Call them the Fab Five.
There are five elite shortstops on on the open market this winter: Los Angeles Dodgers’ Corey Seager, Colorado Rockies’ Trevor Story, Houston Astros’ Carlos Correa, Toronto Blue Jays’ Marcus Semien and New York Mets’ Javier Baez.
All five free agents will be looking for massive, nine-figure deals. Just don’t expect the New York Yankees to be among the highest bidders.
The New York Post’s Joel Sherman reports “Executives and player representatives who have dealt with the Yankees so far in free agency sense that they are monitoring the elite shortstop group rather than participating in it, waiting to see if a market collapses, in which case they might still swoop in to try to sign one.”
Sherman believes that with the Collective Bargaining Agreement expiring next month, and with a new deal possibly coming as late as February, the Yankees “could essentially wait until that point and see if markets collapse for a shortstop.”
Keep in mind the Yankees already have a pair of $300-million contracts on the payroll (Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton) and right fielder Aaron Judge is due for a long-term contract extension.
So it’s possible Cashman skips the elite shortstops and goes for a stopgap such as Andrelton Simmons while waiting for top prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza to be ready for their MLB debuts.
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Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com.
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