Yankees GM Brian Cashman – ‘Pot of gold’ awaiting Aaron Decide

NEW YORK — Brian Cashman realizes Aaron Decide struck gold along with his record-setting season, elevating the value for the New York Yankees to maintain their star slugger.

Within the hours earlier than Opening Day final April, Decide rejected a contract that might have paid him $213.5 million over seven seasons from 2023-29. He’s eligible without cost company and can command much more after setting an American League document with 62 homers, tying for the most important league lead with 131 RBIs and simply lacking a Triple Crown with a .311 batting common.

“There is a pot of gold there,” Cashman, the Yankees common supervisor, mentioned Sunday forward of the Division Collection towards Cleveland. “It is but to be decided what the gold — how a lot it weighs — however it’s a pot of gold, little question about it. So good for him. It was already an enormous pot and, clearly, it’s going to be greater.”

Decide was drafted by the Yankees in 2013 and homered in his first large league at-bat three years later. The 30-year-old Californian has change into the post-Derek Jeter face of the Yankees, a four-time All-Star with 220 house runs over seven seasons and a fan favourite recognizable for his 6-foot-7, 282-pound body and ever-present smile.

“He is put himself in an incredible place to have numerous selections,” Cashman mentioned. “And clearly, clearly, we might prefer to win the day on that dialogue, and that is clearly for an additional day. However we mentioned that earlier than the season. We mentioned that many occasions in the course of the season. If you have to hear it once more. I will say it once more: Yeah, after all we like to have Aaron Decide again as New York Yankee, however that is all for an additional day.”

Decide had a $19 million wage this season in a one-year contract that averted an arbitration listening to. He wouldn’t negotiate a long-term deal in the course of the season.

“I have been vocal about I need to be a Yankee for all times,” Decide mentioned earlier than the opener. “I need to convey a championship again to New York. I need to do it for the followers right here. They’re household. That is house for me, and never getting that achieved proper now, it stinks. … On the finish of the yr, I am a free agent. I can discuss to 30 groups and the Yankees can be a kind of 30 groups.”

New York can negotiate phrases with Decide solely by way of the primary 15 days after the World Collection. After that, all groups can bid.

“He is a terrific participant who guess on himself, and it is the all-time finest guess, proper, the best way he navigated the season,” Cashman mentioned. “Clearly, he was wholesome and you realize what he is able to when he is wholesome. He is at all times placing up big numbers when he stays wholesome, and he is stayed wholesome now for plenty of years.”