The major bidding war Carlos Correa and Corey Seager may have been hoping to see materialize might not develop quite as they wanted.
On Tuesday, we shared a report saying that the Yankees and Dodgers could be involved in a bidding war for Seager, who is among the top free agents on the market. Correa, another top free-agent shortstop, has also been linked to the Yankees.
However, a new report is throwing some cold water on those hot rumors.
The New York Daily News’ Matthew Roberson reported on Wednesday that the Yankees are not expected to break the bank for one of the top free-agent shortstops. He argues that the Yankees like prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza and don’t want to commit huge money that would lock in a shortstop long-term and block either player. Roberson says the Yankees already have some major payroll obligations that would make it tough to stomach another player on a contract worth more than $30 million per year.
The report says that Andrelton Simmons or Jose Iglesias could be more reasonable expectations to play shortstop for the Yankees in 2022 on short-term deals.
Correa and Seager will still likely sign massive deals in free agency. But not having the Yankees involved in the bidding, which is what this report suggests will happen, may prevent the contracts for either player from truly reaching absurd levels. It also doesn’t help them that the market is somewhat saturated with available shortstops, including Trevor Story, Javy Baez and Marcus Semien (who can also play second or third base). A team that misses out on Correa or Seager might not be too disappointed, considering their fallback options could be Story, Semien or Baez.
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