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Friday BP: Yankees sign Carlos Rodón

So long, friend.

By Brady Klopfer
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Carlos Rodón in the dugout wearing a cap and sweatshirt. Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images

Happy Friday, San Francisco Giants fans. We can finally stop reading tweets about how the Giants are still pursuing Carlos Rodón. The dim, dim dream is over, as Rodón has agreed to a six-year deal with the New York Yankees that will pay him $162 million.

Unlike his deal with the Giants, there are no opt-outs in the contract, and it features a full no-trade clause.

If you were a Giants fan — and perhaps a Giants employee — the offseason to-do list was very simple. It looked like this:

  1. Sign Aaron Judge
  2. Re-sign Carlos Rodón

But in the middle of the night, the Yankees snuck into your house, removed your commemorative Disneyland magnet from the fridge, freeing the to-do list from its confines, and made off with it. They re-signed Judge. They signed Rodón, where he’ll join a stacked rotation that already has Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes.

Re-signing Rodón would have been awesome, but it never seemed realistic that they would shell out $27 million a year for six seasons for a starting pitcher. Especially when that pitcher is, as our old friend Grant Brisbee pointed out, a 30-year old who has thrown fewer innings in his career than 24-year old Matt Cain had.

Still, the contract is just close enough to being reasonable that you see why the Giants were still connected to the end. Rodón didn’t get the seven or eight years that he was after, or the nearly $200 million that some predicted. Six years and $162 million is close enough to being reasonable that you could see the Giants at least trying to offer something like a similar amount of money spread over a longer period of time, or another high-AAV, short-term deal.

But given their ability to get outstanding pitching contributions across the board on reasonable contracts, it’s hard to see the Giants crying too much about losing Rodón, even if he was one of the very best pitchers in the Majors a year ago, and led MLB in FIP and strikeouts per nine innings.

Because the Giants had extended the qualifying offer to Rodón, they will receive a Compensatory Round draft pick after the Competitive Balance Round B picks. The Giants last had Compensatory Round picks in the 2020 draft after losing Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith in free agency. They used those picks on left-handed pitcher Nick Swiney and middle infielder Jimmy Glowenke.

Thanks for a fun year, Carlos. You sure were fun to watch.

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