Yankees must take Braves lesson and consider extending Jasson Dominguez already

Ah, you're right. No. Sorry. After five games? That's crazy. This headline is crazy. I should've written "after three games."

The Yankees will never do it. They'll never take the plunge. They hate the idea of risking $100 million to potentially save $400 million on the back end. They extended Luis Severino and Aaron Hicks prematurely, and look where that got them.

But the Atlanta Braves do this. They do it routinely. They (most of the time) do it to a level that doesn't look like an outright ripoff for the player (anymore), crafting fair-ish deals to keep their young players and hometown heroes (Matt Olson) around for a little longer, getting three or four years ahead of the rest of baseball. That's one of many reasons they look like a juggernaut and potential budding NL East dynasty.

There's plenty of reason to be gun shy here. Dominguez has yet to play enough games to match the number of rings on Yogi Berra's fingers. But, with all due respect ... can't you tell, already, that Dominguez is not Aaron Hicks? And don't you have to at least consider making a move this offseason (with Anthony Volpe as your next call)?

Yankees could extend Jasson Dominguez, save millions (and, yes, risk millions)

I've seen enough. Extend Zeke Bonura!

Now, of course, there's a degree of hype surrounding Dominguez's first five games that isn't exactly conducive to sound decision making. It's necessary to remember that we're dealing with someone who was an extremely hyped prospect ... several years ago. Prior to entering the bigs, he was a highly-touted kid who slipped down the rankings somewhat and slotted in between 60-90 in most mainstream Top 100s. He was a player who looked less like Mike Trout and Bo Jackson and more like Domonic Brown -- electric power, lots of swing-and-miss, generic minor-league numbers rather than transcendent ones.

Even that player is someone the Yankees can afford to risk $150 million on, though. That is the stratosphere of risk they've gained access to by being the Yankees. If they no longer wish to flex their financial muscle in free agency or in attempts to lure top executives to New York, they should at least be able to use it to keep their homegrown talent off the open market.

In recent years, the price of such preemptive deals has gone up a little. Gone are the days where the Braves can sign Ozzie Albies to a seven-year, $35 million contract -- and that's good! That deal sucked for society! If the Yankees do entertain the unprecedented and open up their checkbooks for Dominguez, it'll probably cost them somewhere in between Fernando Tatis Jr.'s $24 million annually (and it won't be over 14 years) and He Who Must Not Be Named in Tampa's $16.54 million per season (over 11 seasons).

But ... of course ... given several chances to get ahead of Aaron Judge's free agent contract demands, they instead kicked the can down the line, offered him one (lowball) entering his walk year, and ended up paying an additional $140 million or so for their troubles. If the Yankees are willing and able to pay whatever it costs to retain Dominguez after waiting five more years for his career to develop, that's their prerogative. But if they plan to eventually balk at the cost and let him walk, rather than operating the way the league's most successful teams currently do and have for years, that would be unacceptable.