Here’s my comprehensive list of who I’d target as a GM for the yanks. I’m posting this for discussion, I don’t think I’m right or wrong, just want to spark some post-season talk because this is more exciting than this past October.

1 priority – Cody Bellinger AND Bo Bichette

Reason – yes Cody is older than Kyle Tucker but he is still an outstanding player and puts the ball in play, his two strike approach is incredible. In addition to Bo Bichette who can hit and field (also brings some insight of what Blue Jays hitting coaches were teaching their guys)

2 sign Shota Imanaga

Reason – solid pitcher who regressed and won’t be too expensive to sign. It can also help us land Kazuma Okamoto, having a teammate who speaks your language could go a long way (I could be wrong there). Yes he’s defense isn’t close to McMahon, but overall an upgrade. As someone once said “bad defense looses much less games than good hitting helps win games”

3 sign Kazuma Okamoto for the reasons above

4 pivot to Eugino Suarez if #2/3 don’t work out

5 and 6 – resign Devin Williams and Luke Weaver

Honorable mentions and hot takes
– Sign Pete Alonso or Munetaka Murakami and make Rice the starting catcher to see if his hitting numbers can remain the same.
– Bring back my boy Gleyber!!! One of my favorite Yankees, idc about his “lack of hustling” everyone does that, but it was a reason for people to give him hate he didn’t deserve. He shows up when it matters most in the playoffs.

In an ideal world (only my opinion), here’s the lineup:

1 – Bo Bichette, SS
2 – Cody Bellinger, LF/CF
3 – Aaron Judge, RF
4 – Giancarlo Stanton, DH
5 – Ben Rice, C/1st (or Pete Alonso, 1st)
6 – Jazz Chisholm Jr., 2nd
7 – Dominguez, LF (or Spencer Jones, CF)
8 – Kazuma Okamoto, 3rd
9 – Austin Wells, C (Okamoto would bat last if we had Rice and Alonso in the lineup)

Starting pitchers:
Gerrit Cole
Max Fried
Carlos Rodon
Cam Schlittler
Luis Gil/ Shota Imanaga

What do you guys think?

15 comments

  3. Imanaga is cooked
    Tucker is priority over Belli
    Trade for a SS don’t pay Bo
    Suarez compounds our problems
    Bring back gleyber?
    Are you trolling?

  4. >Bo Bichette who can hit and field

    Hate to break it to you but Bichette really can’t field. He’s one of the worst infielders in the league. And he just has a bad knee injury. If you want Bichette, you’re gonna have to force Judge to play the field for the remainder of his contract

  6. Shota just gave up 31 homers in 144 and 2/3 innings. I don’t think putting him in Yankee Stadium for half his starts will end well.

  9. Imanaga is not a good fit at Yankee Stadium. His HR/9 rate last year was near 2, and he doesn’t strike people out at all. He also got hit hard, and doesn’t induce enough ground balls for a pitcher that doesn’t have good velocity on his fast balls.

    Bo should not be signed as a shortstop, he doesn’t have the range to play that position, so you would have to play him at second, a position that Jazz already occupied, who had a great year. Same with bringing back Gleyber tbh.

    Murakami is just Spencer Jones at 1B, we don’t need him.

    I like the idea of re-signing Devin, but I don’t think we’re doing that.

  11. How are you going to write a paragraph defending contact players then say pivot to Eugenio Suarez. He’s the exact opposite of that. True home run or bust hitter.

  12. Dominguez, Bellinger, Judge, Imanaga, Suarez, Bichette, Jazz, Alonso, Rice

    That is one bad defensive team.

  13. Bo Bichette won’t help them. I agree about Bellinger being the priority. But, even if you get him back, you’re just the same team with a much more expensive Cody Bellinger. Nothing they do, except spend money, will sway Japanese players to want to go to New York. They don’t give a shit about playing with their friends, unless his name is Ohtani

  14. This is pie in the sky/idealized scenario thinking, OP.

    From the bloated expense of all these guys, to the assumption we could land all of them, to the fantasy world where bringing back Gleyber makes any sense.

    Bellinger and Tucker are basically a wash in terms of the value you’d be getting from them on the field and in the batter’s box- Tucker is just a newer, shinier commodity who people feel hasn’t peaked yet, while Bellinger has a ROY and MVP under his belt already and has been around a couple extra seasons relative to his age- but other than that I think the age difference is negligible. A year and half difference in age, even in the world of baseball where people’s mindset about a player’s value switches over 12-18 months difference, is silly and should be a non-factor.

    Gleyber is who and what he is. I have also had players in the past whom I personally ‘liked’ for vague reasons I couldn’t articulate or justify at a data-driven point of view, I just thought they were cool for some reason- their look, their name, their batting stance, their swing, etc. and none of those are ever a good reason to want a player on your team. Gleyber is a slightly above average player who’s very streaky and looks like an interesting “what if” piece for teams just trying to scrape a major league quality line up together or play 4-D chess with their line up construction, but he isn’t a real solution at his position or with his bat and we already know what he’d do for the Yankees and it’s not what the Yankees need.

    Signing Alonso and having Stanton and having Ben Rice and having Austin Wells would be insanity. That’s an exceptional waste of roster space and division of playing time amongst too many redundant position players.

    Murakami is his own thing- if we can get him, sure do whatever needs to be done to make that roster construction work, but that’s a bit of a winning lottery ticket situation that may or may not happen.

    Everybody who is high on Bo Bichette seems to ignore a ton of red flags that could bite any team who signs him long term. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have a problem with it if we could sign him to like 3 years/$100M or 4 years/$130M or even 6 years/$200M but he will want at least 10 years/$375M if not 12 years/$510M or something like that and that’d be a horrible deal for any team desperate enough for that first half decade- he also seems like a player who could crater any year and lose it and never regain his baseball composure.

  15. Only 3 big FAs are needed this season for the Yankees:

    1. Kyle Tucker – 11 years, $36.5M aav
    2. Cody Bellinger – 6 years with a club option year, $30M aav
    3. Josh Naylor – 4 years, $22.5M aav

    We also need a couple of 1 year deals for some relief arms to help rebuild the bullpen for maybe $6M total. These offers would not be to Luke Weaver or Devin Williams. With the money coming off the books for guys like Johnny Lasagna and Paul Goldschmidt and some Dodgers style creative accounting the Yankees can just slide under the top tier limit of the luxury tax.

    Signing Naylor as the everyday 1B sets up Ben Rice to move to catcher permanently and allows Austin Wells, Chase Hampton, Roderick Arias, Brock Selvidge and probably some others to be sent to Minnesota for Joe Ryan to bolster the starting rotation even further. The Yankees have the trade capital to beat the rumored Boston offer for Ryan and should pull the trigger.

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