3 lefty relievers Yankees can still sign without breaking the bank

The New York Yankees‘ heavy lifting is complete. Can’t say the same for the Mets and Steve Cohen, but Hal Steinbrenner dropping $533.5 million this offseason is a feat only a few franchises can accomplish.

But wait … Aaron Judge said they might not be done! Stay tuned! For now, though, we’ll assume, for the sake of our unbridled optimism, that the considerable spending is curbed until 2024.

That likely means the Yankees will have to shop light on the free agent market if they feel additions still need to be made on that front (though we’d still bank on a few trades being executed before Opening Day, since that’s where the team will be able to find valuable, above-average talent).

With left field and the bullpen being the greatest areas of need at the moment, the Yankees are in luck, because there’s some legitimate cost-effective shopping to be done for those positions in free agency.

Let’s focus on the bullpen, though, because at the moment the Yankees could technically get by with Oswaldo Cabrera, Aaron Hicks or Estevan Florial in left field to kick off the 2023 season.

3 lefty relievers Yankees can target in free agency without breaking the bank

3. Matt Moore

I’ve talked about this a number of times already. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but the Yankees should absolutely be in on Matt Moore, especially with the lack of lefties in the ‘pen following the departures of Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, JP Sears and Ken Waldichuk. Will Wandy Peralta and Lucas Luetge be enough in 2023?

Moore had a career year in 2022, and will be heading into his age-34 season. It was the first campaign of his as a full-time reliever, and the Rangers reaped tremendous benefits. The veteran lefty pitched to a 1.95 ERA, 2.98 FIP and 1.18 WHIP with 83 strikeouts in 63 games (74 innings).

Throw in a very promising peripheral metric profile, and Moore could be hitting a late-career stride (he was only below-average in walk percentage, curveball spin and extension). Out of his 74 innings pitched, 59.2 came between innings 7-9, and 48 came between innings 7-8.

This is an asset the Yankees would be wise to import and put under Matt Blake.

1. Taylor Rogers

After an All-Star showing in 2021, Rogers was somehow traded twice. He landed in San Diego after the Chris Paddack deal with the Padres in the offseason, and then ended up in Milwaukee following the Josh Hader blockbuster at the deadline.

With the Pads, he was 1-5 with a 4.35 ERA, 2.34 FIP, 1.11 WHIP, 28 saves and 48 strikeouts in 41.1 innings. With the Brew Crew, he was 3-3 with a 5.48 ERA, 5.07 FIP, 1.30 WHIP, 3 saves and 36 strikeouts in 23 innings.

He was catching too much of the plate, allowing a ton of hard contact … but he was tops in strikeout percentage and whiff percentage. Something Blake can work with, no? Perhaps there’s a tweak to be made with his slider-sinker-fastball combo.

It seems some of this was bad luck, too. Rogers, in 40 innings pitching in the ninth, finished with a 4.72 ERA and .343 BABIP, but held opponents to a .242 average and .683 OPS. Those aren’t the best numbers, but that’s an inflated ERA. The problems were his walks and control. He had a 6.9 BB% in 2022, which was the second-worst of his career (8.9% in 2017 being the worst). He hit 11 batters on the season. His sinker seemed to have been the problem; the opposition was hitting .306 with a .439 slugging percentage against his second-most utilized pitch.

Get him on a discount, help him bridge the gap to the ninth, and, who knows? He might be the final line of defense when all is said and done.