3 takeaways for the Yankees from the winter meetings

ORLANDO, Fla. — Baseball’s annual winter meetings, more years than not, is an event in which many of the biggest moves of a given offseason occur.

This was not one of those years.

Not that there weren’t any moves of significance as the Dodgers netted Mets closer Edwin Diaz, the Orioles secured Mets first baseman Pete Alonso and the Phillies held on to Kyle Schwarber. Otherwise, it was a fairly quiet three days at the two Bonnet Creek resorts that played host to the 2025 meetings, with the Yankees among many teams firmly in that quiet category.

Here are three Yankees takeaways from this year’s winter meetings:

1. Off to a slow start

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman used the phrase “glacial speed” to describe the industry overall when it came to both the free-agent market and the trade market. “It feels like there’s still a lot of information gathering and information sharing or preliminary negotiations that are taking place, which is the beginning or the middle of things rather than you’re in the red zone and you’re finishing stuff off,” Cashman said. “It feels like overall that’s what this market’s feeling like. It’s moving a little slower.” Though fans of the Yankees may have been frustrated by their favorite team’s lack of activity, no player came off the board that the Yankees are targeting. They had zero interest in Schwarber and Alonso, and, though Diaz would be a quality addition to any bullpen, a look at the Yankees’ recent history provided a guide. With the exception of Aroldis Chapman, the club simply hasn’t spent big free-agent money on relievers and, hence, they never made an offer for Diaz. The bottom line: Players the Yankees are interested in remain available. It’s all about matching up, something Cashman said at the moment in the game, whether it’s free agents or trades, “is tough.”

2. Bringing back Cody Bellinger is still priority No. 1

That’s been the case since Day 1 of free agency, and that hasn’t changed. But Cody Bellinger, the 2019 NL MVP with the Dodgers whose career mostly slumped in the years after — four of his next five seasons were subpar — rebounded big-time with the Yankees in 2025. His strong performance at the plate and defensive versality — and doing all of that in the pressure cooker that is New York — made Bellinger one of this year’s most coveted, and pricey, players on the market. The 30-year-old not only has the Yankees interested, but additional high-spending teams such as the Mets, Dodgers, Blue Jays and Phillies. With plenty of clubs looking for outfield help in a market that is relatively thin at the position, the Yankees getting outbid for Bellinger’s services is a real possibility.

3. Leftfield remains a question mark

There is plenty of industry skepticism the Yankees will go into the spring with just Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones as their options to start in leftfield. “I just don’t see it,” one veteran rival AL executive said. How the Yankees view Dominguez, a one-time, can’t-miss outfield prospect who is just 22, and Jones, a 2022 first-round pick who was accompanied by unrelenting hype before a bit of the bloom came off his rose, is complicated. The organization remains high on both players — just not as high as it once was. If the prices get too rich  for Bellinger and the other high-profile, free-agent outfielder, Kyle Tucker, the Yankees will continue to explore the trade market (the club, to cite one example, is known to have checked in with the White Sox on righthanded-hitting outfielder Luis Robert). “I think if spring training started today, he’d be our leftfielder,” Cashman said earlier in the week of Dominguez. “He’d be in the competition . . . Spencer Jones would try to take his shot at the title. But I think it’s easy to think, by default, because Dominguez was here last year and where he’s at in his progression, that he would be the odds-on favorite. But spring training doesn’t start today.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.