The Yankees and right-hander Walker Buehler have “some mutual curiosity” in one another, in line with MLB Community’s Jon Morosi. New York joins the Braves and Athletics as groups already publicly linked to Buehler within the first few weeks of free company.
The added wrinkle of the Yankees’ pursuit, in fact, is that Buehler delivered a number of the finest moments of his profession in opposition to the Bronx Bombers throughout this yr’s World Collection. Buehler tossed 5 shutout innings within the Dodgers’ 4-2 win over the Yankees in Recreation 3, and adopted up that robust begin by getting the save within the scoreless ninth inning of Recreation 5, as Buehler threw the ultimate pitches that sealed the Dodgers’ championship.
These clutch performances (and 4 extra innings of shutout ball in opposition to the Mets in Recreation 3 of the NLCS) helped carry a cheerful ending to an in any other case troublesome season for the 30-year-old righty. Buehler missed all of 2023 recovering from his second Tommy John surgical procedure, and returned to put up a 5.38 ERA over 16 begins and 75 1/3 innings for Los Angeles in the course of the common season. Just about all of Buehler’s secondary numbers and metrics had been down from his profession norms, together with an 18.6% strikeout price that ranked solely within the sixteenth percentile of all pitchers.
It isn’t unusual for any pitcher getting back from a TJ process to initially wrestle in opposition to massive league hitters, even when Buehler has the additional baggage of each his 2022 surgical procedure and the surgical procedure he underwent quickly after being drafted by the Dodgers in 2015. Nathan Eovaldi and Daniel Hudson are two of the extra outstanding examples of pitchers who continued to have success after getting back from two Tommy John surgical procedures, however clearly there’s some danger connected to Buehler going ahead, even when the upside is clearly additionally current.
MLBTR projected Buehler to signal a one-year, $15MM deal this offseason, with the reasoning that he would search out a pillow contract for 2025 after which rapidly return to the market subsequent winter after (hopefully) posting some front-of-the-rotation numbers. Any variety of groups might doubtlessly be suits for Buehler on such a short-term deal, although presumably he would like pitching for a contender.
New York suits that description, and the Yankees are at the very least monitoring the free agent pitching market given studies noting their curiosity in Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell, and Sean Manaea. The Bombers have the sources to broadly examine in on mainly any free agent at the very least out of due diligence, and the notion is that the membership is prioritizing re-signing Juan Soto earlier than some other bigger-ticket offseason enterprise.
Signing Buehler to a one-year deal may not essentially depend as “bigger-ticket” compared to these different frontline pitchers who will command hefty multi-year contracts. Any additions to the rotation, nonetheless, would seemingly necessitate a commerce for the reason that Yankees have already got six rotation candidates on the roster in Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt, Nestor Cortes, Marcus Stroman, and reigning AL Rookie of the 12 months Luis Gil. Cortes or Stroman are the likeliest commerce candidates if New York does certainly add one other starter, and transferring pitching might enable the Yankees to deal with different wants within the lineup or bullpen.
