There’s still one eligible bachelor at the free agency ball looking for a dance partner.
Jurickson Profar, the 29-year-old outfielder who just flourished in his first season with over 600 plate appearances, still needs a contract. After accumulating 2.5 Wins Above Replacement, per FanGraphs, with a 110 wRC+, Profar declined his $7.5 million option for 2023, hoping to wrangle more money on the open market.
In a world where Kevin Kiermaier (an elite but aging defensive center fielder who has been a below-average hitter for his entire career) received a one-year, $9 million deal from the Blue Jays and Joey Gallo (who hit .160 last year) got $12 million to join the Twins, surely Profar can secure the money he is looking for.
But with the calendar now flipped to February, spring training games start later this month, and Profar does not know what team he’ll be reporting to. The Yankees, meanwhile, are gearing up for another season of the Aaron Hicks experience. While he’s likely to be spelled by Oswaldo Cabrera in left field, that’s really more of a Band-Aid than a true solution, especially for a team with World Series aspirations.
The 23-year-old Cabrera could turn out to be a fine bottom-of-the-order hitter with a serviceable glove in left field. But Profar already is that. Armed with an 11.4% walk rate over the last two years — which would fit in perfectly with the Yankees, who walk more frequently than any team in the league — Profar would immediately raise the team’s collective floor. It would be hard to be any worse than Hicks, who has a similar patience at the plate but also a .494 OPS from July 28 on. Hicks also hurt his knee in the playoffs, adding to his long list of recent injuries.
As a fellow switch hitter who doesn’t swing and miss nearly as often, Profar is essentially a younger, better version of Hicks. His defense won’t be anything to write home about, but he could more than makeup for it with the offensive improvements over Hicks. If the Yankees want to give the starting left field gig to Cabrera and see what he does with it, that’s also a better option than giving 450 plate appearances to Hicks again. But Cabrera has two minor league options remaining, meaning that if he struggles, the Yankees can stash him in Triple-A until he finds a groove. If that scenario does in fact play out, it’d be nice to have a capable veteran at the ready who was actually productive in 2022. Given how long his free agency has played out, something like one year for $10 million might be enough to get Profar, which is chump change for a club worth multiple billions.
Profar would also provide a dash of positional versatility, though last season was the first of his career where the Curacao native didn’t play any infield. He made 115 starts at second base as recently as 2019, though, and can handle first base as well if need be. That could be wonderful DJ LeMahieu insurance, as the two-time batting champion has been beset by injuries in each of the last two seasons that caused him to miss the postseason. The Yankees do not have a true backup first baseman anymore either now that Matt Carpenter and Marwin Gonzalez have moved on, adding another enticing reason to sign Profar.
It has become rather clear that the long-awaited, much-speculated Bryan Reynolds trade is not going to happen. Max Kepler is also not walking through that door. The Yankees’ Opening Day left fielder is going to be Hicks or Cabrera unless they make a last-minute free agency signing, and it’s hard to piece together their reasoning for being so hesitant to make Profar that signing.
He just went 11-for-48 (.250) during the Padres’ playoff run with eight walks and five runs batted in. He stroked 36 doubles during the regular season. His power comes from the left side, always an appealing trait for a switch hitter in Yankee Stadium. He also wouldn’t cost any prospects or current members of the 40-man roster, just Steinbrenner money.
That’s probably the crux of the issue here. The Carlos Rodon press conference and the $162 million the Yankees gave him seemed to signal the end of their spending spree, especially when Andrew Benintendi was introduced by the White Sox less than two weeks later. Even if the Yankees think Profar’s perfectly reasonable monetary demands are too steep, David Peralta is also a perfectly capable left fielder, who would be cheaper than Profar and comes with a 104 wRC+ from last season, where he finished in the 75th percentile of average exit velocity.
To go into the season with a left field plan of Hicks and Cabrera is to settle. Settling does not beat the Houston Astros, who have Jose Abreu now. As they’ve certainly learned from their last three ALCS losses to the Astros, the Yankees need a complete roster to vanquish their orange and blue foes.
Right now, the roster is mostly complete and stands to be very good once again, but left field is a problem. Banking on Hicks putting up his 2018 numbers again is lunacy, and relying on Cabrera to be a true difference-maker as he adapts to a position that’s still fairly new to him is also setting expectations a bit too high. For a relatively cheap (by baseball standards) price, the Yankees could make that go away and welcome Jurickson Profar to left field, where he’d erase one of the team’s biggest concerns.
If they do sign Profar and he flops, well hey, at least they tried. That is not something they can say about their offseason strategy for left field thus far, which is getting increasingly hard to understand.
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Originally published at Tribune News Service