Yankees news: Mock Stroman trade, Boone's shot at Dodgers, Jeter endorses offseason

It's been a turbulent week for the New York Yankees, to say the least. The team has more or less stood pat for the entire month of January, held hostage by Hal Steinbrenner's refusal to take the team into the upper reaches of the luxury tax (despite being, you know, the New York Yankees). As things stand, New York finds itself in desperate need of at least one more infielder, but it can't acquire one until it frees up some money elsewhere, taking top-tier options like Alex Bregman off the table.

All of which has created a not-insignificant amount of angst around the team just weeks before the start of spring training. So let's take a lap around the rumor mill in New York, from a way to finally move on from Marcus Stroman to Aaron Boone reopening some World Series wounds.

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Yankees news: A realistic Marcus Stroman trade proposal

Stroman is the lynchpin to the rest of New York's offseason, at least so long as Steinbrenner is committed to treating the final luxury-tax threshold as a hard salary cap. The Yankees need to shed money to spend money, and easiest way to do that would be to find a suitor for the veteran righty due $18 million in 2025 who currently doesn't have a spot in the team's starting rotation.

Finding said suitor has proved difficult so far, to no one's surprise: No one wants to take on that much money for a declining pitcher who struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness in 2024, especially not when several veteran arms remain on the market. There's one team that could fit the bill, though, and allow the Yankees to kill two birds with one stone.

The Texas Rangers need starting pitching depth, with very few sure things behind Nathan Eovaldi and Jon Gray at the moment (especially considering the recent injury histories of Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle). Texas appears to want to stay out of the luxury tax themselves, but with $12.5 million to work with before hitting that threshold, the Yankees could pay Stroman's salary down enough to keep everybody happy. In return for Stroman, a mid-tier prospect and a bit of cash, the Rangers could send back utility man Josh Smith, who won a Silver Slugger last season but is blocked from everyday playing time by Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jake Burger and Josh Jung.

Texas gets the innings-eater it could desperately use, while the Yankees free up some money and find at least a marginal upgrade on the DJ LeMahieu/Oswaldo Cabrera/Oswald Peraza platoon at third base. The Rangers might decide to just sign someone like Kyle Gibson in free agency instead, but it's at least worth a call.

Yankees news: Aaron Boone takes subtle jab at former Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly

While Brian Cashman is worried about finishing up the team's roster ahead of spring training, his manager is primarily concerned with settling some months-old scores. During his radio appearance earlier this week, Aaron Boone was asked once again about the trash the Los Angeles Dodgers talked in the wake of their World Series win last October. Boone, for the most part, took the high road — with one notable exception

“They won, so they had that right,” Boone said. “A couple of people saying some things, it’s like: Did you see what you did this year? It wasn’t the Freddie Freemans and Shoheis and Mookies popping off. It was some others.”

"Some others" sure feels like a direct shot at former Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly, who went off on the Yankees despite not even making L.A.'s World Series roster. Kelly called the series a "mismatch from the get-go," roasting New York's poor baserunning, defense and fundamentals. Which, hey: He certainly wasn't wrong, and he still gets a ring even if he didn't personally contribute to the five-game win.

Boone, though, appears to have filed those comments away as motivation.

“They won the World Series," Boone added. "We didn’t play our best and they’re flying high right now. We’ll try and get back to that stage and hopefully punch through.”

Yankees news: Derek Jeter thinks team has 'improved as a whole' despite losing Juan Soto

Whether New York has positioned itself to "punch through" in 2025 is a matter of some debate, especially after replacing Juan Soto with Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and a whole lot of question marks about the team's infield. At least one very prominent former Yankee, though, has no problem with the job Cashman has done retooling his team this winter: Derek Jeter.

 ”They did a good job,” Jeter said of the team's offseason so far. “You always want to try to improve your team. I’m sure you ask anyone in the organization, they have improved as a whole. The great thing about playing for the Yankees is pretty much every season you have an opportunity to get to the postseason."

The Yankees have publicly insisted that they're better off now than they were a couple of months ago. But it's hard to imagine how that could be the case: Yes, the additions of Max Fried and Devin Williams have given the pitching staff a boost, but there's still a Soto-shaped hole in the lineup behind Aaron Judge, barring some unlikely returns to MVP form from Bellinger and Goldschmidt. And while Gleyber Torres had worn out his welcome by the end of his Yankees tenure, he was still an above-average bat in the infield, which is lightyears better than what New York is currently projected to run out at third base every day.

Of course, Jeter is never going to put his former team on blast publicly. But the complacency here, arguing that the Yankees are in better shape because they should make the postseason pretty comfortably in 2025, is part of what's put them in this position in the first place.