What to make of Yankees’ questionable decisions at non-tender deadline

What felt like a fairly easy decision from the fan base’s standpoint didn’t seem the same way to the New York Yankees. This team has made ONE free agency addition this offseason (re-signing Joely Rodriguez after rejecting his team option) and that’s it. No trades. Nothing.

We’ve known of the non-tender deadline for quite a while and for some reason the Yankees took a fairly self-explanatory set of moves down to the wire. Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET was when teams needed to determine who they’d tender a contract to for the 2022 season.

News started gradually leaking out as the deadline hit, but we didn’t learn until almost an hour later that New York … gave every arbitration-eligible player a contract. Yup, that includes Gary Sánchez, Luke Voit and Miguel Andújar … and we know some fans won’t be thrilled about that.

Tyler Wade, Clint Frazier and Tim Locastro were previously among this group, but the Yankees cut bait with them before the deadline.

The others included Jameson Taillon, Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge, Chad Green, Wandy Peralta, Jordan Montgomery, Gio Urshela, Clay Holmes, Jonathan Loaisiga, Domingo Germán, Lucas Luetge and Kyle Higashioka.

“Running it back”? Sure seems like it.

The Yankees kept all of their arbitration-eligible players.

Some posited that the delayed response from the Yankees suggested a trade was in the works, since you look at this group of players and realize Germán and Andújar really have no role with this team and Voit likely isn’t returning to be a backup first baseman or bench bat.

In short, what does this all mean? For starters, Sánchez will likely be the team’s starting catcher in 2022. It was either non-tender him or give him one final shot. The Yankees likely aren’t finding a suitable trade partner willing to take on his $8 million salary. One last go-round for El Gary in the Bronx.

However, as for Germán, Andújar and Voit, we can’t rule out the Yankees including them in a trade package for something. We can understand to some extent why all three of those guys were retained. They all possess some value and other teams might be interested in acquiring them on relatively cheap one-year arbitration deals. In fact, it’s probably imperative the Yankees part with all of these guys at some point. The team doesn’t have much time on Wednesday, but post-lockout needs to be a guarantee. If the Yankees are overly cost-conscious all of a sudden, then investing ~10 million in these three feels like a total waste of funds.

Hey, at least someone’s happy about the news! Congrats to Luetge, who’s MLB journey has been quite the ride. Glad to have him back.

As for the others, erhaps we can consider Green, Gallo and Urshela as dark horse trade candidates. We’ve heard their names in actual reports or just analyst/media speculation, so don’t rule out that crop of players potentially being on the move.

All in all, however, a whole lot of nothing. Both free agency and the trade market have been moving relatively quickly in recent days and the Yankees are continuing at a snail’s pace. Not encouraging.

Clint Frazier lands with Cubs as Yankees remain silent with lockout looming

Former New York Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier has reportedly signed a one-year contract with the Chicago Cubs. Good for him!