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Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone said the team did its due diligence before signing Jameson Taillon and Corey Kluber.


Yankees think the risk was worth it for Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon

Newsday

Yankees think risk was worth it for Kluber, Taillon

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David Lennon

Fishing for reclamation projects and trimming payroll are not winter activities traditionally associated with the Yankees. But here we are, roughly three weeks (maybe) from the start of spring training at Steinbrenner Field, and they finished up a pair of transactions Monday that speak to the franchise’s current mindset. 
Trading with the Pirates for pitcher Jameson Taillon, a former second overall draft pick who twice has undergone Tommy John surgery, and enlisting the Red Sox (of all teams) to take on most of Adam Ottavino’s $9 million salary for this season in a cash-saving dump were a few sideways moves in the wake of DJ LeMahieu’s yet-to-be-announced $90 million deal. 
Obviously, LeMahieu was the focal point of the offseason, and judging by what we’ve seen from the Yankees, it seems they weren’t kidding when they suggested he would suck up most of their disposable income for 2021. 
It feels like a decade ago that Hal Steinbrenner handed Gerrit Cole a contract for $324 million — the surest of sure things in last year’s free-agent class — to give his team the true No. 1 pitcher it desperately needed. 
Now? The Yankees had to have LeMahieu back. Beyond that, the rotation was spackled with two high-ceiling acquisitions that come with risk in Taillon and free agent Corey Kluber. On paper, the potential is considerable. But after Cole, the Yankees are looking at a starting staff that will be waiting for Luis Severino’s midseason return from Tommy John surgery, wishing on Jordan Montgomery, wondering about Domingo German and holding their breath on a handful of promising youngsters headed by Deivi Garcia. 
Kluber is a two-time Cy Young Award winner but made only seven starts in 2019 (fractured forearm/oblique strain) and threw only 18 pitches for the Rangers last season before being shut down with a shoulder strain. Just because he is coming off two injury-plagued years doesn’t forecast disaster for a third, butbased on that recent history, he has to be considered an $11 million dice roll. 
As for Taillon — Cole’s spring training roommate during their Pirates days — he’s got 80-grade resiliency, that’s for sure. Along with the two Tommy John surgeries, he’s survived testicular cancer, taken a line drive off the head and needed a sports hernia repair in a five-year span that ended in 2019. During that time, he had a 3.67 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 8.1 K/9 rate in 82 starts. 
By his own admission Monday, Taillon is not that same pitcher. He’s completely rebuilt his delivery to fix the flaws that blew up his elbow twice — not only to save his career but ideally to make him that much better. While Taillon is relieved to be going through a more normal offseason prep this time around, he still hasn’t test driven his significant physical adjustments in a major league game. 
"I kind of had a coming-to- grips moment where I said, you know what, my current set of mechanics and what I’m doing isn’t working," Taillon said. "That’s just the cold, hard truth. I need to change something or else my career is going to be over. So I stripped it all the way down. 
"With rehab, all you have is time. I had 16 months to strip it down and kind of revamp my mechanics and revamp my career, so I’ve changed a lot in the way I throw. I’m extremely excited to show everyone what I’ve changed and what I can do right now. 
"The main goal is to take pressure off my elbow, and ever since surgery, I haven’t had to take an anti-inflammatory or a pain pill. It’s the first time in my career where I’m excited to throw. I’m really fired up to get on the mound and recovering extremely well right now." 
Taillon is on the right side of 30 (turned 29 in November) and will make only $2.25 million this season before reaching arbitration in 2022. There is a ton of upside if his arm troubles truly get ironed out. 
A self-proclaimed "pitching nerd," Taillon sounds a lot like Cole with his study of the craft, and the Yankees’ all-in approach to analytics, as well as the adrenaline boost provided by joining a contender, should help this next comeback attempt. 
But until Taillon actually performs in pinstripes, it’s all an educated guess. Same with Kluber, who required a January showcase to stoke up interest in his services. But for teams looking to find budget-friendly solutions in the margins, as the Yankees are doing this winter, these are the candidates you gamble on. 
"Why can’t I be better than before if I’m actually healthy now," Taillon said, "which I feel like I am." 
The Yankees are choosing to operate by a business model long on that same optimism, if a bit shorter on cash.

Columnists

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Yankees not breaking bank to build up rotation

Lennon: Yanks not breaking bank to build up rotation

Pittsburgh Pirates v Chicago Cubs

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Anthony Rieber

Corey Kluber started his introductory Zoom news conference on Thursday by declaring himself healthy. 
Seven of the 12 total questions the new Yankees righthander fielded were about his health. That makes sense, given that the biggest question mark about the two-time Cy Young Award winner isn’t necessarily if he’ll pitch well in 2021 but how much he’ll be able to take the mound. 
Kluber, 34, threw 35 2/3 innings for Cleveland in 2019 because of a forearm fracture suffered when he was hit by a comebacker and an unrelated oblique injury. He threw one inning for Texas in 2020 before tearing a muscle in the back of his right shoulder and getting shut down. 
Kluber rehabbed the shoulder and threw a Jan. 13 showcase at a facility owned by Eric Cressey, who happens to be the Yankees’ director of health and performance. But Kluber said that didn’t give the Yankees an edge and isn’t the reason he signed a one-year deal for $11 million that was agreed to on Jan. 15 and announced on Wednesday. 
"My mindset for that was to go show whoever attended that I was healthy," Kluber said. "I didn't have any hesitations towards throwing and I was going through a normal offseason, so to speak, at this point. I just kind of had faith it would play out the way it's supposed to play out after that." 
The way it’s supposed to play out for the Yankees is that Kluber, the Cy Young Award winner in 2014 and 2017 with Cleveland, becomes at least a solid No. 2 behind Gerrit Cole, makes about 30 starts and pitches in the postseason. 
At least that’s what they hope. 
"Obviously, the focus is 162 games," Kluber said. "It's not April 1 [Opening Day]. It's not the first outing of spring training. It's being able to take the ball every fifth day over the course of an entire season. Aside from the last two years, I've been able to do that pretty good throughout my career, so I think I have a pretty good blueprint for it. But, obviously, some adjustments need to be made on my end." 
Those adjustments, Kluber said, are more mental (because, remember, he’s healthy now). 
"Honestly, I think that it's probably more of overcoming the mental aspect of it as opposed to physical," he said. "I I feel like [what] I'm working on right now — as far as getting ready for the season — is kind of getting out of that rehab mindset."

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Corey Kluber full of healthy optimism after signing with Yankees

Kluber full of healthy optimism after signing with Yanks 

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Unlike most machines, other than maybe blenders and air fryers, DJ LeMahieu’s math isn’t all that great. Because the 2020 MLB batting champ, newly signed to a six-year, $90 million deal with the Yankees, provided some shaky analysis of the numbers when asked what ultimately went wrong last season. 
"I think we ran into a really hot Tampa team," LeMahieu said Thursday during a Zoom call with the media. "I thought we were better than they were. I think they just made a couple plays that we didn’t. And that was the bottom line. 
"Moving forward, we’ve got to make those plays, whatever it is. But I just thought last year, they just had our number, and it was disappointing." 
Actually, the Rays, in no uncertain terms, owned the Yankees, who won only twice in 10 regular-season meetings and finished seven games behind them in the AL East. LeMahieu &amp; Co. did stretch Tampa Bay to a fifth game in the Division Series but also came up short, losing 2-1. 
And all that was with LeMahieu in the lineup, hitting .364 with a 1.011 OPS from the leadoff spot, playing three positions, doing everything that a player who finished third in the MVP voting does. 
Point is, it was unimaginable that there was ever any sliver of a chance the Yankees would let him end up somewhere else this winter. 
You just don’t let your best player get away. 
Maybe in Boston (see Betts, Mookie) or Cleveland (see Lindor, Francisco), but not in the Bronx, where the Yankees aren’t supposed to let something as plentiful as money prevent them from assembling their best chance at contending for a World Series. 
Well, that’s the idea, even if the Yankees didn’t quite spend up to the usual expectations this offseason. I was very surprised that they didn’t push harder to retain Masahiro Tanaka, who revealed Thursday that he had signed with the Rakuten Eagles, his original NBP team in Japan. Instead, general manager Brian Cashman chose to shore up the rotation by giving $11 million to Corey Kluber, who threw all of 18 pitches last season because of a shoulder issue, and trading for Jameson Taillon, coming off the second of two Tommy John surgeries. 
Cashman also made the highly unconventional move of calling on the Red Sox for a salary dump, handing them Adam Ottavino to pocket most of his $8 million salary for this coming season. Not the sort of transactions we typically anticipate from the Yankees, but they haven’t been shy about citing close to a half-billion dollars in lost revenue because of COVID-19 last summer. 
If LeMahieu had been a casualty of that accounting, say jumping to the Dodgers or Mets for more money, the Yankees would have faced a PR blowback of epic proportions. But Cashman got lucky with The Machine. It’s extremely rare these days, in any sport, for a free agent to not only publicly express his desire to stay put but actually mean those words. LeMahieu truly did. That allowed the Yankees to stretch out his $90 million over six years, lowering his average annual value to a ridiculously manageable $15 million for a player who finished in the top four for MVP the past two seasons. 
"It’s no secret that I wanted to be back with the Yankees," he said. "I wanted to be back in New York. It was frustrating at times because it took so long, but I’m so excited to be back. That’s what I wanted from the beginning." 
LeMahieu went on to say that he didn’t understand why the whole thing didn’t get wrapped up two weeks after the season, so that gives you an idea of how locked in he was about returning to the Bronx. 
 Considering that the Yankees’ entire winter blueprint hinged on what happened with LeMahieu, having it drag on as long as it did might have been a problem if this hadn't been such a strange economic climate for baseball. But the Yankees never wavered in their commitment to LeMahieu, and getting him back basically overrides whatever else they failed to do. 
The singular focus was reminiscent of a year ago with Gerrit Cole, albeit on a much smaller financial scale, and there is no minimizing the importance of what LeMahieu’s consistency brings to a Yankees roster t that seems perpetually banged up. LeMahieu has been the reliable motor, and they would have been weakened considerably without him. 
"For me, it wasn’t really a number per year or a number total or anything like that," LeMahieu said of his contract negotiations. "I just wanted to be part of a good fit. And obviously the Yankees was as good a fit as I can think of. I’m just glad it all worked out." 
The Yankees should be grateful, too.

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DJ LeMahieu's loyalty paid off for Yankees and their machine

Lennon: LeMahieu's loyalty paid off for Yankees

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DJ LeMahieu felt your pain, Yankees fans. He still doesn’t know why it took so long for the Yankees to re-sign him to a new contract. 
"I just didn’t know what the heck was going on," LeMahieu said at his re-introductory Zoom news conference on Thursday. 
On Wednesday, the Yankees announced the six-year, $90 million contract that finally was hammered out and agreed to on Jan. 15. 
"I just don't know why we couldn't get it done two weeks after the season," LeMahieu said. "But I guess that's the business side and it is what it is." 
LeMahieu, the 2020 major league batting champion with a .364 average, said he was so thrilled when the deal was completed that he felt "relieved, excited, ready to go. I just felt like I wanted to work out for a week straight after. Just ready to go. Ready to get down to Tampa again." 
Don’t misunderstand: LeMahieu is not angry at the Yankees. Who could be angry at a team that is paying you $15 million a season until you turn 38? LeMahieu got a longer deal than expected and the Yankees got the financial flexibility to add players this offseason and remain under the $210 million salary tax threshold. 
It's just that LeMahieu isn’t a big fan of the business side of baseball. "The Machine" wants to get back in the box and hit line drives all over the field and make life miserable for opposing pitchers. 
He wanted to do it all along for the Yankees. So while he may have felt compelled to engage other clubs, the Yankees knew LeMahieu’s heart was in the Bronx. 
"It’s no secret that I wanted to be back with the Yankees," LeMahieu said. "I wanted to be back in New York. It was frustrating at times because it took so long, but I’m so excited to be back. That’s what I wanted from the beginning." 
Referring to talking with other clubs, LeMahieu said: "I definitely had to consider going other places. I had to put myself in other situations, even though it would have been really tough. But thankfully I didn't have to and I'm back." 
LeMahieu cited the Yankees’ tight-knit clubhouse and the group’s hunger to win a World Series as the main reasons he wanted to re-sign. He said "quite a few" of his teammates were texting and calling him during the lag in negotiations and saying, "What’s the deal?" 
The Yankees fell short in LeMahieu’s first two seasons in the Bronx after he signed a $24 million free-agent contract. They lost to the Astros in the 2019 ALCS and the Rays in the 2020 ALDS. Both ousters were excruciating. 
It sounds as if the most recent one still is lodged in LeMahieu’s craw. He provided the Rays a quote that could end up on a Tropicana Field bulletin board at some point in 2021. 
"I thought we were better than they were," he said. "I think they just made a couple plays that we didn’t and that was the bottom line. Moving forward, we’ve got to make those plays. I just thought last year they just had our number and it was disappointing." 
LeMahieu said there’s a "hump" the Yankees need to get over. That hump leads to the World Series. 
"We’ve got to get over that," he said. "And we're ready. I've been saying it and I've been saying it for two years, but it's time. And that's just another reason why I want to be back. We’ve got some unfinished business." 
At least the first order of business — finally signing his new contract — is over. Better late than never, right?

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DJ LeMahieu's return to the Yankees was a long time coming, even for him

LeMahieu's return to the Yankees a long time coming, even for him

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See the scenes as the Yankees face the Tampa Bay Rays in the deciding&nbsp;Game 5 of their American League Division Series matchup on Friday, Oct. 9, 2020, at Petco Park in San Diego.

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ALDS Game 5: Yankees vs. Rays

ALDS Game 5: Yankees vs. Rays photos

Laura Albanese

The Yankees are betting four prospects on Jameson Taillon’s future. 
Taillon, who battled testicular cancer and is recovering from his second Tommy John surgery, was acquired Sunday in a trade with the Pirates, the Yankees announced. The righthander last pitched on May 1, 2019. 
In return, the Pirates get righthanded pitchers Roansy Contreras and Miguel Yajure, infielder Maikol Escotto and outfielder Canaan Smith. Contreras was the No. 8 prospect in the Yankees' farm system, according to Baseball America, and joined the team’s 40-man roster last November. 
"Bittersweet day for me over here!" Taillon tweeted. "Trying to process everything — have SO much to say to the city of Pittsburgh and my teammates. Also have SO much to say about this incredible opportunity and to the city/fans in New York. Thanks to everyone that has reached out! More to come soon." 
Taillon, 29, had his best season in 2018, when he went 14-10 with a 3.20 ERA. He led all Pirates pitchers in starts (32), innings pitched (191) and strikeouts (179), with two complete games and a shutout. 
Since 2016, he ranks 11th with a 48.2% ground-ball rate and 14th with a 19.5% soft contact rate (minimum 450 innings), according to FanGraphs — something that could be especially helpful at Yankee Stadium, with its short rightfield porch. His ERA+ in 2018 also was 20th best in baseball, per FanGraphs. His fastball velocity in 2018 averaged 95.2 mph and his exit velocity averaged 89 mph. 
Taillon went 2-3 with a 4.10 ERA in seven starts in 2019 before being shut down for the second Tommy John surgery of his career. He had his first surgery when he was in the minors in 2014, four years after being drafted by the Pirates with the second overall pick. He also missed time in 2017 for cancer surgery. 
Gerrit Cole was drafted by the Pirates in 2011 and the two stayed close, even as Cole’s career took him to the Astros and the Yankees. They pitched together with the Pirates in 2016-17, along with time together in the minors. 
Referring to the scouting report on Taillon that he gave the Yankees, Cole told the New York Post: "I told them, if you are going to bet on somebody, if you are going to go to battle with someone, that Jameson is the guy you want next to you. He is not fazed. He always makes people around him better. He is one of the most resilient people I have ever known." 
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Taillon used his rehab to change his delivery, shortening his arm stroke and changing his mechanics to prevent future injury. 
"The way I’ve been throwing my whole life was getting me hurt," Taillon told the publication in 2020. "Making a mechanical change when you’re at the highest level you can be at in our game is scary. It’s tough. But it’s something that I had to do." 
Taillon will be paid $2.25 million this season and is arbitration-eligible in 2022. He joins a rotation that is as tantalizing as it is uncertain. Other than Cole, who was 7-3 with a 2.84 ERA in 2020, the Yankees have few sure things. 
The Yankees signed two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber to a one-year deal, hoping the 34-year-old can return from the shoulder surgery that limited him to one start last season. They also have Luis Severino, who hasn’t pitched in a game since September 2019 and is expected back from Tommy John surgery later in the season. 
Rounding out the rotation are Jordan Montgomery and numerous prospects. 
Montgomery has made only 46 starts in his four-year career, including 10 in 2020, when he compiled a 2-3 record and 5.11 ERA. He had Tommy John surgery in June 2018. 
Deivi Garcia, 21, was 3-2 with a 4.98 ERA in six starts for the Yankees last season and Clarke Schmidt, 24, was 0-1 with a 7.11 ERA in three games. Michael King (1-2, 7.76 ERA, nine games) and Jonathan Loaisiga (3-0, 3.52 ERA, 12 games) also are possibilities. 
Domingo German went 18-4 in 2019 but missed the entire 2020 season while serving a suspension under Major League Baseball's domestic violence policy. He is eligible to return this season. 
Three members of the 2020 Yankees' rotation — Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton and J.A. Happ — became free agents after the season. Happ has signed with the Twins and Tanaka and Paxton remain unsigned.

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Yankees acquire righthander Jameson Taillon from Pirates for four prospects

Yankees acquire RHP Taillon from Pirates for prospects

Masahiro Tanaka is going home. 
The popular Yankees righthander announced on Thursday that he is returning to his native Japan to pitch for the Rakuten Golden Eagles in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. 
The Yankees decided against re-signing Tanaka to go with less expensive options after he finished his seven-year, $155 million contract. 
"I have decided to return to Japan and play for the Rakuten Eagles for the 2021 season," Tanaka wrote on Twitter in a message to Yankees fans. "I wanted to make sure and touch base with you, and thank you for all the love and support you have given me for the past 7 seasons. I feel extremely fortunate for having the opportunity to take the field as a member of the New York Yankees, and play in front of all you passionate fans. it has been an honor and a privilege! Thank you so much!!" 
Tanaka, 32, went 78-46 with a 3.74 ERA with the Yankees from 2014 to 2020. He was a two-time All-Star and a clutch postseason performer (5-4, 3.33 ERA), although his Yankees career ended with a pair of poor starts in the 2020 playoffs. 
In 2020, Tanaka was 3-3 with a 3.56 ERA in 10 regular-season outings. 
Before signing with the Yankees, Tanaka went 99-35 with a 2.30 ERA in seven seasons with Rakuten. 
Tanaka had a base salary of $23 million in 2020 (reduced to about $8.5 million because of the shortened season). The Yankees signed righthander Corey Kluber and traded for righthander Jameson Taillon this offseason for a total outlay of $13.25 million. 
As a measure of how popular Tanaka was with his teammates, DJ LeMahieu began his re-introductory Zoom news conference on Thursday with a shoutout. 
"Disappointing news, I guess, this morning with Masa saying that he won't be back with the Yankees," LeMahieu said. "What a great teammate he's been. What impact he's had on the Yankees and the city. Obviously, wish him well and we'll be following him and as exciting as it is [to have re-signed with the Yankees], I'm disappointed I'm not going to be able to play with him anymore. I'm really happy for him and just want to mention what a great teammate and a great person he was." 
Terms of Tanaka’s one-year contract with Rakuten were not announced.

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Yankees' Masahiro Tanaka returns to Japan to play after seven seasons in MLB

Tanaka to pitch in Japan after 7 seasons with Yankees

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