New York Yankees Gearing up for 2018 Free Agency
By Nick Ziegler
The New York Yankees have been rather quiet in free agency in recent years. However, they are planning for the elite 2018 free agency class.
In recent years, the New York Yankees have avoided spending a ton of money on free agents. Aside from the contract they gave to Aroldis Chapman this offseason, it has been a new mindset for the Yankees.
Related Story: Is CC Thinking About Retirement?
With the lack of spending has come a new focus on growing talent and getting rid of expensive contracts. We recently saw the Yankees be sellers at the trade deadline for the first time in many, many years.
Despite trading away great players, the Yankees were able to remain competitive in the second half of the season with their young talent. General manager Brian Cashman has done a very good job assembling a stacked farm system for the Yankees. Now, he will be beginning to plan how to best compliment their young talent.
“This is my hope: First and foremost, as you see, we’re transitioning from contracts that we vested heavily in and it did pay off for us in ’09,” Cashman said to Dan Martin of the New York Post. “So at the end of the day, we are going to be in a position to do a number of things and maybe we can turn the clock back to be big-game hunters that we have been accustomed to being.”
A lot of the Yankees’ plan that offseason will depend on what prospects succeed at the major league level. If certain ones don’t pan out, that will likely result in Cashman trying to spend some money to acquire one of the greats at a given position.
“I know the talk of the big free-agent class of 2018 already had been discussed before the 2016 season started like, ‘Ah, the Yankees are going to wait and reset the clock and go after these guys,’” Cashman said to Dan Martin. “And since this time, you saw one of our golden nuggets pop out of our system [as Sanchez] established himself as potentially one of the high-end young players in the game. We could have a few more of those, and it will allow us to have a lot of different choices to see what’s on the open market at the time.”
Next: Who are the 5 greatest catchers in Yankees history?
Even though the Yankees aren’t World Series contenders this season, it is very obvious what their plan is. A few years of building young talent, and then spend some money on big free agents to complete the puzzle. The future is once again bright in New York.