NEWSLETTER
Yankees’ Hal Steinbrenner is crying broke, the Padres’ depth will be tested without Xander Bogaerts for the foreseeable future, and Keith Law has some strong words for the 2024 MLB Draft class in today’s MLB Notes.
Hal Steinbrenner Says Current Yankees payroll is ‘not sustainable for us financially’
The New York Yankees typically have one of the highest payrolls in baseball every season, but principal owner Hal Steinbrenner reiterated some concerns about staying there on Wednesday. During the owners’ meeting in Manhattan, Steinbrenner expressed that the Yankees’ current payroll situation is unsustainable going forward.
“I’m gonna be honest, payrolls at the levels we’re at right now are simply not sustainable for us financially,’’ Steinbrenner said via the New York Post. “It wouldn’t be sustainable for the vast majority of ownership [groups], given the luxury tax we have to pay.’’
Don’t you just love when gazillionaire sports franchise owners cry broke?
The Yankees have a payroll of roughly $312 million this season, which is the third-highest in baseball. The Yankees will have some relief coming this offseason when Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo, Juan Soto, and Clay Holmes come off the books. They’ll also be free of their commitments to former players Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson. All told, New York has $50 million coming off the books entering this offseason.
My first question is, how does Steinbrenner plan on staying below $300 million and signing Juan Soto to a colossal deal? I don’t see how they could make that work if they want to stay south of $300 million, and it seems like they truly do.
“I’ve been a broken record [on this topic]: I don’t believe I should have a $300 million payroll to win a championship,’’ Steinbrenner said. “I believe I need a good mix of veterans who are gonna make a lot more money, but, also, we’ve put a lot of money into our player development system in the last 5-10 years. And in my opinion, we have one of the better ones in baseball now.”
Padres Lose Xander Bogaerts With Fractured Shoulder
Xander Bogaerts, who is in the second year of an 11-year, $280 million deal, had gotten off to one of the poorest starts of his career. It’s now uncertain whether he will have the opportunity to turn his season around.
The San Diego Padres announced that the second baseman has sustained a fracture in his left shoulder. He suffered the injury while diving to stop a groundball earlier this week in Atlanta. The team doesn’t expect the infielder to need surgery, but Bogaerts was still waiting for the results of a CT scan on Wednesday night and is likely to be out of action for several months.
“I pray it’s one (month),” Bogaerts said after Wednesday’s 7-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds. “It all depends how quick it heals. I’ll do everything possible to get it healed quick, but I don’t know. It doesn’t sound nice.”
When he went down, Bogaerts was hitting .219/.265/.316 on the season, but he was heating up at the dish of late, riding a six-game hitting streak that featured an 8-for-24 stretch for the five-time Silver Slugger. In his absence, San Diego has selected the contract of veteran outfielder David Peralta. The Padres will likely slide Luis Arraez into Bogaerts’ spot at second base, but he’s one of the worst defensive fielders in baseball with a -9 outs above average.
“There are some things that we’re thinking about that will come into play the next couple days that we’ll explore,” Padres manager Mike Shildt told reporters. “But the good news is … we have a lot of options between three or four different guys. Now it’s a matter of putting the best foot forward every day, and I think that’s what we’ll do. We’ll be somewhat creative with that relative to what we’re seeing and the pitching (matchups), but we’ll also create what I think will be some stability that people will like.”
Keith Law: “Worst MLB Draft class I’ve ever worked on.”
YIKES!
No one knows the MLB Draft like The Athletic’s Keith Law, and he’s not high on the one we’ll see unfold in July. In his recent Top 100 rankings, he had this to say about the 2024 draft class:
“Not to belabor the point, but this might be the worst MLB Draft class I’ve ever worked on, and certainly is the worst since the 2016 class, which I think was weaker because even at the time of the draft, the top 10 wasn’t anywhere near as good (or at least as promising) as this year’s class.”
There was also this nugget from Law that caught my attention:
“By the middle of the second round, which is around pick 55, the class has thinned out substantially, notably on the college side where the safety of the back-end starter or the quality utility infielder is largely absent. I also think this is a poor year to try to shave a few million with your first pick to go well over slot with several later selections.”
So, it’s top-heavy and not loaded at the top …. I got it. Not great.
Law has Georgia’s Charlie Condon as the No. 1 prospect in the draft, which isn’t much of a surprise considering his record-setting season this spring.
“He’ll probably start out as a third baseman and then move to the outfield if that doesn’t work out, with above-average defense in right field probably the worst-case scenario. His foundation of bat speed, plate discipline, hard contact, and athleticism point to a frequent All-Star ceiling, and they’re more than enough to make him the No. 1 prospect in this year’s class.”
Check out Law’s complete Top 100, even if it’s a lackluster group.
