When Yankees get around to doing something, it should involve signing Cody Bellinger and Tatsuya Imai
Yankees manager Aaron Boone helps out at a pop-up food bank at the 44th precinct in the Bronx on Friday. Credit: Newsday/Anthony Rieber
Here’s an update on the New York baseball offseason as of Friday evening:
While the Mets burn, the Yankees fiddle.
The Mets have been the hot story, mostly for what they have lost in fan favorites Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Diaz and Pete Alonso.
The Yankees? Sure, Brian Cashman probably has had a cellphone pasted to his ear ever since the offseason began. But as of Friday evening, all the Yankees had accomplished was to bring back Trent Grisham, Tim Hill, Ryan Yarbrough and Amed Rosario.
“I know the front office. I know they're grinding away and trying to see things,” manager Aaron Boone said on Friday afternoon before handing out bags full of food outside the 44th police precinct in the Bronx for the fourth straight year as part of the Yankees’ partnership with the Food Bank for New York City.
Nobody wants to hear that Cashman and his minions are trying. But who is it that the front office should procure so the Yankees can go into 2026 with the best chance to dethrone the defending American League champion Blue Jays?
Two names: Cody Bellinger and Tatsuya Imai.
Bellinger would be another re-sign, of course. But the way the former National League MVP fit into the Yankees’ lineup and clubhouse in 2025 — seamlessly — should make him Cashman’s top priority on the position-player market.
Boone, who always knows more than he lets on, said he plans to reach out to Bellinger for the first time this offseason “around the holidays.”
That Boone hasn’t felt the need to urgently contact Bellinger to sell him on the niceties of returning to the Bronx could be a sign that the outfielder isn’t close to choosing a team.
The situation is different for Imai, the talented Japanese righthander. He has a deadline of Jan. 2 to sign under the rules of the posting system.
Imai would be a wild card, and an expensive one at that, perhaps as much as $200 million. He is 27 and had a 1.92 ERA for the Seibu Lions last season.
If the Yankees have great interest in Imai, they are hiding it well. Boone said they haven’t met with him. Will they? Said Boone, "I don't know.''
But after seeing the success of Dodgers pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki and the hitting and pitching unicorn that is Shohei Ohtani, how can the Yankees justify staying out of the Japanese market? Especially after what the brash Imai said in November about becoming the latest Japanese star to join the Dodgers:
“Of course I’d enjoy playing alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto and Sasaki. But winning against a team like that and becoming a world champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If anything, I'd rather take them down."
The Yankees should sign Imai just for saying that.
Hal Steinbrenner took a lot of heat last month for saying he’d prefer to keep the Yankees’ payroll under $300 million. In past years, he was willing to break the bank for Yamamoto and Juan Soto before being outbid for both. Do the Yankees think Imai is worth that kind of effort? We’ll know by Jan. 2.
If the Yankees don’t sign Bellinger and/or Imai, then where can they turn to improve their team? Other than adding a few bullpen arms to replace new Mets Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, is Cashman really going to go into spring training with basically the same roster as 2025?
Earlier this month, after the Yankees’ fruitless trip to the winter meetings, Cashman said: “We have good players spread throughout this roster. How do I reconfigure it to make it better, how do I import certain options to make it better is obviously what I’m trying to navigate.”
As we said, the Yankees are trying. But the biggest news nuggets to come from Boone on Friday was that Rosario is going to work out at first base to provide a righthanded option to expected starter Ben Rice and that he doesn’t expect Jazz Chisholm Jr. to get traded.
“But,” Boone added, “you never know what’s going to happen as teams maneuver their rosters and whatever. I do expect him, but you never know what’s going to happen where teams match up on certain things. But I’m planning on him being right in the middle of the lineup.”
So that’s something. Or nothing.
Yankees fans are waiting for something. Something big. But they might have to wait a while longer.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
