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Aaron Judge ‘disappointed’ Yankees made $213.5 million offer public
GM Brian Cashman announced on Friday morning — two hours before the team opened the season against the Red Sox in The Bronx — that the two sides could not reach a long-term extension.
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The pageantry of Opening Day in The Bronx on Friday had one big thing missing: a contract extension for Aaron Judge.
The Yankees outfielder’s deadline for an extension came and went without a megadeal, meaning the 6-5, 11-inning win over the Red Sox might have been Judge’s last Opening Day in pinstripes.
General manager Brian Cashman said the Yankees offered the face of the franchise a deal that was worth an average annual value of $30.5 million over the next seven years for a total of $213.5 million. That is in addition to either $17 million or $21 million this season, Judge’s final year of arbitration, making the sum of the Yankees’ offer eight years for either $230.5 million or $234.5 million.
Judge did not seem thrilled that the numbers became public — Cashman said he offered them up willingly for “transparency purposes,” despite having done so rarely, if ever, in the past — but pledged to turn his focus to the field for the rest of the season.
“It’s something I felt like was private between my team and the Yankees,” Judge said, declining to get into why the Yankees’ offer wasn’t right for him. “Cash has a job to do.
“I’m just disappointed because I think I’ve been vocal about wanting to be a Yankee for life. I want to bring a championship back to New York. I want to do it for the fans here. … Not getting that done right now, it stings. But I got a job to do on the field and I gotta shift my focus to that now and go play some ball.”
The $30.5 million AAV would have placed Judge — soon to be 30 years old — slightly above Mookie Betts’ $30.4 million AAV (in his 12-year, $365 million deal with the Dodgers) and behind only Mike Trout’s $35.54 million AAV (in his 12-year, $426.5 million deal with the Angels) for outfielders all time.
“Obviously our intent is to have Aaron Judge stay as a New York Yankee moving forward and I know that’s his intent as well, which is a good thing,” Cashman said. “We’re going to have to be entering those efforts in a new arena, which would be at the end of the season when free agency starts. Maybe that will determine what his real market value will be, because we certainly couldn’t agree at this stage on a contract extension.”
Instead, Judge and the Yankees are scheduled to go to an arbitration hearing — during the season, because of the lockout — to determine whether Judge will make $17 million or $21 million this season.
In spring training, Judge had set Opening Day as his deadline for talks that were still ongoing hours before first pitch. He reiterated after the opener that his focus is on the field, no longer on contract talks, and didn’t appear worried about the risk of leaving that much money on the table.
“I don’t mind going to free agency,” he said. “At the end of the year, I’m a free agent. I can talk to 30 teams, and the Yankees will be one of those 30 teams. It’s always nice to try to wrap something up, the sooner the better. But we weren’t able to get it done. Now it’s on to baseball.”
Giancarlo Stanton, who is in the midst of his own megadeal (a 13-year, $325 million extension he signed while still with the Marlins), said “there’s still plenty of time” for Judge to secure his future with the Yankees.
“I think it’s a little over-exaggerated that it didn’t get done right now,” Stanton said. “Push it to the side and we got work to do.”
While Cashman didn’t rule out talking further with Judge’s camp during the season, an offseason resolution appears most likely.
“He’s been a great Yankee,” Cashman said. “He’s an impactful player, he’s one of the game’s great players. Our hope is at some point, we’ll find that common ground that we both feel comfortable with.”