SAN DIEGO — Brian Cashman and the Yankees are like the rest of baseball: They are still waiting on Aaron Judge.
Cashman arrived at the winter meetings on Monday and said he had a conversation with Judge’s agent, Page Odle, earlier in the day, but still had no indication whether the biggest free agent of the offseason was going to remain in The Bronx.
“It only takes one [team] to take him from us,” Cashman said. “It’s a danger. We’ve done it many times and it’s been done to us, too. We’ll see.”
The Yankees are believed to have made an offer of about eight years and $300 million and while Cashman wouldn’t confirm those numbers, the general manager said he’s made “a number of offers” since the season ended and the “offers are a lot different” than the seven-year, $213.5 million extension Judge rejected on Opening Day.
Now, the Giants, with whom Judge met in San Francisco last month, are seen as the most obvious threat to steal the slugger.
“We are negotiating hard,” said Cashman, who added that managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner is “putting his money where his mouth is.”
But that, Cashman conceded, “doesn’t guarantee anything.”
And he also said that Judge’s camp has given the Yankees no indication they will come back to them before Judge makes a final decision.
And while the negotiations continue, at least some of the Yankees’ offseason plans are on hold, since they need to know how much money — if any — they need for Judge or if it will go elsewhere. For now, Cashman said he’s not putting a deadline on when he needs a decision from the outfielder before he needs to look elsewhere.
“You’ve seen in the last 48 hours, people start to make decisions,” Cashman said of the top free agents such as Jacob deGrom to Texas, Justin Verlander to the Mets and Trea Turner to the Phillies.
“It’s not like we missed time, in my opinion, but I understand the longer things go, the more at risk you are,” Cashman said. “It’s easier if we are driving it. We’re not driving it. … He’s got a lot of leverage and he’s earned that right.”
Speaking to Giants beat reporters Monday night, Farhan Zaidi, San Francisco’s president of baseball operations, said talks between the Giants and Judge “are continuing.”
Zaidi said the team has “really strong interest” in Judge and the outfielder’s visit with the team was “really productive.”
It’s unknown whether Judge has met with any other teams.
MLB.com reported Monday that Judge was expected to attend these meetings at the Grand Hyatt on Tuesday, but someone close to Judge said Monday night that Judge “was not coming at this time.”
Aaron Boone said he spoke to Judge recently, but not about free agency — and he was also unsure of Judge’s plans.
Judge was in Tampa on Monday night, at the Buccaneers-Saints game at Raymond James Stadium, and spoke with star quarterback Tom Brady in the tunnel before the game.
Cashman said if Judge departs, the Yankees could turn to the free-agent shortstop market, which still includes Carlos Correa, Xander Bogaerts and Dansby Swanson.
“If Judge signs somewhere else, do we pivot and do something else?,’’ Cashman said. “Do we remake ourselves completely? I have no idea. It’s not what we want to do.”
They want to keep Judge, who set the American League record with 62 homers last season.
Turner, a little over a year younger than Judge, signed an 11-year, $300 million deal with the Phillies on Monday.
How that impacts the length of Judge’s deal — if at all — remains to be seen and there is a belief the Yankees would go to a ninth year to retain Judge — much like they did three years ago when they signed Gerrit Cole.
“We’ll see how it all plays out,” Cashman said. “The way this winter is gonna play out could take us down a lot of different roads we didn’t expect. My phone has been a lot more active the last five days than [before]. Things were developing slowly and now they’re opening up a little bit.”
— Additional reporting by Jon Heyman
