Yankees Decline Anthony Rizzo’s Team Option, Plot Next Move For First Base

On Tuesday before the Yankees kept their season alive, Anthony Rizzo got the podium and online transcript treatment.

Among the 18 players for both teams to give a pregame press conference, Rizzo talked about a litany of topics, including his experience on the 2016 Chicago Cubs, who overcame a three games to one deficit to taste World Series glory for the first time since 1908.

Shortly before his session ended, Rizzo was asked a question about the reality of his future – the team option the Yankees on his contract for next season when he will turn 36.

“Obviously there’s an option,” Rizzo said Tuesday. “I love playing here. I love being a Yankee. I love what comes with it. I love the standard that has been set here from all the generations, the great Yankees in the past. Yeah, this could very well be. I’m a realist. I’m not naive to it.”

About 33 hours after Rizzo spoke in the interview room to the media crowd about the reality of his contract, he stood in full uniform inside a quiet clubhouse and faced another sizable contingent with the realization the Yankees lost the World Series, knowing his option might not be picked up.

“I feel like I have a lot left to offer in this game in a lot of different ways,” Rizzo said. “I don’t want to take [this uniform] off.”

For now, Rizzo is not a Yankee after it was announced Saturday afternoon his $17 million option was not picked up. It is certainly possible Rizzo could return to the Yankees in a lesser role perhaps similar to 2011 when veterans such as Eric Chavez and Andruw Jones had roles on the bench and combined for nearly 400 plate appearances on a 97-win team who didn’t hit in Game 5 of the ALDS and lost to the Detroit Tigers.

Rizzo’s tenure with the Yankees, at least this portion ended with him playing with two broken fingers after being hit in the right hand in the penultimate game of the regular season when Paul Skenes pitched the first two innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He returned to go 6-for-14 in the five-game ALCS but was 2-for-16 against the Dodgers in a series when the Yankees hit .212 and could not get counterpart Freddie Freeman out. It was a fun subplot going into the first Yankee Fall Classic appearance since 1999 but it also highlighted the reality about first base being a weak spot and some kind of upgrade is needed.

While Freeman is aging well with a .300 average in two regular seasons for the Dodgers, who signed him after his age-32 season, Rizzo may not be though it might be injury related.

Since being acquired near the 2021 trade deadline from the Cubs shortly before turning 32, Rizzo hit .234 in 370 games with the Yankees, producing 60 homers in those games. He hit .249 in his first 49 games, dropped to .224 in 2022 when he hit 32 homers and drove in 75 but also had back issues late in the 2022 season and it is possible the ailment might have led to his 8-for-37 showing in the postseason.

In 2023, Rizzo was hitting .304 through May 28. It also was the same day he collided with Fernando Tatis Jr. on a pickoff play at first and it resulted in a concussion that was diagnosed about two months later as the Yankees fell from contention and resulted in him finishing with a .244 average.

This season Rizzo was a .223 hitter on June 16 and the Yankees were two games into their 10-23 slide. It also was the night he fractured his forearm in a collision at first base with Boston reliever Brennan Bernadino and it cost him 62 games.

Upon returning Rizzo hit .247 (18-for-73) in his final 22 games but also the power was lacking. In fact power from first base was sorely lacking for the Yankees, who saw anyone playing first base hit a combined .216 with 16 homers and 75 RBIs after their first baseman combined for 21 homers in the 2023 disaster and it made three out of four 162-game seasons Yankee first baseman combined for fewer than 25 homers.

Rizzo did not homer after June 14 and the last homer by a Yankee first baseman since DJ LeMahieu homered as part of a six-RBI showing in Philadelphia. Perhaps even more damning is first base is viewed a left-handed hitting strength for the Yankees and their last homer by a first baseman at Yankee Stadium was Ben Rice hitting three against the Boston Red Sox on July 6.

Rice was about two weeks into replacing Rizzo and finished with a .171 average, leaving him as an unknown quantity for the Yankee first base role.

Overall Yankee first baseman have struggled for most of the period since Mark Teixeira ended his eight-year contract with 2016. Teixeria was an injured player for the final two seasons of the deal that began with him 39 homers in 2009 and opted to retire.

The Yankees thought Greg Bird was the solution and he was chronically hurt though the Yankees will always have his homer off Andrew Miller in Game 3 of the 2017 season. When Bird’s availability became dubious the Yankees turned to Luke Voit in 2018 and a for a while he seemed to be the solution despite being a right-handed hitter.

He his 21 homers in 118 games in 2019 when the Yankees endured a never-ending parade to the injured list. In the pandemic-shortened season, he was brilliant by hitting a major league-leading 22 homers but a knee injury derailed him in 2021 season and eventually set in motion the events to obtain Rizzo and by mid-March 2022, he was traded to the Padres, who eventually sent him to Washington for Juan Soto.

Amongst free agent first baseman are Pete Alonso, who like Voit is right-handed. Alonso’s free agent saga was discussed almost as nearly as Soto’s and he ended a statistically sub-par season by hitting .273 in 13 postseason games for the Mets.

Another is Christan Walker, who is about two and a half years younger than Rizzo. In his age 33 season, he batted .251 (down seven points) from 2023 and hit 26 homers with 84 RBIs in 130 games.

The Yankees’ first priority is attempting to figure out a way to return Soto to their lineup but another goal is figuring out first base and that process seemingly started over the weekend.

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