Jon Heyman confirms Yankees' out-of-touch negotiating with Cody Bellinger report

Every New York Yankees fan who closely follows the team knows how detached from reality the front office is. For crying out loud, they thought their $213.5 million contract extension offer to Aaron Judge before the 2022 season was fair (and good enough to leak to the media to try and make the three-time MVP look bad).

The Yankees philosophy has essentially been this: overpay for undeserving talents/veterans who will only honor about half of the contract. They pass on slam dunks. They get out-bid on the most desirable players because they always draw a line in the sand. And that's how they end up with an odd grab bag of players around Judge during his prime.

But, more importantly, the Yankees are disrespectful when it comes to negotiating. Judge's extension is the most notable example. You can even go as far back as Derek Jeter's first foray in free agency. There's a well-documented history of this. Think about every trade rumor in which the other team had no problem seeking out another suitor. The latest instance, however, involves Cody Bellinger and the drawn out negotiations that took two-and-a-half months.

While the Yankees retained Bellinger on a five-year, $162.5 million contract, some might argue they were lucky to do so based on how the contract talks began, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

"The negotiation was no cinch with word the Mets, Dodgers, Giants and Jays had understandable interest. The Yankees began a few weeks ago at $75M over three years before raising it to $150M over five, then raising it again in $5M and $2.5M increments to make it work."

Yankees' initial contract offer to Cody Bellinger was never, ever going to get it done

First of all, the negotiations only began "a few weeks ago"? And the Yankees offered THREE YEARS at a $25 million AAV, which was a pay decrease based on Bellinger's 2025 salary? Has the front office fully lost their minds trying to pull this type of fast one with a Scott Boras client who just completed his age-29 campaign (and his best since his MVP 2019 season)?

It turns out the massive delay/gap in talks was the Yankees' fault, if we're to believe Heyman's reporting. Yes, while the reported seven-year, $37 million AAV ask from Boras and Bellinger might've been equally ridiculous, it was the Yankees who were much further away from that with their insulting initial offer.

It turns out the Yankees were always content with "running it back," as many fans suspected when Trent Grisham was given the qualifying offer back in November, meaning the delay with Bellinger had no effect on other pursuits ... simply because there probably weren't any other pursuits. The plan was always to curb spending to the best of their ability and see out the 2025 trade deadline acquisitions for at least the first half of 2026.

Nonetheless, the Yankees have directly told us how they will conduct business. It's on their terms and their terms only. And they will sacrifice weeks and months of time to be constructive if it means everything hangs in the balance until they get their way. So, yeah, the 2026 "plan" better work or else fan unruliness will reach an all-time high.