The Yankees would have been stupid to trade minor league assets for Cody Bellinger.
As good as Bellinger has been, the Yankees would need a lot more than him to be serious October contenders. Bellinger also has a 12.5M mutual option for next year, and he might decline it to be a free agent after having such a great 2023 anyway. So I guess on some level the Yankees still can go chase after him.
Giving up assets for Ohtani would have been better. But still with major risk.
As I see it, the only position players that are probably untouchable for the Yankees are Judge and Volpe.
Rizzo, as bad as he’s been since May, is probably still of some value.
But everyone else doesn’t matter. Harrison Bader, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres (who has actually performed better than I expected)...all of them could be traded or cut and it wouldn't bother me at all.
The Yankees still have to pay Stanton through 2027, before there's a 10 million dollar buy out in 2028. Basically they owe him $118M and if they moved him out west somewhere they'd have to eat at least half that money.
Free Agents this winter:
Harrison Bader
Josh Donaldson
Frankie Montas
Isiah Kiner-Falefa
Luis Severino
Anthony Rizzo is effectively a free agent for 2025 (he has a 6M buy out).
DJ LeMahieu gets 15M per year through 2026 but it's hard to imagine he stays with the team until then.
I've stated this before but I think Manny Machado would have been their top focus this winter, before he re-signed with San Diego.
I think Rodon hasn't proved to be as dominant as he was in San Francisco in his return from injury so while they're committed to him, his lackluster play along with Severino leaving pretty much means they'll make a strong push for Ohtani....though I still think LAD is the favorite there.
Best case scenario: they sign Bellinger and Ohtani and figure out what to do with Left Field later. They let Rizzo walk in 2025 and slide Bellinger to 1B, Judge to CF and Ohtani splits time between RF and DH (with or without Stanton).
What about Jasson Dominguez? What about him? That kid is probably 18 months from reaching the Majors and even when he does he'll struggle so you can't keep a roster spot hostage for him.
If the Yankees don't get Ohtani, their attention probably shifts to Julio Urias, Aaron Nola, Kenta Maeda or Blake Snell.