How many of those guys are in the organization? Not many. How many got to The Bronx. Not many.
http://www.milb.com/roster/index.jsp?sid=t531
Of the current Yankees 25-man roster, nine are homegrown: Betances, Severino, Smith, Warren, Romine, Sanchez, Austin, Gardner, and Judge. With Castro’s activation, Tyler Wade, another homegrown player, was just sent down today.
Greg Bird, who will be back from rehab any day, is a homegrown Yankee product.
Ronald Torreyes was acquired in a minor league deal for Rob Segedin, another homegrown player. Chasen Shreve was acquired in a minor-league deal for homegrown Manny Banuelos. Starlin Castro was acquired for a homgrown player and a utility man. Sonny Gray, Aroldis Chapman, Jaime Garcia, Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson (himself a product of the Yankee farm system), Todd Frazier, Didi Gregorius, and Aaron Hicks are all players acquired in trade for homegrown Yankee players.
That gets us to 20 out of 25. Chad Green was acquired (along with Luis Cessa, now back in AAA) for Justin Wilson, who was acquired for homegrown catcher Francisco Cervelli. That’s 21. Chase Headley was acquired for a player the Yankees had signed as a minor-league free agent. That’s 22 of 25.
CC Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka, and Jacoby Ellsbury are the only free-agent signees on the current roster. And Tanaka was a posting-system win from Japan.
Matt Holliday, currently on rehab, was also a free agent signing.
Remember, in the winter of 2015-2016, the Yankees spent exactly $0 on major league free agents. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. And many in the baseball media seemed annoyed at them for it. Then at the trade deadline in 2016, they traded Chapman, Andrew Miller, Carlos Beltran, and Ivan Nova (who was homegrown) away for young players. (Clint Frazier was one of those, coming in the Miller deal.) They followed that up this past winter by dealing away Brian McCann for more young talent. Then they found themselves in contention a year earlier than anticipated.
Because the Yankees (among other teams, including the Dodgers, Red Sox, Tigers, and Nationals) are over the luxury tax threshold, they are looking to cut payroll. So don’t expect them to make a big splash in free agency. They’re trying to get under the cap (and maybe make room for a bid for Shohei Otani.) Signing players such as the ones you’ve named would undermine that. I don’t think they’re after those guys. And I’m not buying some “anonymous source” article in a Yankee blog (especially when most of the Yankee media says just the opposite.)
Breaking the bank is not in the plans. They have reason not to, and they can afford not to.
Sitting on their pocketbooks is the plan, at least for a year or two. Let the kids develop, then get what is needed to go around them. They’re engaging in the delicate balance of trying to contend and retool at the same time, and so far, Cashman is doing a very good job of it.
The rest of teh baseball world will get annoyed at that, but let tehm. The Yankees are in fine shape.
A Major League Baseball roster is a roster of players allowed by league agreement to play for their respective Major League team. There are two types of rosters in general, the “active roster” of 25 players and the “expanded roster” of 40 players.
According to the players you sent in your post, those nine players constitute a lot less than half of the roster. When the roster is expanded to the 40 amount, they will have the 15 free agents I mentioned sitting at different levels in the organization. If only half of them are called up, 8 of the 15, that will mean that the amount of non-home grown players will reach 24 at a minimum. And that still constitutes more than half of the roster at that time.
And if you don’t take into consideration that the club has been taking action to get into the cattle call for the upcoming free agents, then you are missing the actions. For years the Yankees have been sniping players and having to delve out large numbers to get them. Most stayed for a short time. Players like Rodriguez and Teixeira from Texas and Ichiro from Seattle. And they’ll have to make decisions on committed contracts ending this year from former free agents Sabathia, Tanaka, Chapman, Holliday, Sanchez, Severino, Solano, and Choi still in the system. Buying them out is going to cost a mint. But right now, they fill a slot. I mentioned Jon Niece. They signed him as a free agent on February 16 this year, released him on March 26, then re-signed him as a free agent on March 28. Maybe it’s a compulsion?
The Yankees are supporting more than half of their roster according to Rotoworld and your identifications with free agents. They are far from home grown. And if they jump into the feeding frenzy they have set up to do for the free agency crop this year, the amount will get bigger and they will bust the league’s luxury tax and thumb their nose again at the league’s efforts to trying to balance the power to protect the smaller markets. And it all comes down to the media market protection, even to the point of liquidating their own to get there, YES.
rwood