In December 2013, the Yankees granted a seven-year, $153 million contract to Jacoby Ellsbury. What went wrong? MLBTR’s Jeff Todd unravels the saga, which remains unresolved six years in. Click here for today’s video.
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Everything went wrong
Yankees can’t get over they made a bad free agent signing. Be classy and pay the guy!
he violated his contract, he should have been classy and gotten his ass on the field!
Didn’t Cespedes legitimately violate his contract? Still waiting on what Jacoby did but Yankees have to cheat. Jeter violated his contract when he claimed he thought the Bronx was located in Florida for income tax purposes. That happened before him and his roided pal Arod cheated to win 09 championship.
Why don’t you show he Yankees their errors of their ways according to you and send him the first monthly installment on what he is owed!
Well they’ve made many of those—and yet they can afford to do so, repeatedly.
Agreed. Teams with bucks are tempted. Sox made mistakes, Cubs made mistakes so why are the Yankees any different. I love Cashman’s body of work but no one’s perfect. Given the length he’s been there I give him a pass. The present situation though is repulsive but it shows what happens in corporate America when bucks are involved.
Without knowing the backroom dealings, its hard to say what bad deals you can hang on Cashman and which ones to hang on ownership. Since Hal took over, all indications are that Cashman has had more freedom to do what he thinks is right. Ellsbury was signed along with McCann when Cano went to the Mariners. I wouldn’t be surprised if ownership had a hand in those 2 signings in an attempt to appease fans for letting Cano walk, who at the time was probably in their top 2 players on the team.
agreed.
Who cares what went wrong. Ellsbury had one good year.
Best part is they are trying to void his contract and not pay him for going to a holistic Dr..Do they think we dont know what a holistic Dr. is? That’s like saying your wife cheated on you by going to the hairdresser.
Not only will they pay him…they will pay his legal fees as well.
I presume your wife didn’t sign a contract ahead of your marriage containing a covenant not to go to the hairdresser without your written authorization lest a material breach take place with set out remedies.
Once again do you know what a holistic Dr. is?
They don’t prescribe medication… they dont operate. A dentist has physical contact with you in a way NO holistic Dr does. The Yankees will be further embarrassed when they not only must pay him the balance owed..but also interest on funds not paid on time. And his court costs.
Is Robert Kraft at that salon?
@TedYazJimEd
The fact you referred to the doctor he went to as “holistic” shows you don’t have a clue of what the issue did. A “holistic” doctor does NOT include using such contreversial medical treatments like intravenous chelation therapy a treatment in which Jacoby;s doctor, Bouquette had been punished for using on other patients who may not have needed the treatment at all. He performed that and other treatments we still don’t know about without seeking approval or even notifying the Yanks about. Some of the procedures can absolutely weaken and athletes body such as weakeining bones and muscles. You can google if you wish to actually learn something about it,
How an injury prone player can have surgical treatments w/o the knowledge of the team and then experience numerous other “new” injuries NOT be considered extremely noteworthy boggles the mind. Those treatments might have led to new problems thus keeping him on the DL later.
The fact that the Yanks didn’t know about the treatment at all until 2019 when a “source” dropped a dime on Ellsbury should add to the shadyness factor. Why did the Yanks have to learn of the doctor and treatments by a third party is stunning. The Yanks sent the doctor a letter making him swear he wasn’t administering any banned substances. The doctor signed the letter but clearly no one other than he and Ellsbury know what he did or didn’t do. That’s flat out wrong.
Nothing went wrong. Jacoby had one season where he was over ,800 OPS. He was never a great player. He was often injured in Boston. No team valued regarded him very highly other than the Yankees. What happened when he became a Yankee is he continued to be Jacoby Ellsbury, mediocre and injury prone.
That’s right. Yankees thought taking from Red Sox would damage team (see Johnny Damon). Red Sox said, “OK”.
Never a mediocre player when you had his gifts. His one weakness was his arm. He was a .300 hitter for Boston, the leagues best basestealer, and best player in 2011. Injury prone? You are right. Mediocre, you make no sense.
everything
and so? what else do you expect them to do?
Fragile as a China Doll and even his best season offensively with the Yankees wasn’t that great.
Knee jerk reaction to losing Cano.
What went wrong? The guy couldn’t stay on the field, and I wonder how many of his injuries were legit. Everyone has that co worker that doesn’t do anything, and Ellsbury was that co worker
+1
it started with the Yankees offering that contract, it was never going work out.
BABIP reliant speedy players….Not a great investment into their 30’s. I believe we’ve seen more than a few of these long term deals bust.
The market adjusted to this by the time LoCain came around. And I’m not sure the Brewers are thrilled to have 3 years left on his deal right now either. But that’s a reasonable deal.
I suspect he was using in his big seasons
That Brady Anderson power spike in 2011 has always looked suspicious.
Riiiiight because it was so successful he decided to stop.
There are plenty of reasons why guys stop juicing. A lot of the time it’s because they finally got that fat contract (Anderson’s hilariously out-of-profile 50 HR came in a walk year), but anabolic steroids can cause various side effects or adverse reactions. Or maybe Ellsbury was using a type that was undetectable by the 2011 test and MLB’s testing service updated their profiles to include it and there wasn’t another good, undetectable one from his supplier.
Except Ellsbury’s big season came 2 years before he hit free agency. If it worked so well for 1 year why wouldn’t he have continued the following 2 seasons as well?
People act like the concept of players having a career year is unheard of. That’s exactly what 2011 was for Ellsbury, his career year. Everything fell into place offensively for him for that one year. That’s all.
1996?
The most amazing thing about Anderson’s huge season was the fact that he only scored 117 runs. 172 hits, 92 of those were for extra bases with 50 being home runs, plus 76 walks and 21 stolen bases. The guy should’ve had like 150 runs.
*Big season.
Fixed it for you
Yankees will lose their grievance if it gets that far. The two sides should settle though rather than spend millions on arbitration fees.
Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if their aim was to scare/cajole him into settling.
Couldn’t see past the opportunity to steal a franchise centerpiece from the World Champion Red Sox to try to appease the animals in the stands. And it worked out exactly as it should have. Karma is a biznatch.
You could try to be more offensive….but if you felt like you wanted to rest on your laurels….this is a fine effort
Thank you.
Dude was juicing and got paid.
Ellsbury was glass before the NYY got him. It was entirely predictable. Never should have signed him. Worst signing by Cashman? Maybe. (Except Pavano. Was that Cashman? Couldn’t predict Pavano’s injuries but you never sign a one year wonder to a huge multi-year contract.) Stanton at least had a decent year in ’18 (38 dingers, 4.3 WAR) and will likely have more going forward and his AAV is not gaudy.
God, the Pavano thing was such a debacle. He never seemed interested in actually pitching. Getting injured in a car crash while rehabbing in Florida due to… extracurricular activities being performed on him by his famous then-girlfriend while he was driving was the salacious icing on the cake.
Wasn’t Jared Wright signed the same off-season as Pavano? Talk about a double whammy.
It was. Wright was another one-year wonder, but his issue was more that he sucked than how much he was hurt, even though he ended up getting hurt a lot too. At least Pavano had a lot of talent.
Stanton’s deal might look good next to Ellsbury’s but that’s about the only place. I’m not real confident he’ll put up another 4.3 fWAR season on his deal. Now on the wrong side of 30–maybe when he finally gets moved to full time DH he’ll provide some kind of value.
The WAR formula for DH is different than for position players (and different spots on the diamond have different formulas). Basically, Stanton is going to have to produce like 2014-17 Nelson Cruz for the rest of the deal to make it pencil out. As injury-prone as he has been, that is possible but unlikely.
He gets hurt often…..that’s what ruined it
It was probably foreseeable…but not to the point where he wasn’t going to be able to even finish the contract
Actually 6 years $133 mil
Or possibly 6yr $100 mil
Everything. Not Cashman’s finest hour.
Dude loved the Red Sox so much that he sabotaged his own career to leave the Yankees with an albatross of a contract. lol
Don’t sign 30 year old guys for 7 years. Especially speed dependant players.
I dunno… it worked fine for me as a Red Sox fan
Yeah, there are several ways this deal hurt the Yankees. Like, even though he was on the 60-day DL during the season, there’s no 60-day DL in the offseason so he was clogging up a 40-man spot, which meant one less guy they could protect from the Rule V.
And the obvious one, of course, is that he hampered their payroll flexibility significantly.
Oh gosh, where do we start?
Brian Cashman made a big mistake and he was allowed to keep his job because his boss saw that he learned from it—and he surely has by how he’s built since then—revamping his front office. I don’t see them going as big as often as the first decade of the 2000s, but they will spend on top of the market veteran talent to supplement their younger core, even signing younger guys long term as potential Jeter/Rivera/Pettite type fixtures.
The Yankees obviously have a strategy on many fronts, not just free agents, and they’ve learned how to build one of the best farm systems, making them one of the most consistent competitors in baseball—like Friedman is doing in LA, which is really their goal to have a championship caliber team every year. They can even afford to absorb bad contracts to get more prospect assets. A team with their resources is stupid if they can’t compete every year, while teams with less resources must be even better at other areas (sabermetrics, scouting, coaching, developing, asset acquisition, drafting, etc) if they are going to be a consistent winner with less (Rays, Oakland, and hopefully Dbacks).
I believe baseball would be even better if we put all the big market teams in one or two divisions, competing against one another more. I wouldn’t spread them out so much. Let the divisions be more fluid, where one can move back and forth. For instance, If a team’s market and spending grows (i.e. Nationals, Astros), they go into the big market division. Let the smaller and medium market teams compete against one another more, and less against big markets. We don’t have to have a geographic divisions. Have a 4 team wildcard playoff per league. This would give smaller markets more excitement and investment because they could compete more often.
Lol. This is just total nonsense. What’d they pay Cole?
The Yankees never learn. Stanton and Cole are owed well over half a billion. Two players.
Over the course of like lots of years. Stanton’s AAV is actually not that bad as long as he can spend most of his time on the field. Cole’s AAV will quickly become less gaudy as the years pass. Mookie is likely to pass him and many other, maybe Lindor for example, over the coming years. The luxury tax line is likely to go away and spending is likely to increase…
…and ticket prices will be $200 per game then $300 then more than your mortgage….
He sucks and he’s never healthy
Thank you for these posts and others of the normal variety. They’re a nice and extremely useful distraction from daily life, and enjoyed by myself and I’m sure others. Stay safe and keep the content coming- I very much appreciate the efforts.
Got paid and got lazy.
videos are lame
We may have the same situation with Stanton. How this works out with Ellsbury may set a precedent for the Giancarlo situation down the road.
Ellsbury never had a season even remotely close to Stanton’s 2018 season (38 dingers, 4.3 WAR). I think Stanton’s WAR that season topped Ellsbury’s in all his seasons with the NYY. So I think Stanton has already surpassed Ellsbury and he has tons of years left to improve upon that.
Glad the Red Sox did not resign him!!!! He was excellent when not injured, but injured too much.
Great example of letting a player leave and letting someone else over pay.
RS goofed with Sale as 2017 and 2018 he was great, but after the injuries in 2019 I would have let him walk, the same with Mike Lowell after 2007, and Steve Pearce after 2018. Teams a lot of times cave to fan sentiment and resign players they should move in from.
Yes but the Sox used to always watch the 30 year old star go elsewhere.
Pedro, Jason Bay, Johnny Damon, Nomar (trade.)
Red Sox made the right decision letting Pedro, Jason Bay, and Nomar go! Pedro’s first year with the Mets 15-8 with an era under 3.00, but was injured the next 3 years ($39million) and definitely not worth the money or roster spot, Bay’s $52 million was a total waste, and Nomar was terrible after leaving the Red Sox. It was a great decision letting them walk.
Jackie Bradley was better than Ellsbury during the four seasons Ellsbury played for the Yankees and his league minimum pay allowed the Red Sox to get FAs to put them in another World Series run.
Damon was very good after leaving the Red Sox, and so was Jon Lester.
Problem with “after the injuries in 2019 [you] would have let him walk” is that DD extended him for the start of the season, not after. So make your contract renewal decision based on it being the winter before the 2019 season.
You sound happy with 17 and 18, and like you would’ve kept him around too.
I would not have extended him BEFORE the season as DD did especially after the injury in 2018. I would have waited to see if he was healthy in 2019. Bogaerts was extended before the season, but he was not hurt in 2018.
Night and day difference! I would have waited!
Then again I never would have traded for Verlander as Houston did.
I find this situation very odd. If you were Ellsbury and didn’t think you were injured every day for 5 years straight, wouldn’t you seek an opinion from outside the organization instead of being called a china doll? And the Yankees with their flawless record of health officials. Wouldn’t it be alright to have an outside opinion to possibly get some value out of the contract? I believe the Yankees should have to pay every cent, it seems too obvious to me that they were trying to cheat the system.
Could be Yankees saw what the sox did with castillo, and wanted to get as close as they could to clearing the 25 man spot at least as well.
He didn’t just get a second opinion. He got debatable treatments. Without discussing with the NYY. Big difference.
Look back at his numbers, he was worth 12-15 million for 3+ years at best. There were red flags going into that contract. Im guessing he had no desire to play in 2018 and 2019.
The problem was that he was hyped big-time and the Yankees ate it up. Jacoby was a cancer to the Yankees, he should have gave them some cash back because he didn’t earn anything and should be ashamed of taking money he didn’t earn
I’m not digging this focus on negative articles at a time that everything is negative.
Carl Crawford revisited.
It was a reactionary move. The Red Sox won the World Series. They grabbed Elsbury like they grabbed Damon. It was the last time the Yankees went out and spent like the days of George. Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran were all signed that offseason. Tanaka was the only decent signing. After that the Yankees have gone back to a 90’s approach, when King George was suspdended.
Ellsbury’s biggest issue is that he won’t play u less he feels he’s 100% healthy. Not possible for 162 game season. Look at 2010 with Sox when he cracked a rib in April and didn’t play again. When he feels good, he plays good if not great. If he doesn’t feel 100% he will not try to gut it out. Every injury to Ellsbury is career threatening.
Typical Yanks….no vision, no ability to evaluate talent, they had two mandates. 1. Sign as many minority players 2. Try to take players from your perceived rivals. Hence Beltran (Mets) and Ellbury (Sox) were signed.
Yanks still have not learned. Case in point: The signing of career .235 hitter Aaron Hicks to a 7 year, 70 million dollar contract. Again, grab the minority player who cant stay healthy and throw big bucks at him.
Ellsbury was white last time I looked.
Ellsbury is a Native American. We used to be able to call them Indians. He is a registered member of The Colorado River Indian tribes and the first Navajo Indian to play in the major Leagues
Native American, for one thing, is more accurate than Indian.
Here is a nickel. Go buy some grammar and spelling
Your comment re sign minority players is completely stupid.
Yea….there is a real good reply. Your comment is stupid. Wow. Your comment is stupid. Gee, I wish I’d thought of that. Your comment is stupid. You know, they’re repeating that around the club these days. Your comment is stupid. Wow. What a zinger.
Your comment remains stupid.
The Yankees overreacted losing Cano and signed Ellsbury much like more recently trading for Stanton instead of Yelich when they lost out on Ohtani.
Stanton had hit 59 HR’s. Yelich 18. Stanton was a mega superstar MVP. Yelich was a good player with promise. At the time the deal happened, EVERYONE thought the NYY had stolen Stanton and bashed Jeter had given them a back room sweetheart deal, since he only got Castro in return. Now those same people bash Cashman. Intellectual dishonesty at its finest.
It was a great move for theYankees…they needed a third DH or was Stanton going to be the fourth DH (in waiting). What was he like 24 with injuries. Jeter made a good move dumping salary. What was it …. 13 years $325 million …. that GM deserved to be can even more than DD.
Unfortunately the big signings don’t usually work out in baseball
Mcmillankmm – that deserves repeating — Unfortunately the big signings don’t usually work out in baseball — that is why RS hired Bloom and in a couple year I hope the farm system looks like what the Dodgers have !!!!!!
What? The Yankees make a mistake? Say it ain’t so Joe! Come on Joe, tell ‘em Joe!
LoL it’s so Joe, it’s so Joe……
He went off the magic potion
Two things to discuss.
1. Mlb auctioned a Jacoby Ellsbury baseball at $125, no bidders. Imagine that.
2. Has her retired? If not, is he still in baseball?
What went wrong? Just the general things that are standard course for a contract to player through his mid-30s. There was nothing particularly special about what went wrong for the Yankees and Ellsbury other than the fact that it was ultra high profile
The contract went well beyond his peak years and he had a very noteworthy history of injury. Granted, they were ‘fluke’ injuries, but as someone who himself had an amateur sport career derailed because of a series of significant fluke injuries, I’ve come to learn from my doctors that “past injury is the greatest predictor of future injury” regardless of fluke-vs.-chronic-injury-ness level.
A couple of things happened.
1-Like with with Zito, Pujols, VMart, Crawford, and many other players, he wasn’t that good. His OPS+ with Boston was only 108, and he only averaged 114 games. If you throw out his big year, his OPS+ becomes only 95 and the average number of games played only 105.
2-One more GM ignored aging curves. He was 30++ in his first year. That means you expect 3 good years and four bad years.
3-In his last year (maybe two) in Boston, his defensive skills eroded. He was still plenty fast, but not as quick to his route, and could no longer throw at all.
4-Lastly, I get the sense that the NYY think that, by signing a RS players, they are also hurting the RS. There was no chance we were re-signing either Damon or Ellsbury, but it felt like the NYY were still bidding against us.
as a sox fan i thought this Yankee signing was awesome…
As a Yankee fan I loved all the Dominican signings especially Rusney Castillo who is down in AAA making 72.5 million? Only the Sawx could afford that!
WE Yankees were so smart not to outbid you on that laugher!
WE in the FO laughed as soon as the ink dried!
Rusney is Cuban not Domonican…
Cut Billie some slack. Details are not highly prioritized in his world.
The Rusney deal sucks big time either way, right? I’m not usually one to bash the Sox. Except when their fans bash the NYY, which is far more frequent. Which is what thesoxrule did. And Billy’s point is still valid even if he got your point wrong. The Rusney deal was horrendously misguided and costly.
9 minutes to tell me nothing new. I love it when the Yankees throw stupid money at free agents and strike out. Jays fan speaking by the way..
Cashman being Cashman. He can’t function without signing a few into their late thirties. When you have money but sleep thru the June draft this is what you get. Brian Cashman. Yanks might turn it around some day, when they cut the head of the snake in Cashman. Until then, sucks to be them.