The Major League Baseball non-tender deadline can say a lot about a team’s roster, and in the New York Yankees’ case, it said there’s a lot of work to be done in the bullpen.
Teams had to choose whether to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players by Friday afternoon, and they could non-tender others not yet eligible for arbitration if they so chose. As it turned out, the Yankees had five players on the 40-man roster they didn’t feel were worth guaranteed contracts.
As the Yankees announced on social media, right-handed pitchers Michael Arias, Jake Cousins, Scott Effross, Ian Hamilton, and Mark Leiter Jr. were all non-tendered on Friday. In addition, the team announced they were in agreement on one-year contracts to avoid arbitration with infielder Oswaldo Cabrera and righty Clarke Schmidt.
Leiter, Cousins, Hamilton, and Effross were all arbitration-eligible. Leiter went through arbitration twice and would have been entering his walk year, but the other three were all eligible for the first time, and would have been slated for pay raises that the Yankees didn’t feel were justified.
Meanwhile, Arias has yet to make his major league debut, but he was eligible to elect free agency if the Yankees did not guarantee him a contract. He did so on Friday, according to the transactions log on his official roster page.
Leiter was the leader in innings among the pitchers the Yankees discarded, pitching to a 4.84 ERA in 48 1/3 frames. Hamilton had a 4.28 mark in 40 innings, Effross had an 8.44 in 10 2/3 innings, and Cousins did not pitch in the majors all season, undergoing Tommy John surgery in June.
New York now has just four relievers from its playoff roster on the 40-man roster: David Bednar, Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval, and Tim Hill. They could be counting on more from others who saw big-league innings this year, like Jake Bird and Brent Headrick, but either way, they’ll need reinforcements in free agency.
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