Hal acts like a Steinbrenner with Yankees' $162M Carlos Rodon deal
Hal Steinbrenner, principal owner of the Yankees, talks with reporters during MLB owners meetings on Feb. 5, 2020, in Orlando, Fla. Credit: AP/John Raoux
A month ago, I sat across from Hal Steinbrenner, in the Ken Griffey Jr. room at MLB’s midtown Manhattan headquarters, and listened to the Yankees' owner explain how buying a championship no longer is possible.
“If there is a notion that you can spend a gazillion dollars and it’s going to get you a championship,” Steinbrenner said then, “those days are over.”
Based on the Yankees’ fiscal restraint in some past offseason markets, relative to the franchise’s revenues, Steinbrenner’s comments were hardly out of character at the time. Unlike his dad, who collected All-Stars and Hall of Famers like bubble-gum cards, he always seemed keenly aware of the bottom line, doling out money to general manager Brian Cashman on a per-request basis.
Now? I’d like to ask Steinbrenner to clarify his definition of gazillion, because the Yankees definitely appear to be in that neighborhood after agreeing Thursday night to a six-year, $162 million contract for Carlos Rodon.
At some point, Steinbrenner made a conscious decision to switch things up, from the moment he played nice with the other owners at those November quarterly meetings to whenever it was this week that the Yankees made their final pitch to Rodon. In closing that deal, Steinbrenner has spent $522 million alone on two players this offseason — Rodon and Aaron Judge — while upping his total free-agent tab to $573.5 million.
That number is the highest in the majors, easily soaring past the Mets’ own $476.6 million outlay. It also has Steinbrenner bumping up against the fourth and final luxury-tax threshold of $293 million, a territory otherwise known as the “Steve Cohen Tax.” How appropriate, because there’s little doubt that Cohen making it rain over in Queens, to the tune of a $430 million payroll (counting the luxury bill), has helped nudge his counterpart to act, well, more like a Steinbrenner this offseason.
There are other factors, too. Of course, there's the 13-year title drought, but getting booed at Yankee Stadium on Derek Jeter Day was said to have shaken the owner. Then there’s another October exit at the hands of the Astros. The pressure on the Yankees was building to intolerable levels, made worse by Judge enjoying an unprecedented degree of leverage for his free-agent negotiations.
With so much of the Yankees’ bandwidth dedicated to re-signing Judge, the reaction was relief more than anything when Steinbrenner’s early-morning call to the slugger wrapped up the nine-year, $360 million contract — almost $150 million more than the team’s rejected offer on Opening Day. But in reality, as critical as Judge is to the franchise going forward, all that did was maintain the status quo for the upcoming season.
And in this climate, with Cohen firing cash from T-shirt cannons across town, Steinbrenner had to realize this was an obvious window to spend, especially with a pitcher of Rodon's caliber still available. As tempting as Justin Verlander was, and even poaching Jacob deGrom from the Mets, Rodon had two advantages — being lefthanded and turning 30 just last week, giving the Yankees a chance to fortify their rotation with another ace-caliber starter on a longer-term basis.
Luis Severino and Frankie Montas both will be free agents next offseason, and Gerrit Cole can opt out of his $324 million contract after the 2024 season. Enter Rodon, who’s coming off the two best years of an injury-marred career, combining for a 2.67 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 12.2 strikeouts per nine innings over 55 starts.
Rodon apparently wanted to be a Yankee from the jump, and judging by reports suggesting that agent Scott Boras was looking for a seven-year deal worth roughly $210 million, Cashman beat that number by a sizable chunk — a rarity in this hyperventilating free-agent market. Rodon’s medical history had to scare off some suitors, but his Tommy John surgery was in 2019, and he’s pitched way more than Verlander or deGrom during the past two seasons.
Judge and Rodon would be a satisfactory offseason haul on their own for any club, even the Yankees in previous years. But it’s important to remember that we’re only in mid-December, closer to the end of the World Series than the start of spring training. There’s plenty of time remaining for the Yankees to further revamp their roster, primarily by finding another leftfielder along with bullpen help and sorting out their shortstop situation.
Steinbrenner surely would like Cashman to trim some of the expendable payroll during that process if possible. The primary targets are Aaron Hicks, who is guaranteed another $30.5 million through 2025, and Josh Donaldson, due $21 million before hitting free agency at the end of the 2023 season.
But the Yankees are in a position of strength again, flexing their financial might the way they should. While locking up Judge involved an air of desperation, grabbing Rodon was Steinbrenner bigfooting the rest of baseball, as everyone expects the Yankees to do. And that carries more value than merely enlisting another potential co-ace for the rotation.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
