Yankees should probably pick 1-2 young players to extend right now after labor update

While extensions for young players, including some that have yet to make their big league debut, are all the rage these days, the New York Yankees appear to be a dinosaur in the modern baseball landscape. The club rarely negotiates extensions with its players prior to free agency, and much less so during their pre-arb years.

At times, that's caused a lot of frustration. Who can forget the San Francisco Giants coming hard for Aaron Judge during the 2022-2023 offseason? A lot of arguments can be made for New York changing this unspoken rule, but a new labor update should have the club doing an about-face very quickly.

With the current Collective Bargaining Agreement set to expire on Dec. 1, Buster Olney is reporting that there is growing sentiment that the next CBA will feature a salary cap (that's not a surprise), but that any contracts signed prior to Dec. 1 will be grandfathered in and exempt.

By coming to terms now with some of their young players, not only might the Yankees be able to secure some value, but they'll ensure that these contracts don't ding them once their financial advantage evaporates. There are a ton of candidates to consider, but two youngsters stand out as no-brainers.

Yankees would be wise to extend Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice before salary cap takes effect

In the extension game, we've seen teams be very aggressive in handing out deals to position players but much more restrained with starting pitchers. To an extent, it makes sense. Arm injuries can and do happen more often than you'd like, and they can be devastating to the overall value of a deal.

Cam Schlittler's a different animal, though. Schlittler was allegedly part of the Yankees' offer for Paul Skenes at last year's deadline, but since then, he's more-or-less matched Skenes start-for-start and has looked invincible in the early going this season.

It's already probably too late for the Pirates to extend Skenes, and we've seen the angst the Tigers have gone through with Tarik Skubal over the offseason. The Yankees should avoid all of that and pay the man, buying out some free agency years in the process before he proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that he deserves to be one of the highest-paid pitchers in the game.

As for Rice, while he broke out last season, the expected stats indicated he should've been even better. So far in 2026, it looks like that next level is now upon us. He's already proven to be a smart player who proactively makes adjustments to unlock his potential, making him a very good bet to maximize every ounce of potential he has.

By virtue of being a late-bloomer, the Yankees should be able to ensure he's in pinstripes for the entirety of his prime via an extension, and doing it now before he puts together an MVP-caliber line would allow them to get him at a discount.

A salary cap might make it seem like the cost savings via early extensions would be moot, but there's more to it than that. We don't know what a cap would look like, but it would likely also come with a salary floor. There's also no way that the MLBPA will approve anything that depresses player salaries.

More than being friendly for the balance sheet, the urgency comes with retaining this top talent before the playing field gets leveled. Basically, the Yankees could kill two birds with one stone. It's time for Brian Cashman to get to work.