Yankees can give Red Sox taste of their own medicine with this easy free agent choice

The New York Yankees spent the trade deadline pivoting from their previous annoying baseline — ignoring the bench and letting the chips fall where they may — by adding platoon pieces in Amed Rosario and Austin Slater, both of whom held genuine situational value. Maybe this offseason, they'll continue to adhere to that mantra, which could help them reverse another trend: watching the Red Sox routinely eat their lunch by maximizing the skill sets of former Yankees.

This winter, there's an opportunity for the Yankees to finally get the better of that particular pipeline by signing an old friend for a return engagement: Rob Refsnyder, who's grown up a lot.

Refsnyder was original a Yankee farmhand and made his MLB debut at the tail end of the 2015 season after ... well, just hitting at every level of the minors. He cameo'd on an aging team that seemed to be dying more by the day, tattooed a ball over the Monster at Fenway, then couldn't come back with the same verve the next season ... or the next one. The Yankees sent Refsnyder to Toronto midway through 2017, starting a cycle of bouncing that led to him finding his swing in (shudders) Boston in 2022 after unsuccessful cameos in Texas, Tampa and Minnesota.

All of a sudden, he was an .881 OPS guy with a .307 average, and has passed the .830 OPS threshold in three of his four campaigns in Beantown. He's a part-timer and proud of it. He rarely faces righties. He pummels lefties to the point of meme-ification.

And, while the Yankees don't quite know what kind of ballplayer Jasson Dominguez is yet, they do know that even in his semi-undistinguished 2025 campaign, he posted a .768 OPS against righties and a .569 mark against left-handers. The gulf in production was so wide that fans theorized he should give up switch hitting entirely to have a chance at reaching his ceiling.

Clearly, the Yankees thought a midseason pivot to Slater was a valuable addition to play the same role in 2025. Why not a two-year contract for Refsnyder at $4 million per season, a 50% raise to leave his four-year home in enemy territory?

Yankees should sign essential Red Sox piece Rob Refsnyder to form outfield platoon

Whenever the Red Sox come to New York, they taunt the Yankees with Greg Weissert, Carlos Narvaez, and Garrett Whitlock. They also prod at the Yanks' weaknesses with Refsnyder/Romy Gonzalez-filled lineups that show how simple this game can be when it's played right.

This is the offseason for the Yankees to strike back. Their target should be clear.