Brian Cashman has most predictable response to Yankees re-signing Trent Grisham

A lot of opinions were shared when the New York Yankees extended the qualifying offer to Trent Grisham. Even more words were spilled on the subject when Grisham accepted the deal. $22.025 million seemed to be a lot for a player who was coming off a drastic outlier of a career year.

At that point, we didn't know how the market would play out. If there's been a theme this offseason, at least in January, it's that short-term, high AAV deals have exploded. Does that change the way we should view Grisham's contract? Is it now a steal of a deal?

If you ask Brian Cashman, bringing Grisham back for $22.025 million is an absolute bargain.

Brian Cashman touts Trent Grisham's qualifying offer salary as a bargain for Yankees

Cashman isn't necessarily wrong in believing that we're in a better place to evaluate this move now — given the additional market context — than we were when the decisions were first made.

“At this point, that $22 million looks like a bargain the way the free agent market got away from everyone, on a one-year basis,” Cashman said via MLB Network Radio.

“What he did last year to unlock and take it to another level was spectacular and all the information that we buy into leads us to believe clearly that by offering him the qualifying offer that [2025] was real, it is sustainable and that he is an offensive and defensive player for us moving forward,” he continued.

The long-time general manager's take on the 29-year-old's offensive breakout is supported by the underlying data, which shows that real changes were implemented that differentiated his performance from past failures to prove the breakout was no fluke.

Where Cashman goes off the rails is his belief in Grisham's defense. This isn't the first time we've heard the Yankees rave about the two-time Gold Glover's defense. In the past, that had been the former San Diego Padre's calling card.

Grisham is no longer a light-hitting, defensive whiz. His minus-2 outs above average was second-worst among qualified center fielders in 2025. Defensive runs saved liked him even less, tagging him at a minus-11 performance.

And therein lies the rub with Cashman. Even if he makes a valid point, he has to go a step further and venture into a fantasy world, making claims that we know aren't true. It makes it hard to buy into even his most salient arguments.

Not only that, but if the Yankees were so sure they were going to bring back Bellinger, then why did they feel it was necessary to risk bringing Grisham back at this price despite so many other needs? They could have let him go, put Jasson Dominguez in center field, used Bellinger in left/center/right/first base, and spent that $22 million to add 1-2 better bullpen arms and another right-handed hitting outfielder. Grisham's return, while good, limits the lineup flexibility and kept them from improving more dire areas of the roster.

Another thing to consider is that at the time of this writing, the $22.025 qualifying offer amount is still the seventh-largest AAV handed out this offseason. Only Framber Valdez is still sitting out on the market with the opportunity to push it further down the list.

Bargain might be a stretch. Fair price? You might be able to sell that. If you do, it's important to be honest about what you're getting in Grisham. He's a three-true-outcomes bat who may have finally found his stride offensively, while simultaneously losing quite a few steps in the field. Is that really a bargain? Early signs point to no, even if it's not the egregious overpay we once thought.