Anthony Rizzo re-signs with Yankees on multi-year deal
The New York Yankees have re-signed first baseman Anthony Rizzo to a multi-year contract, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal was first with the news Tuesday. According to YES Network’s Jack Curry, the contract will worth $34 million over two years with a club option for $17 million for the final year with a buyout of $6 million — thus, his deal will be at least $40 million guaranteed.
The team has yet to announce the deal.
This is fair value for Rizzo, who declined the one-year, $19.65 million qualifying offer that New York offered him.
Rizzo, who was traded over to the Yankees ahead of the 2021 MLB Trade Deadline from the Chicago Cubs, slashed .224/.338/.480 (.817 OPS) with a 131 OPS+ in his first full season with the Yankees last season. That came in addition to 21 doubles, 32 home runs (tying career-high) and 75 RBIs, plus six stolen bases while being caught five other times. He sported a strikeout rate of 18.4 percent — his highest since 2014 (18.7%) with a career-high walk-rate of 5.8 percent.
His 2022 season equated to 2.4 fWAR, which in turn mapped out to be worth approximately $19.3 million dollars, per FanGraphs’ WAR-to-dollar conversion metric (1.0 fWAR = ~$8.0M). In 179 career games with the Yankees, he’s sported a .230/.338/.466 slash line (125 OPS) with 40 homers and 96 RBIs.
The 33-year-old had a down defensive season last year (-3 DRS, -2 OAA), but still showed that he could help mitigate the struggles of the Yankees infield with his impactful glove. Not to mention, he’s a power bat from the left side of the plate that the Yankees needed to retain entering the offseason. Rizzo fits this team perfectly.
Now it’s time to re-sign his pal, Aaron Judge!
P.S. He will also benefit from no shift in 2023, which should elevate his slash-line and turn more outs into hits, barring injury or an unforeseen decline. Good sign!
This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.
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