Yankees Proving They Don't Need to Take Manny Machado Free-Agent Gamble

It's safe to expect a couple of things from the New York Yankees' latest visit to Baltimore.

One is that the Yankees, who are good, will be on the winning side of a four-game set with the Orioles, who are bad. Another is that the peanut gallery won't keep quiet about the possibility of the Yankees luring star shortstop Manny Machado away from Baltimore in free agency.

And you know what? The latter may ultimately happen.

It doesn't have to, though.

This may only be a hot take to time travelers who have come straight from the most recent offseason. That was when the rumor mill was rife with chatter about the Orioles cashing in Machado's walk year on the trade market. And between the Orioles' need for the kind of prospects the Yankees had in their farm system and the Yankees' need for an infielder of Machado's caliber, a trade between the two American League East rivals made some sense.

And even as it became apparent that a trade wasn't going to happen, it was still easy to envision Machado ending up in pinstripes one day. 

The Yankees entered the new season safely under the luxury tax threshold for the first time in a long time. That's their ticket to resetting their penalties on future overages, which could be their ticket to signing Machado to a record-setting (e.g., $400 million) contract.

Eventually, there came a report from Bob Nightengale of USA Today that Machado yearns to be a Yankee. A little later, the team's biggest (literally and figuratively) star let slip that he dug the idea.

"Adding him to our lineup that we already got would be something special," Aaron Judge, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year, told reporters before a spring training tilt against Machado's Orioles. "I told him he'd look good in pinstripes."

But all this was back then. Like in Spaceballs, we're in now, now. It's a place where things look different.

Elsa/Getty Images

Machado certainly hasn't gotten any worse. Quite the opposite, as he's working on a career-high 1.004 OPS with 16 home runs.

But more so than any other team, the Yankees have license to bypass daydreams about having him in their lineup. Their offense has gone from being one of the best in 2017 to the best in Major League Baseball this season. They rank second in runs (299) and lead everyone in home runs (87) and OPS (.804).

It sure helps that Judge has picked up where he left off and that Gary Sanchez and new arrival Giancarlo Stanton have been suitable (if a tad disappointing) partners in slugging crime. What's helped even more is how quickly New York's infield has gone from a potential weakness to a major strength.

Despite his recent slump, Didi Gregorius has continued to be a two-way rock at shortstop. Meanwhile, third baseman Miguel Andujar and second baseman Gleyber Torres, a fellow rookie, have needed little time to erase doubts about their readiness for major league stardom.

Although Andujar, 23, is a work in progress on defense, he's rocking a solid .804 OPS with 24 extra-base hits in 45 games. He's quietly one of the better offensive third basemen in the American League.

You just don't hear much about Andujar these days because Torres, 21, has been a revelation on both sides of the ball. Especially on offense, where his OPS is .969 and climbing.

The Gregorius-Andujar-Torres trio will be intact through at least 2019, which is slated to be Gregorius' last before free agency. On a longer timeline, Andujar and Torres are set to be lineup mates with Judge, Sanchez and Stanton through at least 2022. That's a long time for such a strong backbone to be together.

This doesn't mean that the Yankees can't add Machado to the mix this winter. Or even that they shouldn't, for that matter. They can afford it, after all, and he wouldn't make them worse.

But if it ever was, it's no longer an easy fit.

The most practical thing would be to sign Machado as a third baseman and move Andujar to first base. But it sounds likely that merely pitching Machado on a move back to third, where he won Gold Gloves in 2013 and 2015, would be a problem.

"I moved over there for a reason," Machado said of his move to shortstop, his natural position, in April. "I made a commitment to it and I'm going to stick to it."

If only Machado's actual defense were as admirable as his commitment. Both ultimate zone rating and defensive runs saved rate him among MLB's worst glovemen at shortstop. Inside Edge's fielding metrics reveal he hasn't been good for much outside of the easier plays.

Defense like this isn't worth the Yankees' sacrificing what they know they can get out of Gregorius at shortstop in 2019 nor what they might get out of Torres (also a natural shortstop) at the position after 2019. And while his bat would be worth the trouble for virtually literally every other team, it would only be augmenting an already elite strength on the Yankees.

So, here's a modest proposal for what the Yankees should do with all their extra spending money this winter: Commit it to places where they actually need help.

Pitching is their greatest need right now, and that's an opinion that comes from none other than general manager Brian Cashman:

On the plus side, Justus Sheffield and Chance Adams are two talented pitching prospects who are nearing MLB-readiness. On the negative side, Masahiro Tanaka (4.62 ERA) has been an inconsistent No. 2 and Sonny Gray (5.98 ERA) has been a largely disastrous No. 3.

It's been up to Luis Severino and CC Sabathia to hold the Yankees' starting rotation together, which points to still another negative: The latter is more than likely in his final MLB season.

The Yankees won't have a ton of options to solidify their rotation this winter, but there will be some good ones. Chief among them are former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and fellow left-hander Patrick Corbin. They could also angle for Clayton Kershaw if he A) has a healthy finish to 2018 and B) opts out of his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Yankees could just as easily seek an outfielder for the purpose of replacing Brett Gardner (whose $12.5 million option for 2019 might be rejected) in left field and/or upgrading over Aaron Hicks in center field. For this, A.J. Pollock would be a prime target.

When it comes down to it, the Yankees are in a hard position to screw up. They have an excellent team now, and they're soon going to have a ton of spending power to make it even better.

But when the time comes and Machado is available to them, what they definitely need should take precedence over what they may want.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.