00:00It's a drive on Derby Dosey. It is a slam!
00:08Joel Sherman here. Today was qualifying offer day. By 5 p.m. teams needed to let free agents know if
00:19they were giving them the qualifying offer or not.
00:21This year, that's $23.15 million. Eight players received them. Among it was David Bednar. Not among it was Jazz
00:31Chisholm Jr.
00:34Bednar and the seven other players now have to 4 p.m. on November 17th to announce if they are
00:41accepting the qualifying offer.
00:45If they do, they're signed players for next year at $23.15 million. If they don't, they remain free agents.
00:53A signing team, if it's not their original team that's losing them, would be forfeit draft picks.
01:01The team that lost it would get some draft pick compensation.
01:06The Yankees are not disqualified, for example, of continuing to try to negotiate with David Bednar even if he does
01:16not accept the qualifying offer.
01:18So let's deal with him. Let's talk about will he do this or not.
01:22I would think the likelihood is he'll refuse the qualifying offer and try, since he's in his 30s now, to
01:28see if he can get a multi-year deal someplace else.
01:31I think he probably falls into the area of about what Devin Williams got last offseason, which is three years
01:37at $51 million.
01:39The Yankees clearly would rather overpay for one year on Bednar, one, at the $23.15 million, than they would
01:47go ahead and give him the long-term deal.
01:52Will, you know, like what will Bednar's market look like?
01:56He's certainly been helped by his year and a half with the Yankees, so he's gone to the largest market,
02:01he's pitched well in his brief playoffs, he's pitched well, he's looked kind of fearless.
02:08And the Yankees are in kind of a desperate situation when it comes to bullpen.
02:12Pretty much the whole bullpen is free agents right now.
02:15Bednar, Blackburn, Tim Hill, etc.
02:20In that group of players, the pitcher who pitched the most for them last year, Brad Hedrick, is under control.
02:28You have to worry a little bit.
02:30He pitched in 81 regular season games.
02:32He did not look good down the stretch as if he was a bit worn out.
02:36Does that linger into next season or not?
02:39Even if it doesn't, it just gives the Yankees one piece.
02:42There's not a ton else to look at.
02:45You know, there's the Yeri Delos Santoses, you know, do the Yankees like him?
02:50I suspect Fernando Cruz, I would watch for a non-tender on him because are the Yankees going to bring
02:57him back if he indeed needs some elbow surgery or they think he's heading towards elbow surgery next year?
03:05So they've got a lot of questions in their bullpen.
03:07And obviously, this is all easier to answer if you have the guy right there at the end and you
03:14know who you're ending with.
03:15You'd have Hedrick as your main lefty, perhaps, and then you begin to try to plot and build around that.
03:21The other thing to consider is that at this moment, the Yankees have some overflow starting pitching as they did
03:28kind of late in the year.
03:29You have your main guys.
03:31You have Cole, Schlittler, Rodon, Freed.
03:34And then for Hoosier 5th, is it Weathers?
03:37Is it Warren?
03:39Whoever isn't is in play for the bullpen.
03:42So is Clark Schmidt.
03:43Right now, so is Luis Heal, who is somebody who I think the Yankees are going to look to see
03:50if they could trade over the next month or so before we get a lockout on the, you know, December
03:561st at 11.59 p.m.
03:58That's the likely thing.
03:59Baseball business will stop at that point.
04:01Can the Yankees turn Hill, use him to get a relief pitcher?
04:06Can they use him as part of a package to get a center field or a third baseman, etc.?
04:10I think he's in play for that.
04:11I think maybe Clark Schmidt's in play for that kind of thing.
04:15But if they all are still here, I think they're in play for the Yankee bullpen.
04:20I think that's also true about Elmer Rodriguez.
04:23And I think it's ultimately going to be true about Carlos LeGranje also.
04:27I'm sure in the best late plans, the Yankees would like to have the kind of depth in the major
04:32leagues of both starters and relievers that Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos LeGranje, if they're not used in trades this offseason,
04:39are in AAA, being stretched out and getting finished off as prospects to major leaguers and being ready for when
04:49the injuries come next year to step in.
04:51And also for the 20-28 rotation.
04:55But the Yankees obviously have to prioritize 20-27.
04:59And if the best way to do that is to use LeGranje or Elmer Rodriguez in the bullpen, even if
05:07they don't do it at the beginning of the year, I think they'll ultimately get there.
05:10But Bednar is an important issue for him.
05:13Adrian Morihone of the Padres was also given the qualifying offer.
05:17I actually now think that makes it less likely the Yankees sign him, though he's obviously the best lefty reliever
05:24in the marketplace.
05:26He's going to get a big deal.
05:28I would suspect it's going to be a bigger deal than Bednar, even though he wasn't closing for San Diego.
05:34But now that there's draft pick compensation plus the big contract for a relief pitcher, my gut, I haven't heard
05:41anything, but my gut would say it's less likely the Yankees sign that kind of player.
05:45But they have to be very, very busy in the relief market with or without Bednar.
05:50But obviously it would all be better if they could seal the deal with Bednar by either him accepting a
05:56deal or him accepting a deal maybe and they work out a long-term deal or him just accepting a
06:01long-term deal.
06:02He's an important piece for them this offseason.
06:04He will not be easy to replace.
06:06And the Yankees, since they, at the end of the Zach Britt and Aroldis Chapman contracts, which did not end
06:12well, have kind of stayed away from big relief pitcher contracts.
06:18Will they break that by doing something significant with Bednar?
06:25I think it's an interesting issue this year, especially if they're trying to lower payroll in anticipation that there'll either
06:32be a salary cap when we next convene playing baseball or there will be something that is a lot tougher
06:38on the teams at the top of the market penalty-wise than there are just now with the luxury tax.
06:43I think I should probably add one last thing here.
06:46Jazz Chisholm Jr. was a player who spent two-plus years as a Yankee.
06:50There were certainly on stat sheets very, very high moments there, but ultimately I think it's time with the Yankees
07:01going to be remembered in frustration because there was an ability to make a point that he was perhaps the
07:09most talented player on the roster, position player on the roster.
07:14Between lack of focus, lack of fundamentals, there were times where he was a one-step-forward, one-step-back
07:21kind of player.
07:22Sometimes it was two steps back.
07:24He became identified with the Yankees not being fully engrossed with the scoreboard, not being fully engrossed with fundamentals, and
07:31having this kind of stuff back up on them.
07:34And I do wonder what it means for the free agent market because if it was just the stuff on
07:39the paper and his age, he's still in his late 20s,
07:43Jazz Chisholm would be heading towards a very, very big contract.
07:47But I wonder if this is a little bit like Gleyber Torres, who also was in his late 20s, also
07:53had been a Yankee second baseman,
07:55but some of the technical stuff wasn't great and fielding for Torres, and he's ended up signing a couple of
08:02one-year contracts since he left the Yankees after 2024.
08:06That was not what he was probably thinking he was heading towards when he was building his service time up
08:13towards free agency.
08:14I'm sure Jazz Chisholm, who was talking about 50-50 seasons and obviously fell well short of that this year,
08:20was thinking this was going to be a grand platform for him to jump into free agency and sign a
08:26very lucrative, long contract.
08:28I think there's few more fascinating players, therefore, than Chisholm.
08:34Are there teams out there, or even just a singular team out there, that will overlook this other stuff and
08:40simply say,
08:41he's in his 20s, he's a player who can go 30-30 when there's not a lot of players who
08:46can do that,
08:47he does play in the middle of the diamond, he should be able to do that for a few more
08:51years and throw away a lot of this other stuff
08:54and say, look at the war, it was still a three-war season, though I think there were discrepancies between
09:00baseball reference
09:01and fangraphs with one under two and one over three.
09:06Are there teams that do that?
09:08I'm pretty sure it's not going to be the Yankees.
09:10The Yankees are going to have a different full-time second baseman next year.
09:14I think what they're hoping is, though, that they have the same closer in David Bednar.
