Yankees Have a Long Offseason Ahead of Themselves

The New York Yankees have a long offseason ahead of them.

After falling to the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS, it was clear that whatever was put out on the field in the Bronx wasn’t working.

So General Manager Brian Cashman has his work cut out for him.

Outfielder Cody Bellinger, who had himself a wonderful first season draped in pinstripes, expectedly opted out of his contract to get a bigger payday.

And no one really knows where center fielder Trent Grisham is going to end up.

Grisham is the type of player that the Yankees could easily move on from, and according to Greg Joyce of the New York Post, it seems like the Yankees are leaning toward doing that.

Spotrac reported that after crushing a career-high 34 home runs, he could be in line for a four-year contract worth approximately $48 million.

And Grisham, who’s a career .218 hitter, it’s hard to imagine the Steinbrenners wanting to shell that kind of money out.

Beyond that, is the Jazz Chisholm dynamic.

Chisholm was acquired last year by the Yankees during the trade deadline, and in his first full year, managed to pull off a 30 home run, 30 stolen base season. With that accomplishment, he became the third Yankee in history to do so, joining Alfonso Soriano and Bobby Bonds.

There’s no doubt that Chisholm is going to get a substantial payday from his $11.7 million salary, but the Yankees have shown that they’re not willing to spend money like drunken sailors.

They seem more cautious than when Hank and Hal Steinbrenner’s father George was in charge.

And signing Chisholm, a player who has struggled to hit better than .255 his whole career, to a lucrative contract doesn’t seem to add up with what we’re used to seeing from them.

But who can the Yankees even replace him with if they don’t?

There aren’t many middle infield options out there on the free agency market, and outside of Jorge Polanco, the best options available are possibly old friends Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Gleyber Torres.

Polanco is a 32-year-old second baseman for the Seattle Mariners, who is a Silver Slugger finalist this season, but there is little doubt that the Mariners want to retain his services.

And outside of that, the Yankees had traded their top middle infield prospect in Roc Riggio midseason to the Colorado Rockies for reliever Jake Bird.

That was revealed to be a total disaster.

Bird had spent most of his career as an average reliever and had spent a lot of last season on the injured list.

But in three appearances with the Yankees, he let up six earned runs in 2.0 innings and a 27.00 ERA, only for him to be assigned to Triple-A for the duration of his Yankee tenure.

So Cashman has a lot of decisions to make.

It was already reported that skipper Aaron Boone is staying put, and whether you want to agree with that or not, it’s not important. Boone is here to stay for the time being, but at the very least, it makes Cashman’s search to fill out his roster a little easier.

But that doesn’t mean this search won’t be substantial. There is a lot of work to do.