Back in 2019, the Yankees filed a grievance against Jacoby Ellsbury in an attempt to withhold the remaining $26,142,857 still owed on the outfielder’s contract. Not many details have surfaced about the situation until now, as The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports that the two sides reached a settlement “at least a year ago” in order to avoid a hearing.
There was a monetary settlement involved, and though the total isn’t known, it appears as though some portion of Ellsbury’s remaining salary was reduced. As Heyman notes, it was enough to keep the Yankees under the second tier of the luxury tax penalty limit in 2020, and exceeding that total would’ve meant that New York’s first pick in the 2021 draft would’ve fallen 10 slots lower (from 20th to 30th overall). The luxury tax payments were suspended for the shortened 2020 season but not each team’s status as a multi-time payor, so the Yankees had to get under the tax threshold in 2021 to officially reset their CBT status.
The source of the grievance stemmed from the Yankees’ allegation that Ellsbury received outside medical treatment without the team’s permission, as Ellsbury was exploring various ways to get back on the field after injuries essentially ended his career. In response, the MLB Players Association countered with a grievance of their own against the Yankees, though it can be assumed that that grievance was also quietly sidestepped when Ellsbury and the Yankees reached their settlement.
As it is, the settlement would appear to put a final cap on Ellsbury’s tenure in New York, which officially ended from a transactional standpoint when the Yankees released him in November 2019. Following a huge 2013 season with the World Series champion Red Sox, Ellsbury signed a seven-year, $153MM free agent to jump from Boston to the Bronx.
However, injuries plagued Ellsbury throughout his time in the pinstripes, and he hit only .264/.330/.386 over 2171 plate appearances and 520 games from 2014-17. He didn’t play at all in 2018-19 due to a variety of injuries, most notably a hip surgery. With the release, the Yankees ate the final year of Ellsbury’s contract as well the buyout of his club option for the 2021 season.
Ellsbury has never officially announced his retirement, and as of the 2019-20 offseason was still working out in an attempt to get back onto the field. There hasn’t been any word on his future plans, and since Ellsbury is now 38 years old and hasn’t played since October 2017, it is probably safe to assume that his big league career is done after 11 seasons.
He is on the same boat as Justin Upton but older
Also if I remember, his arm sucked, but when healthy he was a pretty good ball player who probably should have stayed in Boston
Not even close to the same boat as Upton. Nowhere near it. Ellsbury is on a different level of thievery
I heard him and Chris Davis are buying a yacht together.
They can share it with Carl Pavano, Pablo Sandoval, Jaret Wright, Carl Crawford and Rusney Castillo. Maybe name it “The Sinking Ship”.
This is why teams are reluctant to give long term contracts…..and why I am glad sent Betts to the Dodgers for 10 yr – $360,000,000. They will regret this contract by year 5 or 6 if not sooner….
Exactly. Agreed.i can’t think of one that has worked out long term, for the team that is.
Look at the Fielder contract,Sabathia , Cano, or Arod contract, Crawford, or Puljous, or Cabrera,etc.
Castillo doesn’t belong in that group. He needed a bit of seasoning before jumping to the majors and he never got a call up because of his salary. He hit very well in AAA but his salary would have counted against the luxury tax had they promoted him and added him to the 40 man. We will never know how he would have done in MLB. Allen Craig fell into that same pit when he passed through waivers and got sent to AAA.
Arod’s first contract and Jeter’s 10 year both worked out well for the Yankees. Giambi was still a decent starter when his finished up too. He wasn’t worth what he was making the last couple of years but the front end more than made up for it. Bonds’ was worth his contract as well. Greg Maddux received a monster contract from Atlanta for his day too and he definitely earned every cent. Pitchers are the big money long term contracts that usually don’t work out. Greinke is the only recent one I can think of that did.
Sabathia??? He was a good contract
How is it thievery if a team throws money at a player and he gets injured?
You are clearly confused.
Some billionaire fat cats did a cost benefit analysis, signed Ellsbury, paid him millions, lost money on him, but made BILLIONS more during the same period.
Losers. Who cares. It isn’t your money unless your name is Steinbrenner. Get a life hoser.
I feel no sympathy for the team that offered the deal. I love albatross contracts, as long as it’s not my team.
The Sox learned their lesson with Carl Crawford and never even tried to sign Ellsbury.i think everyone knew that contract wouldn’t age well and the only reason he even got it was the Yankees trying to spite Robinson Cano (who’s contract also hasn’t aged well)
Can not disagree. Yankees learn to that lesson too well, to the other extreme. Now they do not want to sign any long-term contracts. At least with the cano contract he has some good years ,although the end of it was a disaster. Elsberry’s contract cannot be said the same even though it was shorter
Upton actually suited up and showed up at the ballpark whenever he could play. Ellsbury phoned it in shortly after he received his contract. The only saving grace was the Yankees received some money through insurance. He was worst than Carl Pavano. At least, Pavano gave some excuse to the media whereas Ellsbury was radio silence.
Remember when the Yankees signed Carl Pavano for 4 years and almost $40 million and Jaret Wright for 3 years and $21 million and everyone was scratching their heads in confusion why the Yankees would guarantee so much to those guys? Coming off the epic collapse in the ALCS the previous season definitely made George irrational
Pavano: Just reading his name is painful. I had a brief conversation with him when he was on the Yankees, if you can even call it that. What a first class A-hole he was. He didn’t know who I was, so he treated me as he would’ve anyone else (for which I’m glad) so I got to see the real him. He’s an embarrassment to a professional uniform.
Irrational George was wildly entertaining and fiercely loyal to the guys he liked. I don’t like the corporatized Yankees but whatever. See Jose Contreras bidding vs the Red Sox. The man bought out an entire hotel so the Red Sox execs had nowhere to stay. He would’ve never stood for the empty homeplate seats we now have. Bring back the Evil Empire.
Yeah I remember Pavano very well. Hardly played for the duration of his contract, and I remember he finally got healthy in the last year and the Yankees pitched him as much as they could to try to get some value out of it anyway. I remember that while he was out injured it didn’t stop him from racing his sports car and he injured himself yet again and it extended his disabled leave even more. Not sure why that didn’t invalidate the contract in and of itself.
That’s a great point. These professional athletes that do that type of stuff should not continue to get paid, imo. If they risk injuring themselves off the job, particularly with high-risk behavior, it should be on them… probably an unpopular take, but it’s mine so I’ll own it.
WOW, Jaret Wright. There’s a name I haven’t heard in years. I remembered the Pavano signing but completely forgot about the Wright one.
What I remember about that is that we didn’t hear about him for almost 2 years and yankees were short a starter. The out of the blue was Pavano. Like oh yeah he is on the team.
right. I recall same thing happened to Joba . He was out on DL for an injury, but while supposedly rehabbing, he managed to injure himself further on a trampoline lol.talk about foolhardy!
But the Yankees signing of ellsbury was in direct reaction to losing Cano. They did dodge a bullet with Cano towards the end of his career, but I wonder if they could do it all over if they would’ve just signed Cano, at least he had a number of productive years until the steroid bans at the end of his career ,might’ve been better just to sign him.
The “should have stayed in Boston” list is a mighty one. Fred Lynn admitted at one point that he wished he had stayed. As did Mo Vaughn and others.
Make a great point. Look at the guys who stayed and are in the hall or probably should be (thinking Dwight Evans).
Carl Crawford another example.
BJ Upton’s career tanked after he got the big bucks too.
The day the ink dried on that contract Upton immediately forgot how to hit a baseball
That seems to be an epidemic.
Hey who was the Yankee fan last year talking about how disgraceful it was that fans threw stuff on the field last year and Yankee fans would never do that? Make sure just to delete your account.
Speed guys don’t tend to age well…
Rickey Henderson
Ozzie Smith
Ichiro Suzuki
Kenny Lofton
Joe Morgan
Lou Brock
Ty Cobb
Honus Wagner
In his defense most and past 15-20 years that is a valid point.
Since 2001:
Jimmy Rollins – 28 SB, 103 wRC+ @ age 35
Brett Gardner – second-best wRC+ of his career @ age 35
Juan Pierre – .307 BA, 37 SB @ age 34
Scott Podsednik – .297 BA, 35 SB @ age 34
Johnny Damon – 19 SB, 108 wRC+ @ age 37
Denard Span – 9 SB, 112 wRC+ @ age 34
Curtis Granderson, 11 SB, 131 wRC+ @ age 34
Mike Cameron – 17 SB, 112 wRC+ @ age 35
Reggie Sanders – 14 SB, 130 wRC+ @ age 37
Chase Utley – 10 SB, 107 wRC+ @ age 35
Mark McLemore – 18 SB, 118 wRC+ @ age 37
Ian Kinsler- 14 SB, 124 wRC+ @ age 34
Carlos Beltran – 13 SB, 124 wRC+ @ age 35
Ryan Braun – 11 SB, 117 wRC+ @ age 35
Alfonso Soriano – 18 SB, 115 wRC+ @ age 37
Bobby Abreu – 24 SB, 119 wRC+ @ age 36
Steve Finley – 15 SB, 117 wRC+ @ age 38
I’m tired of reading the columns and typing, but you get the idea, right?
Ellsbury or Chris Davis? Biggest bust(contract)
Davis. By far because he actually produced for a year (albeit with…enhancements).
Ellsbury was solid his first year on the contract, then fell off the cliff. Davis’ is by far the worse, as he was only very briefly an elite player, one year actually, and was worth only 11 fWAR for his whole career. Ellsbury was three times that in his career. He nearly won an MVP (should have … it went to Justin Verlander and pitchers have their own award) and had four years with more than 3.5 WAR. Dude was nearly on a Hall of Fame trajectory when he crashed.
Last time I checked the Cy Young is for the best pitcher in each league.
The MVP is for the player who was “the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team.” I am under the impression that pitchers are players too. Correct me if I am wrong.
Chris Davis, hands down.
Chris Davis replaces Albert Belle as the worst contract in Orioles history. What makes it worse is the Orioles basically outbid themselves to keep Davis.
Davis. No reason a 30 something can’t hit hrs. To have stolen bases decrease and no longer able to play cf is more likely. Both were awful contracts from day one.
Both horrible. The Yankees knew Ellsbury was brittle when they bought him. The guy missed 144 games because of a few broken ribs. Davis was a cheater who most teams didn’t want to go near and the Orioles ended up bidding against themselves.
Being prescribed Adderall isn’t cheating. He didn’t get a TUE one year which is why he was suspended.
The shift/slowed down bat speed hurt Davis. But he had already shown he was a streaky player BEFORE we gave out the fat deal. He had laid a few eggs in his career w TX and BAL.
Ellsbury is a great player, he’s just misunderstood.
I guess it’s safe to assume this means Jacoby won’t be wearing a Yankee cap for his HOF induction ceremony?
He won’t be wearing any cap cause he’s never going in
I dunno, very few players signed $155M contract & successfully played 0 innings, while inventing new injuries every single time they were due to return to the field. It’s quite impressive.
Very much so.
Mike, he can wear whatever cap he wants when goes to visit the HOF just like you and I can do…with a ticket!
Clip, he had one exceptional year with the Sox which proved to be an outlier. Other than that he was just mediocre, much akin to Brett Gardner, just paid more and played less. As I recall those comparisons were made at the time the contract was signed and people were asking why, because we already had gardner
Can we take the money we saved and invest it in this year’s team?????
No, no. That went straight into Mrs. Hal’s purse – lunch money for the housewives’ club.
I thought Hal used it to pay for his haircuts
At least IKF is turning it around. Rizzo has been good as well. If Donaldson plays up to what he can and they replace Higgy with Trevino the new additions will be making Cash look competent.
Yeah, true story. At least Freeman, Olson, Villar, & Marte aren’t hitting either – oh, wait…
So, Higgy’s Ruthian power in ST was simply ST pitching (shocking); the team was banned last year as the reason they were unsuccessful by Cash & Hal, yet they trotted virtually the same exact team out there with even less offense (if that’s even possible); and, “everybody is in a good place” for Boone.
Yeah, sounds like the Yankees are right where they need to be for the brass. Homeostasis is comforting apparently.
I admit to drinking the ST Higgy Kool-aid.
Anyone hear from Ducky recently?
No, I hope he’s not driving to 161 River Ave to “speak with” Hal. Anyway, yeah, I did too to a degree. I thought he would certainly get better, even a little. But his bat is non-existent. Tyler Wade looks like Freddie Freeman compared to Higgy.
clip, I didn’t think his bat was any good, once he was exposed and was playing more frequently, but he managed to trick the Yankees too, and theoretically they should know better.
Joe you are absolutely right. It’s never been about what he did, it’s always been about what he didn’t do. We are a playoff caliber team, but if he had been more assertive we could have been a true championship caliber team!!! For me that’s the rub.
dont like PED Ellsbury, but don’t like what NYY did either
What makes you think he was a PED player? Plenty of Red Sox of that era were, but why him?
Agree with you DarkSide, I don’t like how NYY handled it either. But, it is somewhat refreshing to see a team not have to pay tens of millions of dollars for a player to sit out for his entire contract. I think some players certainly take advantage of circumstances like that & it certainly impacts the future of the game & its players.
I don’t know that he was a PED guy though. If he was it was likely on the Red Sox when he was decent.
Decent doesn’t describe a guy who had a 9.5 WAR season. That’s one of the best seasons in decades.
Awkward Old Timers Day for him lol
I’d like to see Goose Gossage’s reaction to Ellsbury walking in the clubhouse … Lol.
Is the Goose even invited back for OTD? He had some pretty harsh words for Cashman exiting. He’s the epitome of an old school player which can’t stand the modern game and the way it’s played.
Pennie pinching Steinbrenner’s avoided the tax. Good for them.
Oh good. I was worried that this would go unresolved.
Ells clearly sabotaged the Yanks. The Sox paid the remaining salary.
You’re right, he’s the reverse curse!!! Hopefully Rob Refsnyder rectified this for us.
Obe of those moves by the “suits” that was dumb from the beginning and got dumber as time went on. Almost Rockies-like. Ah well, everybody drops the ball on occasion.
A Sox fan, I loved Els in Boston, almost loved him more in NY.
I’m sure you did like him more in NY. Boston’s wins went up during that epoch just from him being on the Yankees.
Exactly right. Waste of money, and he even managed to gauge the team though he hadn’t contributed anything to team for years.he still fought tooth and nail for that last bit of cash for his final year of that awful contract. And anyone who followed the Yankees closely knew that contract was an over pay at the time it was signed, and was a knee jerk reaction to the loss of Cano.
Rox have never been burned that bad by a contract. Not even close.
Mike Hampton? Maybe not AS bad, but close?
Somehow they were able to unload Hampton to the Marlins in the deal that sent Juan Pierre to Florida, the Marlins would trade Hampton to the Braves two days later.
I suppose Denny Neagle was a bad contract for the Rockies as well as they paid $18 million for 7 starts the last two years of his contract
The yankees have ALWAYS operated like sketchy lawyer’s.. Why would anyone expect them to change now…
The case took a LONG time. Finished off in front of Judge Judy, started off in front of Judge Wapner.
(if you get the reference, you should be in bed by this time).
Old? Judge Judy was on syndicated TV until last year and now she has a new show on IMDB. BTW…people talk about ballplayers being rich……she worked 52 days a year and was raking in $47,000,000 per year
I still have another few episodes of Night Court to finish on my VCR before I hit the hay.
Now they can induct him into Monument Park and have Jacoby Ellsbury Day at Yankee Stadium where anyone who’s been recently injured at work gets in free of admission
Maybe they rename it in his honor to the EL? Ya know, “Hicks was just transferred to the Ellsbury List for 10-days”
The Yankees have to save all that money for Judge. Which is going to be a problem because Judge thinks he’s a lot better than he is.
Stop Judging him
Judge has an inflated view of himself. Judge is judging Judge.
Lol I love this site almost as much as x hamster
You love hamsters???
This sounds like a very Judgy conversation.
That contract looked like an albatross from the start. Big time overpay.
Total b.s. Ellsbury was one of the best players in baseball in the early teens. He had been injured but had a good year before he was signed. It was an overpay, but no one said boo about it at the time. All the talk was how the Yankees stole the Red Sox star.
Absolutely true Seamaholic……too many short memories…..and at the time is was an overpay for someone of his talents…….some of these deals work and some don’t and this one historically didn’t but you can’t fault either the player or the Yankees for trying like all these trolls that comment consistently do.
Huge waste of $
Oh, I was hoping to see him in the Yankees outfield this year.
Truly wish he would have done better…
Hello Mark,
Between the word ‘though it can be assumed’ & ‘grievance was’, you put ‘that’ twice, can you fix the grammer? Please & thank you!
“In response, the MLB Players Association countered with a grievance of their own against the Yankees, though it can be assumed ‘that that’ grievance was also quietly sidestepped when Ellsbury and the Yankees reached their settlement.”
Speaking of grievances, I hope the Yankees or MLB or the police identify every single fan that threw stuff on the field and yelled racial epithets in the game against the Guardians and make sure they never attend another baseball game.. If MLB cared about doing the right thing rather than just appearing to do the right thing with feel good gestures and patting themselves on the back, they would make the Yankees forfeit the game. I won’t go to Yankee Stadium anymore–there are too many drunken, boorish hooligans who will spill beer on anyone, yell and scream in your face and ears and throw stuff around the seats. The Yankee fan base has the worst elements in it. The organization should be ashamed of themselves.
Boston dodged a bullet with that one. Got the best he had, and sent him off to make his fortune with a grateful wave goodbye.
The analytics approach worked perfectly in this instance. Hometown favorite was allowed to walk because the numbers showed he wasn’t worth the expense.
Friends, Romans, Yankee fans . . . I come to praise Jacoby, not to bury him.
Seriously though, his contract was a disaster, but remember this: when he was healthy he played hard, which led to his injuries. Like Griffey, Jr., he banged into walls in the outfield. Some of you must remember his steal of home, too. His body gave out on him. It sucks, but I don’t think he can be compared with someone like Chris Davis. He hustled. He never stole less than 20 bags in any season in pinstripes and his BA was never lower than .257. And he was the king of catcher interference. He fielded well, too.
I don’t fault him for taking the money the Yankee front office threw at him. Who wouldn’t?
I have no hard feelings towards Ellsbury. He tried.