{"id":687717,"date":"2026-05-01T17:33:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/687717\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T17:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:33:19","slug":"paul-dejong-opts-out-of-yankees-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/687717\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul DeJong Opts Out Of Yankees Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran infielder Paul DeJong<\/a> has opted out of his minor league contract with the Yankees and is now a free agent, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DeJong is only hitting .203 in Triple-A, but he\u2019s clobbered six homers in and walked at a 19% clip in 83 plate appearances, leaving him with an overall .203\/.361\/.516 batting line (127 wRC+). New York brought him in as a depth option in the offseason, knowing Anthony Volpe<\/a> would miss the beginning of the year recovering from shoulder surgery. However, the Yanks also have Jose Caballero<\/a> and Oswaldo Cabrera<\/a> as infield options, and after signing DeJong they also acquired infielder Max Schuemann<\/a> from the A\u2019s. Volpe is set to return in the near future, and all of Caballero, Schuemann and Cabrera are still on the 40-man roster, leaving DeJong little path to a big league promotion.<\/p>\n

A veteran of nine big league seasons, DeJong is a slick fielding, right-handed hitting shortstop who\u2019s capable of playing anywhere on the infield. He strikes out too often (career 27.9%) and doesn\u2019t walk enough to completely offset that (7.1%). DeJong has plenty of power though, evidenced by 146 round-trippers and a .187 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) in the majors. He\u2019s a career .229\/.294\/.416 hitter in exactly 3500 big league plate appearances.<\/p>\n

DeJong has played in each of the past nine major league seasons and logged at least 208 plate appearances in every 162-game season in that time (plus 174 plate appearances in the shortened 2020 campaign). He spent the 2025 season with the Nats and hit .228\/.269\/.373 in 208 trips to the plate. He\u2019d have logged more playing time were it not for a fractured nose \u2014 suffered when an errant fastball hit him in the face \u2014 that sidelined him for two months.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of teams with starting infielders on the shelf at the moment, which could lead to a new opportunity for DeJong. The Astros (Jeremy Pe\u00f1a<\/a>), Athletics (Max Muncy<\/a>), Orioles (Jordan Westburg<\/a>, Jackson Holliday<\/a>) and Mets (Francisco Lindor<\/a>) are among the clubs dealing with prominent infield injuries. There are surely several other teams that might have interest in adding a quality defender with some pop to help out the big league bench or to stash in the upper minors (with a clearer path to the majors for DeJong).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran infielder Paul DeJong has opted out of his minor league contract with the Yankees and is now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1226],"class_list":["post-687717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-paul-dejong"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116500522855358091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}