January is over. February is here. And that means, before the month is out, Major League Baseball will be back for another season â the 125th in its history. That also means, teams that have not yet addressed their most important roster needs in this offseason face increasing pressure to get cooking. One of those teams is the defending American League champion New York Yankees, who begin their quest for World Series title No. 28 in just 12 days, when pitchers and catchers report.
Position players are required to report to the Yankees spring training facility in Tampa, Florida, five days after that. That would be February 17 and as of February 1, the Yankees have still failed to acquire an infield replacement for their now-departed second baseman of the last seven years, Gleyber Torres.
The Yankees never made Torres an offer to keep him in the Bronx. Nor did they have any plan to replace him, it now appears. The Yankees have been linked to a variety of free agent or potentially trade-worthy infielders â perhaps most prominently the former San Diego Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim. And yet, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the Yankees never made a serious effort to sign the free agent Kim, and ultimately let him slip through their fingers to New York’s AL East division rivals, the Tampa Bay Rays.
Yankees Let One Major Torres Replacement Slip Away
The perenially low-payroll Rays inked Kim to a reasonably priced, two year, $29 million contract, leaving Yankee-watchers frustrated.
“The more you sit with it, the dumber it gets,” wrote Robert Casey of Bleeding Yankee Blue on Friday. “The Yankees had the opportunity, they had the resources, and they had the money coming in from the Rays of all teamsâand they still didnât make the move. Itâs not just frustrating; itâs flat-out embarrassing.”
By “money coming in from the Rays,” Casey is referring to the fact that the Yankees will collect $15 million for allowing the Rays to use George Steinbrenner Field â the Yankees spring training home â for their home games this year after Tropicana Field was badly damaged by Hurricane Milton. But that payment will come from insurance money, not out of Rays coffers.
On Thursday, however, a new possibility arose for filling the infield hole. Baseball insider Jim Bowden, a writer for The Athletic, former MLB general manager and Executive of the Year award winner, revealed that a player may now be available who would not only address that need for the Yankees but would allow the Bronx Bombers to take a stab at their arch-rivals the Boston Red Sox.
Red Sox Fan Favorite May Betray Old Team
That player is four-time All-Star and former Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts. Before the 2023 season, Bogaerts left the Red Sox to sign an 11-year, $280 million contract with the Padres â a contract that is now being described by some experts as one of the worst in baseball. The fact that, just two years into the deal, the Padres are already reportedly looking to get out from under Bogaerts’ contract would appear to support that judgement.
The Padres, said Bowden on the Foul Territory podcast, have “gone down the path of saying, hey, we’ll trade one of our top prospects with Xander Bogaerts if you take Bogaert’s contract. So they’re trying to find other ways also to reduce payroll.”
Would the Yankees be willing to take on Bogaerts and the $225 million he is still owed over the next nine years, a contract that takes the Oranjestad, Aruba, native through age 41? The answer depends on whether the Yankees are focused on winning this season, and willing to pay Bogaerts $25 million to help â Bogaert’s salary for 2025 â or whether they are more worried about the state of their club years down the road.
By taking Bogaerts’ money off San Diego’s hands the Yankees would be doing the Padres a favor and likely would not need to give up more than a low-level prospect or two â and could demand a high-ranking prospect in return along with Bogaerts, as Bowden implied. The Yankees would also receive the additional satisfaction of stealing a player who was once a Red Sox fan favorite.
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