Predicting where each Yankees free agent will sign in 2024

Frankie Montas: St. Louis Cardinals (Two Years, $22 Million)

That said, I fully acknowledge that the Yankees will swim in these Montas-infested waters if his price remains low enough that a one-year bounce-back is his only option.

With a few weeks to stew on things, though, it really feels as if a pitching-desperate team will be willing to go further than the Yankees in this market, even though it was New York that helped rush Montas' rehab so that he could pitch one very strange game at the big league level this season. There's another team I believe could get involved, but I've chosen them as a destination for a different embattled Yankees righty.

Montas, at his peak, was the kind of right-hander a team stakes their entire trade deadline upon (if they're unwilling to, say, surrender Anthony Volpe in exchange for Luis Castillo). Unfortunately, the Yankees never actually saw him at his so-called peak; his shoulder was already beefed upon acquisition and in need of repairs, which didn't come until well into the righty's prep for 2023.

If Brian Cashman can secure him as a fifth/sixth starter on a bargain deal for 2024, so be it. Worse things have happened. But someone has to go two years ... right?