looking more and more likely this will not be a 2009-type offseason where they eviscerate the competition and cut the line to the World Series podium. So who can we rule out?

We’re talking about the deep ends they don’t even seem to be exploring. We’re also talking about … well, somebody who Yankee fans would really like to get their hands on. It’s time to deliver a truth bomb, though. It’s beyond time, actually.

The Yankees’ roster will look different in 2022, and will likely be improved. But don’t customize these shirseys. Wait a few weeks.

The Yankees will not be signing these 3 free agents.

3. Marcus Stroman

He doesn’t want to be here, and we don’t want him. Perfect match!

At this point, Marcus Stroman is perfectly built to exist on the other side of baseball’s classic rivalries with the Yankees. Maybe he stays with the Mets? Goes back to the Blue Jays? Explores Fenway Park (though, if he thinks the Yankees won’t be accepting of the “real him,” he won’t love Red Sox fans)?

Whatever the case, he hasn’t been an option for the Yankees since the day he was dealt to the Mets at the deadline — and reportedly threw a clubhouse fit when he realized he was going to the NL’s New York team instead of the AL’s.

Don’t believe us? Here was Stroman’s dad back in 2019:

"“He was hoping it was the Yankees a little bit,” Earl Stroman told the paper. “He was kind of psyched, maybe hoping to go there. I’m not going to tell you that he wasn’t. If he was to leave Toronto at all. Don’t forget, Marcus loved Toronto, his heart was there. The brass [management] didn’t kind of appreciate him as much as the fans did. The whole country took to him and they took to me.”"

And yet, somehow, we’ve gone from that level of pro-Yankees excitement to a world where Stroman logs onto Twitter every single day, pre-blocks Yankee fans, and constantly revisits his two-year-old tweet about how the Yanks never have enough pitching to make it through October.

Marcus, please don’t block me. I love your energy. I really do. Unfortunately, it’s now been weaponized against me personally in obsessive fashion, all because Brian Cashman didn’t believe him to be a difference-maker at Toronto’s price back in 2019 (and, judging by that package, it probably would’ve cost him Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt).

Enjoy the journey, Stro, but any Yankee fans trying to photoshop the righty into our uniform are just trying to bait him into another block so they can chase clout. Possibly the worst free agent fit in the history of free agency.