Yankees extend David Bednar the qualifying offer but not Jazz Chisholm Jr. | Pinstripe Post

It's a drive by Dozier, it is a slam Joel Sherman here. Today was qualifying offer day. By 5 p.m., teams needed to let free agents know if they were giving them the qualifying offer or not. This year, that's $23.15 million. dollars Eight players received them. Among it was David Bednar. Not among it was Jazz Chisholm Jr. Thank Bednar and the seven other players now have to 4 p.m. on November 17th to announce if they are accepting the qualifying offer. you. If they do, they're signed players for next year at $23.15 million. If they don't, they remain free agents, a signing team, you. if it's not their original team that's losing them. The Yankees would be forfeit draft picks. The team that lost it would get some draft pick compensation. The Yankees are not disqualified, for example, of continuing to try to negotiate with David Bednar, even if. He does not accept a qualifying offer, so let's deal with him. Let's talk about will he do this or not. I would think the likelihood is he'll refuse the qualifying offer and try, since he's in his 30s now, to see if he can get a multi-year deal someplace else. I think he probably falls into the area of about what Devin Williams got last offseason, which is three years at $51 million. The Yankees clearly would rather... Overpay for one year on Bednar, one, at the $23.15 million. Then they would go ahead and give him the long-term deal. Will What will Bednar's market look like? you He's certainly been helped by his year and a half with the Yankees. So he's gone to the largest market. know He's pitched well in his brief playoffs. He's pitched well. like He's looked kind of fearless. And the Yankees are in kind of a desperate situation when it comes to bullpen. you. Pretty much the whole bullpen is free agents right now. Bednar, Blackburn, Tim Hill, etc. In that group of players. uh The pitcher who pitched the most for them last year, Brett Hedrick. He is under control. You have to worry a little bit. He pitched in 81 regular season games. He did not look good down the stretch as if he was a bit worn out. Does that linger into next season or not? you. Even if it doesn't, it just gives the Yankees one piece. There's not a ton else to look at. There's the Yuri De Los Santos. Do the Yankees like him? I suspect. Fernando Cruz, I would watch for a non-tender on him because of the Yankees going to bring him back if he indeed needs some elbow surgery or they think he's heading towards elbow surgery next year. So they've got a lot of questions in their bullpen. And obviously this is all easier to answer if you have the guy right there at the end and you know who you're ending with. You'd have Hedrick as your main lefty perhaps And then you begin to try to... The other thing to consider is that at this moment, the Yankees have some overflow starting pitching as they did kind of late in the year. You have your main guys. You have Cole, Schlottel, Rodon, Freed. And then for who's your fifth? Is it Weathers? Is it Warren? Whoever isn't is in play for the bullpen. So is Clark Schmidt. Right now, so is Luis Hill. Uh, who is, uh, somebody who I think the Yankees are going to look to see if they could trade over the next month or so before we get a lockout on the, the, you know, December 1st at 11:59 PM. Uh, that's the likely thing. Baseball business will stop at that point. Can the Yankees turn Hill, uh, use him to get a relief pitcher? Can they use him as part of a package to get a center field or a third baseman, et cetera? I think he's in play for that. I think maybe Clark Schmidt in play for that kind of thing. But if they all are still here, I think they're in play for the Yankee bullpen. I think that's also true about Elmer Rodriguez, and I think it's ultimately going to be true about Carlos Lagrange also. I'm sure in the best laid plans, the Yankees would like to have the kind of depth in the major leagues of both starters and relievers that Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange, if they're not used in trades this offseason, Are in AAA being stretched out and getting finished off as prospects to major leaguers and being ready for when the injuries come next year to step in and also for the 2028 rotation. uh But the Yankees obviously have to prioritize 2027. And if the best way to do that is to use LeBron Hay or use LeBron Hay or Elmer Rodriguez in the bullpen. Uh Even if they don't do it at the beginning of the year, I think they'll ultimately get there. very But Bednar is an important issue for him. Adrian Morejon of the Padres was also given the qualifying offer. much. I actually now think that makes it less likely the Yankees sign him, though he's obviously the best lefty reliever in the marketplace. He's going to get a big deal. I would suspect it's going to be a bigger deal than Bednar, even though he wasn't closing for San Diego. But now that there's... Draft pick compensation plus the big contract for a relief pitcher. My gut, I haven't heard anything, but my gut would say it's less likely the Yankees sign that kind of player. But they have to be very, very busy in the relief market with or without Bednar. But obviously it would all be better if they could seal the deal with Bednar by either him accepting a deal. Or him accepting a deal maybe and they work out a long-term deal or him just accepting a long-term deal. He's an important piece for them this offseason. It will not be easy to replace. And the Yankees, since the end of the Zach Britton and Aroldis Chapman contracts, which did not end well, have kind of stayed away from big relief pitcher contracts. Will they break that by doing something significant with Bednar? I think it's an interesting issue this year, especially if they're trying to lower payroll in anticipation that there'll either be a salary cap when we next convene playing baseball or there will be something that is a lot tougher on the teams at the top of the market penalty-wise than there are just now with the luxury tax. I think I should probably add one last thing here. Jazz Chisholm Jr. was a player who spent two-plus years as a Yankee. There were, certainly on stat sheets, very, very high moments there, but ultimately I think it's time with the Yankees going to be remembered in frustration because there was an ability to make a point that he was perhaps the most talented player on the roster, position player on the roster. uh Between lack of focus, lack of fundamentals, there were times where he was a one-step forward, one-step back kind of player. you, Sometimes it was two steps back. He became identified with the Yankees Mr. not being fully engrossed with the scoreboard, President. not being fully engrossed with fundamentals, and having this kind of stuff back up on them. And I do wonder what it means for the free agent market, because if it was just the stuff on the paper and his age, he's still in his late 20s, Jazz Chisholm would be heading towards a very, very big contract. But I wonder if this is a little bit like Gleyber Torres, who also was in his late 20s, also had been a Yankee second baseman, but some of the technical stuff wasn't great, and fielding for Torres, and he's ended up signing a couple of one-year contracts since he left the Yankees after 2024. That was not what he was probably thinking he was heading towards when he was building his service time up towards free agency. I'm sure Jazz Chisholm, who was talking about 50-50 seasons and obviously fell well short of that this year, was thinking this was going to be a grand platform for him to jump into free agency and sign a very lucrative, long contract. I think there's few more fascinating players, therefore, than Chisholm. Are there teams out there or even just a singular team out there that will overlook this other stuff and simply say he's in his 20s, he's a player who can go 30-30 when there's not a lot of players who can do that, he does play in the middle of the diamond, he should be able to do that for a few more years and throw away a lot of this other stuff and say look at the WAR. It was still... A three-WAR season, though I think there were discrepancies between Baseball Reference and FanGraphs with one under two and one over three. Thank Are there teams that do that? I'm pretty sure it's not going to be the Yankees. The Yankees are going to have a different full-time second baseman next year. I think what they're hoping is, though, that they have the same closer in David Bednar. you.