So far we’ve had an incredibly boring offseason for the Yankees, there isn’t even drama about the team missing on a bunch of pursued targets to complain about.
If you want to go crazy over Brad Keller go right ahead, but the Yankees just haven’t had their side of the market move the way fans might have hoped for by now.
On December 18th I expected to be reacting to moves, but instead of still trying to map out some paths the team could take to build a real-deal contender.
In this scenario the Yankees would be pursuing at the top of the free agent market for two Scott Boras clients, Cody Bellinger and Tatsuya Imai, and we’re going to breakdown how that would make the final roster look for Opening Day.
READ: The Secret Plan: Could Yankees sign Bo Bichette with big position change in mind?
The Yankees Bring Back Cody Bellinger On Five-Year Contract
Cody Bellinger is a player who I’m willing to wait out the market for, there’s no reason to rush a signing of him and bid against yourself in these conversations.
While the Mets, Giants, and Dodgers have all been rumored to have interest in the outfielder, their interest is largely believed to be opportunistic.
There’s two sides to the Bellinger conversation; one side believes this is a player who the Yankees should avoid altogether, the other believes that this is a critical piece to the team’s long-term contention odds.
As with most baseball conversations, the answer is somewhere in the middle, Cody Bellinger is a plus defender in left field who projects to be 15-20% better than the league-average hitter with Yankee Stadium as his home ballpark.
If he returns, the Yankees are also getting an improved lineup against left-handed pitchers, which is why a five-year contract at $140 million would be a fair middle-ground for both sides.
The Yankees currently have the best position player WAR projection on FanGraphs’ Depth Charts (and on Steamer as well) which would indicate to me that a return of Cody Bellinger could give them an elite-level group.
One other note is that the Yankees’ worst projected group in terms of WAR is left field (2.0) and DH (1.5), so adding Bellinger would impact both positions positively.
I believe Kyle Tucker should be the player of interest, not Cody Bellinger, but that doesn’t mean the team can’t compete due to these circumstances.
You’d have a roster with strong defensive projections, a healthy amount of home runs, depth in the lineup, and flexibility as well to mix-and-match given the matchups.
Making a Splash in the Japanese Market With Tatsuya Imai
Tatsuya Imai has a repertoire that I believe could translate beautifully to Major League Baseball because he has the kind of pitches that should produce high whiff rates in 2026.
His four-seamer doesn’t have an excellent shape on paper, but when you adjust for his insanely low release height and arm angle, it creates tons of swing-and-miss abilities at the top of the zone.
As for his infamous wrong-way slider, the pitch stands out both because of that abnormal lateral movement and because pitchers who throw these kinds of breaking balls tend to have much higher arm-slots.
There’s a good chance that hitters have never seen a pitch like this before, and with the depth and velocity Imai has on that pitch, it could run a near 40% Whiff% in MLB next season.
Imai throws a quality splitter and has a usable curveball, with the idea here being that teams could get him to throw a second fastball shape such as a sinker or cutter.
You’ll see some scouting reports indicate that he has a sinker already, but it’s just a vulcan-changeup that he refers to a sinker, and while I generally refer to a pitch based on the pitcher’s classification, this is definitely an extreme example.
Having a true sinker with his 94-96 MPH velocity and some two-plane movement could put the whole mix together, but you could make the case that a cutter would be better since it would have similar lateral movement to his slider.
It could be the vertical bridge between his four-seamer and slider, a pair of pitches that I expect will tear apart opposing lineups in MLB when he sequences them properly.
On a seven-year $160 million deal, Imai would count as $22.9 million towards the Luxury Tax while also being the team’s no. 2 starter on Opening Day.
Projections don’t love him, but I don’t believe they properly capture the vast improvements he’s made, and I think the Yankees could turn the right-hander into a top 20-25 pitcher in the sport in the next two years.
Filling Out the Rest Of the Yankees’ Roster
Garrett Cleavinger is the perfect reliever for the Yankees to acquire this offseason if the Rays choose to deal him, and the return here would be outfield prospect Dillon Lewis alongside pitcher Allen Facundo.
The left-hander has a 33.7% K% with a 2.35 ERA over the course of the season, and the Yankees would be getting the kind of reliever who could slot right behind David Bednar for the eighth-inning role.
Alongside Fernando Cruz and Camilo Doval, this would be one of the best quartets for any bullpen in the game, with a healthy group of excellent middle-inning weapons such as Tim Hill, Jake Bird, and Brent Headrick.
I’m higher on the bullpen than most people because I think there are so many swing-and-miss arms in this group and the organization tends to maximize reliever value.
If the Yankees want to add a second reliever that’s fine, but the roster would fall into place with Cleavinger and this would be one of the best rosters in the game.
Inserting Cody Bellinger into the equation using Depth Charts’ Projections would give the Yankees a projected 112 wRC+ as a team, which is an excellent median outcome for a roster.
Defensively, you’d expect to be above-average at left field, right field, third base, shortstop, second base, and catcher, leaving just two positions (CF/1B) where the team has a defensive liability.
On the pitching side of the ball you have a ton of depth and upside in your rotation, although the injury risk is notable with arms like Carlos Rodon, Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, and Max Fried coming with a recent history of injury issues.
The bullpen looks the weakest on-paper, but the Yankees are loaded up with pitchers who have good velocity or outlier pitch shapes, giving this group a ton of swing-and-miss upside.
It does require an incredible leap in payroll that I’m not entirely sure actually happens, but I wanted to run through this scenario, and I’m pretty happy with the outcome here.