Free agency is not the most efficient way to build a roster. We know that. We see it every offseason when top-of-the-line players get outrageous contracts, pretty good players get huge contracts, perfectly acceptable players get big contracts, and even roughly replacement-level players get multi-year deals worth a few million bucks.
No team prefers to spend money that way, but it’s the price they pay for not developing their own.
It’s the price the Yankees payed exactly one year ago today when they signed Chase Headley to a four-year deal worth $52 million. He responded with the worst season of his big league career, committing a career-high 23 errors — 10 more than ever before — while hitting a career worst .259/.324/.369, his first sub-.700 OPS since his eight-game debut in 2007.
A bad contract? Certainly looked that way in 2015, but one year ago, the free agent market wasn’t exactly overrun with third basemen, and the Yankees didn’t have anyone in-house who seemed ready to take the job. The Yankees rightly assumed they couldn’t count on Alex Rodriguez to play the field every day, and so they paid the price for not having an alternative ready to handle the job.
So which was the bigger shortcoming: committing to Headley, or not developing a third baseman capable of stepping in for A-Rod’s inevitable and predictable decline?
It’s not that the Yankees ignored third base in recent years. They signed Rodriguez to his current contract after the 2007 season, but they continued to make third base a point of emphasis. Every year from 2007 to 2013, the Yankees took a potential third baseman with one of their top six draft picks. In five of six years they took a potential third baseman within the first three rounds.
2007 — Brad Suttle (fourth round)
2008 — David Adams (third round)
2009 — Rob Lyerly (sixth round)
2010 — Rob Segedin (third round)
2011 — Dante Bichette (supplemental first round)
2012 — Peter O’Brien (second round)
2013 — Eric Jagielo (first round)
All but Bichette were fairly accomplished college hitters when the Yankees drafted them. Granted, O’Brien was primarily a catcher, but the Yankees tried him at third base almost immediately. This list doesn’t include already in place prospects who didn’t pan out (Marcos Vechionacci, Eric Duncan) or an interesting later-round pick like Brandon Laird, who jumped onto the radar for a little while. It also says nothing of trying Eduardo Nunez at third in the Majors, or giving fourth-rounder Corban Joseph some third base time in the minors, or even testing John Ryan Murphy at third base a little bit in the lower levels.
The Yankees regularly added relatively high-ceiling third basemen to their organization, but as Rodriguez began to fade, none was ready to step into a regular big league role. And as Rodriguez fell out of the third base conversation almost entirely, the Yankees found themselves with little choice but to spend.
Headley’s contract is the price the Yankees paid for not developing a third baseman of their own. Now they have three years to hope for better returns in the future.
Associated Press photos
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