If there's one thing I really don't want the New York Yankees to do this offseason, it's to go out and sign a few veterans.
I understand the idea of bringing in proven players, but at the end of the day, the Yankees aren't going to win by continuing to bring in Marcus Stroman-type of players.
It's the harsh reality of Major League Baseball nowadays, and they should simply understand what those players are at this stage of their careers.
Despite that reality, it sounds like others want the Yankees to do just that, including MLB Trade Rumors, which recently predicted that the Yankees would sign right-hander Chris Bassitt, who was just with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“Bassitt just wrapped up a three-year, $63MM deal with the Blue Jays. He remained the steady mid-rotation presence that the Jays expected when they signed him. Bassitt topped 30 starts in all three seasons and posted an earned run average between 3.60 and 4.16 in each year. That included 170 1/3 innings of 3.96 ball this past season. He struck out a slightly above-average 22.6% of opponents against a solid 7.1% walk rate...
“The Jays were not able to make Bassitt a qualifying offer because he received one from the Mets when he was previously a free agent. Toronto may try to bring him back, but teams like the Braves, Yankees, Diamondbacks, Orioles, Astros, Angels, A’s and Giants could all fit,” they wrote.
I'm not going to sit here and say that Bassitt is a bad pitcher by any means, but I think he might be a bit more expensive than some think, and despite the Yankees needing a few arms in the starting rotation due to guys like Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon being out in the early stages of the 2026 campaign, I just don't see a path where it makes too much sense to give someone like Bassitt any sort of decent money.
We could look at it as any arm isn’t a bad one, and that isn't to say that Bassitt can't come in and be a third or fourth starter in this rotation, but I just don't know if it really helps the Yankees as much as it might seem.