Once Curtis Granderson rejected their $14.1 million qualifying offer, the Yankees homed in on three outfielders as potential replacements: Carlos Beltran, Shin-Soo Choo and Jacoby Ellsbury.
Hal Steinbrenner, who usually stays away from such sessions, was part of the contingent at the GM Meetings in Orlando that met with agent Scott Boras. He not only expressed the Yankees’ interest in two of Boras’ clients, Choo and Ellsbury, but laid out a plan in which the Yankees would aggressively spend this winter in total while staying under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold for 2014.
The message was: Don’t let a restrained budget for next season fool you, the Yankees are going to be the Yankees — big-game hunters with designs on being championship contenders always. No deviations.
Still, the player the Yankees prioritized initially was not one of Boras’ clients, but one of his former players, Beltran. They liked the idea of doing a two-year deal — even if, say, it climbed to $30 million or a bit more — rather than the kind of long-term deal that would be necessary to land either Choo or Ellsbury.
But the Beltran demands kept growing and the Royals were being very aggressive, signaling a willingness to go to a third year. The Yankees had turned away from Beltran when he was a free agent after the 2011 season over concerns about his knees, and then he was going to need a two-year deal to play at ages 35-36. Now they were hearing he needed three years to play from 37-39 with the knees no better. Yes, there was the DH slot to use, but suddenly they began to wonder — of all things — if a longer contract for Choo or Ellsbury actually would be safer and preferable to three years with Beltran.
Members of the Yankees baseball operations had debated the merits of Choo and Ellsbury. They loved Choo, especially his on-base skills. But they worried about his sketchiness against southpaws.
Ellsbury offered a middle-of-the-diamond player (Choo played center field, poorly, out of necessity for the Reds last year). He offered high-end athleticism – one former Red Sox executive wondered whether Ellsbury would win a major league decathlon. If the Yankees could sign him, it would be robbing from the Red Sox. The Yankeees imagined that Ellsbury and Brett Gardner together in a lineup would create speedy havoc on offense, and form a lockdown left-center combo on defense. Plus, Gardner is a free agent after the 2014 campaign, so Ellsbury would be insurance; if Gardner departed, the Yankees wouldn’t be frantic to find a center fielder.
This past weekend became the key phase. The Yankees felt Beltran slipping away and suddenly Boras had Ellsbury in play, perhaps recognizing Boston was never going to flinch off its roughly $80 million offer. The Yankees were surprised. They know Boras’ track record of waiting until later in the offseason, at least until the Winter Meetings, to do deals for his best players.
The Yankees came to believe the Mariners were offering eight years to Ellsbury with a willingness to go to a ninth. There had been a feeling that Ellsbury would follow that money because he is from Oregon. But he appeared the latest hitter who wanted nothing to do with that huge ballpark and dubious franchise. The Yankees wouldn’t go eight or nine years, but when they indicated to Boras they would exceed Carl Crawford’s deal – seven years at $142 million – the talks gained traction on Saturday and Sunday. This was the goal, to outdo Crawford.
The Yankees offered seven years at $148 million with a $21 million club option for an eighth year or a $5 million buyout. So the guaranteed portion for luxury tax purposes would be seven years at $153 million or a $21.86 average per year. If the option is picked up, the deal would become eight years at $169 million.
There were final hurdles to overcome that included Ellsbury passing a physical – and he had an injured hand and foot that he played through as Boston marched to the championship in October. But both the Yankees and the Ellsbury camp seemed confident a deal ultimately would become official that would turn Ellsbury from a long shot to jump to the other side of The Rivalry into the Yankees’ center fielder.