With their 27 World Championships, 24 men wearing the team’s hat on their plaques in the Baseball Hall of Fame and a starring role in baseball’s most heated historical and current rivalries, the phrase “under the radar” doesn’t usually apply to the New York Yankees.
But that’s exactly how the Yankees have operated while spending the most money in free agency thus far — a tidy $573.5 million, more than the crosstown Mets or the Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants have spent in making the winter’s headline-grabbing moves.
Of course, the Yankees didn’t spend $556 million on depth pieces. That giant chunk of change only went to four players. In addition to retaining rening American League MVP Aaron Judge and first baseman Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees also fortified their rotation by signing hard-throwing left-handed starter Carlos Rodon, who spent 2022 with the Giants, and by bringing back reliever Tommy Kahnle, who played for the Dodgers last season but was with the Yankees from 2017-20.
A star — even one as decorated as Judge — re-signing with his team is never as splashy as a star jumping franchises, especially given the narrative of a winter centered around the Mets basically swapping one multiple Cy Young Award winner (Jacob deGrom, who signed with the Rangers) for another (former Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander) and a lucrative game of musical chairs involving star shortstops Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Carlos Correa. And the signing of Rodon late Thursday — a week after the chaotic winter meetings concluded — happened as most of the sporting world was already focused on the NFL playoff chase.
But those expensive if relatively quiet moves firmly established the Yankees — who were on a record-setting pace for the first half of the 2022 season before petering out and getting swept by the eventual champion Astros in the ALCS — as one of the favorites in an American League in which most other teams have watched as the National League superpowers have further bolstered themselves. Rodon and deGrom are the only stars to jump to the AL while the NL retained Turner and gained Bogaerts, Correa and Verlander as well as Clayton Kershaw, Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz.
Below are the current World Series-winning odds for AL teams at DraftKings as of Dec. 16, along with their odds as of Nov. 8 in parentheses, shortly after the end of the World Series, and commentary about select teams. We’ll tackle the loaded NL next week.
- Astros +600 (+600)
- Yankees +700 (+1000)
- Blue Jays +1200 (+1000)
- Mariners +1600 (+1900)
- White Sox +2500 (+2000)
- Rays +2800 (+2500)
- Rangers +3500 (+6000)
- Guardians +3500 (+4000)
- Orioles +3500 (+4500)
- Red Sox +3500 (+3000)
- Angels +4000 (+4000)
- Twins +7000 (+5500)
- Tigers +8000 (+7000)
- Royals +10000 (+9000)
- Athletics +30000 (+15000)
The Astros, the favorite to repeat as champions, aren’t a better team after losing Verlander, a surefire Hall of Famer who just unanimously won the Cy Young Award. But they’re also well-versed in replacing superstars — Jeremy Pena succeeded Correa and won the ALCS and World Series MVPs as a rookie — and are so deep in starting pitching that Cristian Javier, who started a combined no-hitter in the regular season, was their no. 4 starter in the postseason, when he started a combined no-hitter in Game 4 of the World Series. Their biggest issue going forward is probably the impetuous nature of owner Jim Crane, who somehow fired general manager James Click shortly after the World Series.
The addition of Rodon, who has dealt with numerous arm injuries and has qualified for the ERA title just twice, is a high-risk, high-payoff move for the Yankees, who were already an overwhelming favorite to win a strangely static AL East upon re-signing Judge. But as good a 1-2 punch as Rodon can provide with Gerrit Cole, the Yankees still need to address the offensive deficiencies that showed up during the playoffs, when they hit .173 with 103 strikeouts in 284 at-bats.
The Mariners are the most interesting candidate to spoil the annual Yankees-Astros ALCS duel. Seattle added second baseman Kolten Wong and outfielder Teoscar Hernandez to a team that gave the Astros fits in a three-game ALDS and whose top nine players per WAR at Baseball Reference were all 31 or younger last year, including Rookie of the Year Julio Rodriguez.
The Rangers feel a lot like the 2022 Mets, who became good in a hurry once Buck Showalter added some structure and managerial know-how to a perpetually underachieving team. Texas, fresh off a 94-loss season and without a winning record since 2016, is a lot further away than those Mets, but Bruce Bochy didn’t delay his Hall of Fame induction to tread water in suburban Dallas. The Rangers making the tournament and having deGrom, Martin Perez and Jon Gray ready to start a best-of-three series would be an awfully dangerous team in the hands of Bochy, who established himself as the best playoff manager of his era by directing the Giants to three titles in five years with teams that won 92, 94 and 88 regular season games, respectively.
Speaking of Hall of Fame-bound managers, Terry Francona’s Guardians might have the easiest path to the playoffs in the decimated AL Central, where the Tigers and Royals are in the midst of lengthy rebuilds and the Twins look likely to take a step back after their all-or-nothing pursuit of Correa ended with nothing. The Guardians already have a postseason-ready rotation led by Shane Bieber, Triston McKenzie and Cal Quantrill and addressed their biggest issue by adding Josh Bell, who has three 20-homer seasons on his resume, to a roster that hit the second-fewest homers in the bigs in 2022.
Seriously, does anyone want to explain what the rest of the AL East is doing? The Blue Jays made a solid depth addition by signing pitcher Chris Bassitt, but they’re going to miss Hernandez. The lone major move by the cost-conscious Rays was spending $40 million on Zach Eflin, who has qualified for an ERA title once. The Orioles, who added back-end starter Kyle Gibson and utilityman Adam Frazier, seem to be banking on their farm harvesting more stars. The Red Sox are more befuddling and befuddled than ever after once again failing to properly gauge the market for a homegrown superstar. Will Rafael Devers follow in the footsteps of Bogaerts and Jon Lester?
The Twins responded to losing Correa by signing Christian Vazquez and Joey Gallo, which is not going to do it, even in the AL Central. It’d be great to see Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout participate in a playoff game together, but with the Angels on the market, it’s more likely the duo toils in obscurity one more time before Ohtani hits free agency and sends the superpowers into an even more frenzied state of bidding.
