Yankees slugger is quickly erasing our worst opinion of the offseason

If you spend enough time crafting Yankees opinions on the internet - as well as spitting out more, less-crafted Yankees opinions on the internet - you're bound to be proven wrong by the sands of time. The most important thing, in the wake of looking like a fool, is to put yourself on a pedestal, front and center, and scream, "I was wrong!" At the very least, you have to whisper it.

Anyway ... when the Yankees had a series of non-tender decisions to make this offseason, it became incumbent upon all of us to try to enter money-saving mode and figure out the easiest ways for them to shed some cash. Theoretically, the Yankees have enough money to accommodate generational talents like Juan Soto without having to cut marginal salaries to scrounge up dollars and cents. In practice, that isn't how it's worked for years. The Yankees care about every dollar up to the tax, and they force you to, too.

With that in mind, every non-tender projection featured a few ancillary arms and a staredown between Trent Grisham's money and Jon Berti's money. Berti was slated to make between $3-4 million. With the Yankees' dearth of third base options, cutting him only made sense if the Yankees had a sterling backup plan in place to eat his reps.

Meanwhile, Grisham was projected by the authorities at MLB Trade Rumors to earn $5.7 million in 2025, his walk year into free agency. Based on his limited impact last year and perceptions, unfair or not, of a laissez-faire attitude (charming when he's hitting, a bummer when he's not), I certainly did my fair share of raging that he should be sent packing over Berti. I was, um, very surprised when he and the Yankees beat the non-tender deadline with a relatively valuable one-year contract to not only keep him around, but avoid any drama in the process.

So, um, as it turns out, Grisham is valuable to the 2025 Yankees. Extremely valuable, actually. Probably more valuable than Berti, even at double the price. Good to know. Good to know now.

New York Yankees outfielder Trent Grisham is valuable to Yankees' roster, and should not have been non-tendered this offseason. Bad take by us.

The Yankees probably should've had a better plan in place when they sent Berti out into the wild, and we will not apologize for that; he's been worth 0.4 bWAR, but has only posted a 78 OPS+ across his first 21 at-bats for the Cubs.

But starting a flame war when Grisham returned at a reasonable rate, only for him to start the season looking like a savior? That looks brutal in retrospect.

Last season, the Yankees didn't let him get into any semblance of a rhythm, and it almost seemed like he talked himself (subconsciously) out of contributing before the year even began. This time around, they've tapped him early and often, and their foresight has paid off.

Sorry we didn't see it when it came time to crunch the pre-free agency budget last fall.