00:01Continuing three things about the major New York free agents this offseason. I'm coming to you from Los Angeles and from the World Series. Number four on our list is Trent Grisham, the second Yankee after Cody Bellinger. And Cody Bellinger plays a lot, a big part in what the Yankees have to decide to do with Trent Grisham and where he goes in the industry.
00:26So let's start within three things. Number one, the case for Trent Grisham. The Yankees have to, and really it's two cases. One's about the qualifying offer and one's about a multi-year contract. So five days after the World Series, the Yankees have to, like everybody who wants to give a qualifying offer to a free agent, have to decide whether they're giving the qualifying offer, which is this year $22.05 million, a good hefty sum for a one-year contract.
00:56You got to do that five days after the World Series. The player has 10 days to decide whether to accept that offer. If he accepts, he's a signed player for that amount for the 2026 season. If he doesn't, he goes into free agency. The Yankees could still sign him.
01:12But if they don't, they would get a, when he signed someplace else, they'd get a draft pick, not a great one after the fourth round. So should the Yankees, you know, what would be the case about making the qualifying offer?
01:25The Yankees aren't going to know within five days of the end of the World Series if they're keeping Cody Bellinger or not. And so the question becomes, if not Bellinger or Grisham, who's playing center field for the 2026 Yankees?
01:38Is Spencer Jones ready? That's a big question. You don't really want to move Aaron Judge or Jason Dominguez back there for different reasons. Health for Judge. Dominguez, we're not even sure, can play left field well at any point.
01:52Can he really move back to center field? So you have that. So do they just make the qualifying offer, hope he takes it, put him in center field?
02:03What else is the case for Grisham? He still, he doesn't turn 29 until this weekend. He's still in his 20s.
02:09His underlying statistics for last season, things like chase rate, walk rate, exit velocity, things that generally age well, you know, and tend not to be fluky, are good on his side.
02:24Very good, actually. His chase rates were at the very top of the sport last year.
02:29You would think a guy who hit 34 homers, especially when it was such an outlier season, he's a left-hand power pull hitter.
02:35You'd think most of that came at Yankee Stadium. He actually only hit 13 at Yankee Stadium, 21 on the road with over 900 OPS.
02:44So he's a player who you could believe will hit probably anywhere if this is the guy.
02:50You know, the second matter for Grisham is you've got to decide, is he worth a multi-year contract if you're not doing this?
02:57It would be for a lot less annually than the $22.05 million for two, three, four years, whatever it is.
03:07You know, the case is the same in some ways. He's young, 29.
03:12He has good underlying numbers, and he's playing a position where there's really a dearth of talent around the league, which is center field.
03:21The case, number two, the case against Trent Grisham, he batted under 200 in each of the three previous years, 2022 to 2024.
03:30It was 190 combined, 191 combined for that period, 298 on base percentage.
03:37His defensive metrics went down last year.
03:40He was not as good a defensive player at all.
03:44If you care about this, and not everybody does care about it, but if there was a bad body language all-star team,
03:50Trent Grisham would be on that, how he moves about the field, runs the bases, etc.
03:55Stolen bases, even for a center fielder, they've gone completely out of his game.
04:02In 26 postseason games, he's hit 160 with a 562 OPS.
04:06It was 138 last year with no homers or RBIs in the Yankees' seven playoff games that they just played before being eliminated.
04:15You could repeat the mantra that there's no such thing as a bad one-year contract,
04:20but that's a lot of money for one year for most teams.
04:25Even the Yankees, I would think, have real pause if they should give that kind of money.
04:29And if it's going to be two years or three years or four years at $13 million to $15 million a year,
04:36which I'm guesstimating is probably the number for Grisham,
04:39that's a lot of money for a player who hasn't shown consistency on the offensive side and whose defense is coming down.
04:48So number three, what's the advice here?
04:50You know, I think the Yankees seriously have to consider giving the qualifying offer.
04:57If he says no, they get a draft pick.
04:59If he says yes, they have a guy who can play center field for them.
05:05They could, you know, they'd have to hope that he approximates last year,
05:10that that wasn't the clear outlier season in his career.
05:14You know, the other thing they'd have to hope is that if Bellinger is resigned
05:22and he becomes more the primary center fielder and the Yankees would rather use some of the $22 million on other things,
05:30can Grisham be traded?
05:32I don't think he could be traded for the full-out $22.
05:35But if they took back a contract that was $8, $10, $12, $15,
05:39or maybe paid a little down or included a prospect, can they get a thing or two else they needed?
05:47Again, that would only be if Bellinger came back and they believed there were other people to play center field.
05:54I do think that Grisham will think seriously about this is the time he's got to go out in the marketplace
06:01to reject the qualifying offer.
06:04He's coming off by far his best season at a time where offense and center field are in need.
06:11He probably has some real wonder.
06:13Him and his agency, what are the labor rules going to be?
06:15And if there's even going to be much of an offseason with the CBA running out after the 2026 season,
06:21so does he want to do this big one-year contract and then just sit around next offseason
06:26and not know what the rules are or how long a period of free agency there's going to be to sign,
06:31that he might decide this is the year, like, reject the qualifying offer,
06:35deal with whatever choking of his market it does,
06:40because remember there's draft pick compensation involved for signing Grisham as a qualified player
06:46if the Yankees do that, and he might go out there.
06:50If I were the Yankees, I would not get into multi-year business with Trent Grisham.
06:54He'd have to show me a lot more to do that than the one season,
06:59but the qualifying offer is something I think they have to think a lot about.
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