After making no significant moves these first two and a half months of the offseason, the Yankees locked down their MVP DJ Lemahieu for the rest of his career and added 2-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber in one day. The world-beating offense is officially back for 2021, and the rotation has a chance to be better after crumbling this past October.
Over the last 2 seasons, DJ Lemahieu has been the Yankees’ most valuable player, and it’s not particularly close. Batting .336 with 36 homers in 195 games for a .922 OPS while playing good defense at 2nd, 3rd, and 1st, his 8.9 WAR easily bests Aaron Judge’s 6.6 mark since 2019. And given that the Yankees have disappointed 3 years in a row after reaching Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS, re-signing DJ was their top offseason priority. At 6 years, $90 million, this is a huge win for New York: they lock down a high-character star for just $15 million per season when infielders like Anthony Rendon, Manny Machado, and Arenado have pulled AAV’s of $30 million and over the past two winters. It speaks to Lemahieu’s dramatic improvement that he’ll get more than triple his last contract (2 years, $24 million) despite being 32 years old now in a COVID-depressed market…but I think he’s worth over $100 million as one of the 2 best position players on the market (George Springer being the other), with apologies to J.T. Realmuto and Marcell Ozuna.
Lemahieu’s breakout from good everyday player to elite hitter at age 30 reminds me of Daniel Murphy’s 5 years ago. Both were high batting average guys with elite bat-to-ball skills who were content poking singles the other way and only hitting 6-12 homers a year despite strong 220 lb physiques. When they finally looked to drive the ball more (which often backfires on high strikeout players), they turned into 25 home run guys with even better batting averages. DJ hit 1/3 of his balls to right field in 2019 and a career-high 43.4% there in 2020. Staying in the Bronx means he’ll continue to take advantage of that comically short right field porch.
As for playoff performance, Lemahieu’s disciplined contact approach—which led to 18 walks vs. 21 K’s in 2020—translates well against the velocity and spin of teams like Tampa Bay. Throwing an old school stat at you, he’s posted 11 RBI in 16 Yankees postseason games, with 7 walks to 10 K’s. Jose Altuve’s series-winning walkoff in 2019 overshadowed DJ’s 9th-inning heroics, but man if this isn’t one of the best at-bats in recent history:
Of course, the Yankees had Lemahieu these past 2 seasons and failed to reach the World Series; Brian Cashman’s work is not done. As great as they’ve been these past 4 regular seasons (91 wins in ‘17, 100, 103, and 33 in ‘20), New York’s playoff disappointments are attributable to two interlinked problems: an underwhelming rotation and the 10 year, $265 million of Giancarlo Stanton’s contract they bailed Miami out of in December 2017. Watching MVP Stanton and ROY Judge take turns mashing BP homers has been awe-inspiring, but it was wishful thinking that Stanton’s 159 games in ‘17 would outweigh his averaging just 115 games a year the previous 5 seasons. IL visits for knee surgery plus hamstring and groin strains in your mid-20’s don’t bode well for a 6’6” monster as you age and put on weight. Another injury to Giancarlo’s “piano wire hamstrings” (as Mets commentator Keith Hernandez calls them) in 2020 plus a quad injury in the 2019 ALCS after 3 months resting a balky right knee mean he’s averaged 66 games a year for the Yankees, who must pay him for the next 7 years.
Stanton’s money kept New York out of the top end of the pitching market until finally last winter Cashman decided to splurge on Gerrit Cole. They let Lance Lynn walk for a mere 3 years, $30 million after the 2018 season while giving J.A. Happ more money (2 years, $34 million), and they also traded away Sonny Gray for peanuts. With the Yankees not expected to go big for Trevor Bauer, signing 34-year-old Corey Kluber to a 1 year, $11 million contract makes a lot of sense. He pitched just 1 inning for Texas in 2020 after 35 innings of a 5.80 ERA in 2019 with Cleveland. 2018 was Kluber’s 5th consecutive year throwing over 200 innings as he dazzled with a 2.89 ERA, .99 WHIP, and 222 K’s. Yankees scouts obviously like what they saw in his showcase two days ago, when his fastball sat 88-90 mph (he threw 30 pitches and mixed in all his off-speeds).
Kluber’s sinker had already declined from 93.8 mph in 2014 to 92.0 in ‘18 and 91.3 in ‘19 before he tore the teres major muscle in his shoulder in ‘20. But given that perpetually-injured Drew Smyly turned 5 good starts into an $11 million deal with Atlanta this November, Kluber’s $11 million looks like market value. And his slurvey curveball, one of the best pitches of the last decade, got more movement than ever in ‘19 at 18.1 inches of horizontal break—8.7 inches more than the average curveball at that velocity. Young, analytically-minded Matt Blake garnered rave reviews in his first year as Yankees pitching coach (after Sony Gray criticized predecessor Larry Rothschild for being behind the times), so the club believes it can optimize Kluber’s mix to succeed even with diminished velocity.
Unlike last season, there’s depth in the Yankees rotation behind Cole. Jordan Montgomery looked solid returning from Tommy John, Deivi Garcia and Clarke Schmidt could step up, Domingo German is back from suspension, Luis Severino could be back in June or July, and swingmen Jonathan Loaisiga and Michael King can start, too. The Yanks don’t match the Dodgers’ or Padres’ rotations, but especially if they sign Jake Odorizzi (or at least re-sign James Paxton or Masahiro Tanaka), they should do a better job getting the ball to that wipeout ‘pen in 2021. And with Lemahieu back in the lineup, the Bronx Bombers are gonna blow teams out a whole bunch.
Follow Jacob on Twitter @TheReelJZ