DJ LeMahieu's return to the Yankees was a long time coming, even for him
DJ LeMahieu of the New York Yankees reacts at second base after his sixth inning two-run double against the Miami Marlins at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 26, 2020. Credit: Jim McIsaac
DJ LeMahieu felt your pain, Yankees fans. He still doesn’t know why it took so long for the Yankees to re-sign him to a new contract.
"I just didn’t know what the heck was going on," LeMahieu said at his re-introductory Zoom news conference on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Yankees announced the six-year, $90 million contract that finally was hammered out and agreed to on Jan. 15.
"I just don't know why we couldn't get it done two weeks after the season," LeMahieu said. "But I guess that's the business side and it is what it is."
LeMahieu, the 2020 major league batting champion with a .364 average, said he was so thrilled when the deal was completed that he felt "relieved, excited, ready to go. I just felt like I wanted to work out for a week straight after. Just ready to go. Ready to get down to Tampa again."
Don’t misunderstand: LeMahieu is not angry at the Yankees. Who could be angry at a team that is paying you $15 million a season until you turn 38? LeMahieu got a longer deal than expected and the Yankees got the financial flexibility to add players this offseason and remain under the $210 million salary tax threshold.
It's just that LeMahieu isn’t a big fan of the business side of baseball. "The Machine" wants to get back in the box and hit line drives all over the field and make life miserable for opposing pitchers.
He wanted to do it all along for the Yankees. So while he may have felt compelled to engage other clubs, the Yankees knew LeMahieu’s heart was in the Bronx.
"It’s no secret that I wanted to be back with the Yankees," LeMahieu said. "I wanted to be back in New York. It was frustrating at times because it took so long, but I’m so excited to be back. That’s what I wanted from the beginning."
Referring to talking with other clubs, LeMahieu said: "I definitely had to consider going other places. I had to put myself in other situations, even though it would have been really tough. But thankfully I didn't have to and I'm back."
LeMahieu cited the Yankees’ tight-knit clubhouse and the group’s hunger to win a World Series as the main reasons he wanted to re-sign. He said "quite a few" of his teammates were texting and calling him during the lag in negotiations and saying, "What’s the deal?"
The Yankees fell short in LeMahieu’s first two seasons in the Bronx after he signed a $24 million free-agent contract. They lost to the Astros in the 2019 ALCS and the Rays in the 2020 ALDS. Both ousters were excruciating.
It sounds as if the most recent one still is lodged in LeMahieu’s craw. He provided the Rays a quote that could end up on a Tropicana Field bulletin board at some point in 2021.
"I thought we were better than they were," he said. "I think they just made a couple plays that we didn’t and that was the bottom line. Moving forward, we’ve got to make those plays. I just thought last year they just had our number and it was disappointing."
LeMahieu said there’s a "hump" the Yankees need to get over. That hump leads to the World Series.
"We’ve got to get over that," he said. "And we're ready. I've been saying it and I've been saying it for two years, but it's time. And that's just another reason why I want to be back. We’ve got some unfinished business."
At least the first order of business — finally signing his new contract — is over. Better late than never, right?
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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