SUNDAY: The Yankees have officially announced the deal. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets Young can earn $6.325MM if he achieves all of his incentives.
SATURDAY: Pending a physical, the Yankees have agreed to a one-year, $2.5MM deal with free agent outfielder Chris Young, tweets Sweeny Murti of WFAN. Chris Cotillo of MLB Daily Dish was the first to report the contract length, while Buster Olney of ESPN (Twitter) was the first with the value. The contract also contains incentives which are unknown at this time. Per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (also Twitter), the offer was originally extended by the Yankees nearly a month ago. Per Nightengale, he could earn nearly $5MM if he’s a regular in the lineup.
As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd wrote yesterday, Young struggled with the Mets to the tune of .205/.283/.346 over 287 plate appearances. After latching on with the Yankees, Young improved his production with a .282/.354/.521 in only 79 plate appearances. Beyond noting the small sample performance, Young’s time in the Bronx carries several warning signs related to his batted ball profile and swinging strike rate. It would be hasty to suggest he made lasting improvements with the Yankees.
It is presumed Young will serve in a backup capacity behind Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, and Carlos Beltran. That trio has quite the injury history, so it is possible he’ll see frequent action. The 31-year-old’s last successful season was in 2012 when he posted a .231/.311/.434 line with 10 UZR. Since then, he’s posted 0.4 WAR in two consecutive seasons, marking him as slightly better than replacement level.
Pending further moves, the right-handed Young can probably expect to see time against tough lefty pitchers since both Ellsbury and Gardner bat left-handed. Beltran could also spend considerable time as the designated hitter, especially if Alex Rodriguez is unable to contribute.
The lÃnk goes to the pitching Chris Young…
Does this mean the Yankees get that guy too?
Lol, all them home runs he’d give up at Yankee Stadium. As a Red Sox fan, I hope so.
Chris Young the pitcher had a very solid season and he also got Comeback Player of the Year
Outside of Seattle he was horrible to say the very least.
Home: .185/.254/.318/.572
Away: .283/.348/.546/.894
Interesting. I didn’t see the splits and that’s something I usually do right away.
His ERA+ was 107 however which I find odd in that case then.
Yes, but it was said on an article here that advanced stats said his ERA should’ve been around 5. With his fly ball tendencies, his true ERA would show in Yankee Stadium, that was the only point I was trying to make. I wish Chris Young the best in finding a team to latch on to and start however, he should choose a ballpark that’s suited to his pitching style, or else he’ll end up with another minor league deal after his next contract ends.
Always does that.
He scared me whenever he was up to bat against the Orioles this year… Dude was on fire when he joined the Yanks.
Noooooo!!
This is the stats of the Chris Young who playing on the Yankees. Since they posted the wrong one here. baseball-reference.com/players/y/youngch04.shtml
I like it decent pop, only 31 probably won’t be for a ton of money either.
i’m going to try to suppress my joy at this announcement simply to keep my dignity
The WFAN reported this? I am a bit surprised, I though the NYC ‘State’ Run Radio station would have reported this exciting news first?
Sweeney Murti is a Yankee insider. No surprise there
I was just teasing from the brouhaha that broke out from earlier in the week. That’s all.
Why are you watching our two Mikes? Don’t you have Mikes in Baltimore?
Chris Young: the signing that launched a thousand signings.
First “major” off-season signing. Who would have thought that?
Chris Young is a major signing?
I guess my sarcasm wasn’t detected with the use of quotation marks.
probably 1 year/4.5M
$2.5Mm with incentives.
Was that your guess or you actually saw it? if it was your guess then…. Good job!
Good, I was afraid they’d wait to sign bigger players before getting around to him and miss out.
So you’d rather them sign a 4th OFer before acquiring possibly a new 3B, a new SP, possibly a new closer , and a new SS?
Or are you being sarcastic?
I wasn’t saying they should prioritize a 4th outfielder over their actual needs, just that it’s nice they got the guy they wanted sooner rather than wait until later in the winter when the bigger pieces actually fall into place and having to settle for like Bernie Williams’ guitar case backing up the OF.
Still angry Sandy signed him for 7.5 million. With all the “financial problems” the Mets have, you think they would’ve been smarter about this one.
CY will hit 20 homers in the little league park.
at least they didn’t sign BJ Upton.
Now the question is for the Yankees do they resign ichiro
They’re not going to resign Ichiro
I think the Yankees should resign ichiro because ichiro is close to 4,000 hits
Don’t you mean 3,000? Or are you including his Japanese stats.
Both
OK just wondering because I looked at baseball reference and he only has 2800ish in MLB. And I don’t know how many he had in Japan
He already has 4000 career hits. He’s 156 shy of 3000 MLB hits. Doesn’t mean the Yankees should sign him. Besdies, he’ll be in the hall as a Mariner. Maybe they should re-sign him. They need OF help much more than the Yankees.
Ichiro is one of the best players in the league when it comes to hits dude
That doesn’t mean anything for them
It does mean something yankeeboy
Wrong Chris Young guys. The Pitcher Young is still a Mariner. This Chris Young is an outfielder. Sorry to disappoint you guys again. Yanks Rule
Well done, Mets. Well done.