Last night’s Hot Stove on YES with insider Jack Curry was…interesting to say the very least.
The lack of solid information throughout the show entered plenty of doubts into the minds of Yankees’ fans, but should panic about a quiet offseason truly be the first thought that comes to mind?
New York has had a lot of confusing offseasons to say the least, but not many with a true lack of action for the Bronx Bombers in recent memory.
Taking a trip down memory lane, we’re going to look at the Yankees’ five most recent offseasons (entering 2021-2025) to look into how much money they invested, how many moves they made, and how much projected WAR they added.
It’s a fun challenge to joggle our memories and think about what the typical offseason has looked like and if history should provide unease or relief for the minds of anxious fans.
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Yankees’ 2020-2021 Offseason Overview
- DJ LeMahieu (6 years, $90 million)
- Corey Kluber: (1 Year, $11 million)
- Brett Gardner: (2 years, $5.15 million, opt-out after ’21)
- Justin Wilson: (2 Years $5.15 million, opt-out after ’21)
- Darren O’Day: (2 years, $3.15 million, opt-out after ’21)
- Trade for SP Jameson Taillon
Following the COVID-19 shortened season that killed revenue for the Yankees and saw their overall profit margins decrease dramatically, the front office would still add two starters, two relievers, and bring back two hitters.
This offseason ended up working out pretty poorly for the team, as Jameson Taillon is pretty comfortably the best acquisition made here.
Using Steamer projections, the team added an additional 8.5 WAR to their roster for the upcoming season, which is a healthy improvement that will rank near the bottom of the list.
The plan makes sense on paper here, the Yankees added two starters who they believed to be middle-of-the-rotation reinforcements with upside and veteran relievers with a strong track record.
If the Yankees added four impact pitchers in this offseason and made a veteran outfield addition who is more of a fourth outfielder to platoon with Jasson Dominguez, it wouldn’t rock but the Yankees would be a good team.
Again this is one of the worst-case scenarios the Yankees have had in a winter during this period given that a global pandemic ate into their profit when they were two years away from the Aaron Judge free agency saga.
Yankees’ 2021-2022 Offseason Overview
- Anthony Rizzo: (2 years, $32 million, opt-out after ’22)
- Traded for 3B Josh Donaldson, SS Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and C Ben Rortvedt
- Traded for C Jose Trevino
- Traded for RP Miguel Castro
The Yankees added 9.9 projected WAR on Steamer this offseason, and this could be considered their second-weakest of the bunch, but I think they made two big additions that nudge it over the previous one.
DJ LeMahieu returned and was league-average while Anthony Rizzo’s return came with 32 HRs and an OPS+ over 130, and you can’t overlook how good of a move Jose Trevino ended up being.
Josh Donaldson was a complete flop as was Isiah Kiner-Falefa, but they didn’t trade much of value and those contracts were only on the books for two years.
A year removed from the COVID-shortened season while also dealing with limited fan attendance during the year due to protocals, the Yankees were in a much worse financial situation than their current one.
It’s hard to grade this one in terms of how it compares to the 2026 team; the Yankees missed on Donaldson’s age curve but in 2021 he and Rizzo hit a combined 47 HRs with 5.6 WAR, they were big upgrades over what Urshela/Voit did in ’21.
They didn’t add a ton of pitching but they were running back a top-five pitching staff in baseball the year prior with Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery, Luis Severino, Nestor Cortes, and Jameson Taillon all being a healthy and talented unit.
Probably their second-worst offseason in terms of market splashes, the team still added four everyday starters to the roster and made a huge shakeup in their infield after a brutal season offensively in 2021.
Yankees’ 2022-2023 Offseason Overview
- Aaron Judge: (9 years, $360 million)
- Carlos Rodon: (6 years, $162 million)
- Anthony Rizzo: (2 years, $40 million)
- Tommy Kahnle: (2 years, $11.5 million)
The Yankees spent nearly $90 million on their roster for the 2023 season…which didn’t really end the way they wanted including getting just 0.6 WAR in those two years of Anthony Rizzo at $40 million.
Carlos Rodon looked like a dud at first then rebounded well the two years after while Aaron Judge sort of looks like a steal for putting up trascendant numbers at a $40 million AAV cost.
I’m not at all upset with what they got out of Tommy Kahnle either, they paid for 83.1 IP of a 2.38 ERA over two years out of the bullpen, that’s pretty good.
Adding 13.9 WAR to the roster, the Yankees signed the best player on the market to the biggest free agent deal ever handed out to a position player.
Rodon was viewed as arguably the best starting pitcher on that market as well, the Yankees dove head first into the top of the market and walked away with a pair of All-Stars.
Safe to say that if the Yankees spent $90 million this winter (they won’t) it would be excellent, and this is one of their most impactful winters in the Brian Cashman era on-paper.
Yankees’ 2023-2024 Offseason Overview
- Marcus Stroman: (2 years $37 million, 2026 player option)
- Luke Weaver: (1 year, $2 million, 2025 club option)
- Lou Trivino: (1 year, $1.5 million, 2025 club option)
- Cody Poteet: (1 year, $750,000)
- Trade for OF Juan Soto and OF Trent Grisham
- Traded for OF Alex Verdugo
- Traded for RP Caleb Ferguson
- Traded for UTL Jon Berti
- Traded for LHP Victor Gonzalez
Safe to say, this was an incredibly busy and active offseason for the Yankees, as while they didn’t add more money than the previous season’s spending spree, they added a lot of MLB players.
Over 30% of their Opening Day roster was made up of guys who they acquired that offseason, it’s a pretty interesting winter to look back on since Yoshinobu Yamamoto was a player of serious interest.
Had they landed him this would have been easily the no.1 offseason of this list but it matches that previous offseason in WAR essentially (13.4), but unlike the previous winter, their biggest addition wasn’t an incumbent free agent.
You cannot understate the value that this offseason had and that it was the biggest winter by any of the American League teams.
It also set up one of the most important offseasons in the history of New York sports, with Juan Soto hitting the market a year later and sparking an all-time great in-city free agency chase…
Yankees’ 2024-2025 Offseason Overview
- Max Fried: (8 years, $218 million)
- Paul Goldschmidt: (1 year, $12.5 million)
- Jonathan Loaisiga: (1 year, $5 million)
- Tim Hill: (1 year, $2.85 million)
- Traded for RP Devin Williams
- Traded for OF Cody Bellinger
- Traded for RP Fernando Cruz
…Where the Mets walked away with the star prize and the Yankees had to scramble to pivot off of it, resulting in the team having another free-agent frenzy.
The Yankees still spent, committing over $52.3 milliom in free agency before adding over $30 million more in financial commitments by trading for both Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams.
In this offseason they added a projected 9.4 WAR in the offseason, one of the weaker projection years but they ended up overperforming their pre-season projection pretty significantly.
More internal breakouts mitigated what could have been a disaster in 2025, but it caps off this article in a pretty powerful fashion.
In all of these winters the Yankees added at least four MLB players to their roster, the Yankees have currently only added two.
More moves are coming, that much is for certain, the question just becomes who it ends up being for and how much they end up investing.
The Yankees are almost always one of the most active teams in the offseason and have carried that reputation into the summer trade deadline.
My final conclusion in all of this? Breathe. Not a single report has come out suggesting that the Yankees don’t want to add to the outfield or don’t want to add Tatsuya Imai.
If the Yankees end up doing nothing the complaints will be valid, but talks of the team having a history of not doing much in the offseason is not rooted in reality.