Yankees decline club option on veteran first baseman

The Yankees announced that they had declined their 2025 club option on Anthony Rizzo, and the veteran first baseman is now a free agent. The decision cost the team $11M, as Rizzo will receive a $6M buyout instead of the $17M salary he would’ve received if the option had been exercised.

The move probably ends Rizzo’s three-plus seasons in the Bronx, which began after he was a trade deadline pickup from the Cubs in July 2021. He hit well enough that the Yankees re-signed him to a two-year, $32M deal that winter. Since that deal contained an opt-out clause after the first season, Rizzo parlayed that opt-out into another two-year, $40M pact the following offseason.

Rizzo’s 2022 season was easily his best in New York, as he hit .224/.338/.480 with 32 homers over 548 plate appearances.  He was also off to a hot start in the first two months of the 2023 campaign before his career was altered by a collision at first base with Fernando Tatis Jr. on May 28, 2023.  Rizzo picked up what was deemed a neck injury on the play and returned to action after sitting out a few games, yet he then went into a brutal slump over the next two-plus months until finally going on the IL at the start of August.  Rizzo was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, which naturally led to quite a bit of controversy over how Rizzo was misdiagnosed in the first place and why his head-related injury went seemingly unnoticed for so long.

That IL placement ended Rizzo’s 2023 season, and he returned to more bad injury luck this year when he fractured his right forearm after another awkward collision at first base in June.  Rizzo went on the 60-day injured list and didn’t return until the start of September, and he then suffered further injury when he had two fingers broken by a Ryan Borucki pitch near the end of the regular season.  The broken fingers kept Rizzo out of the Yankees’ ALDS matchup with the Royals, though he returned to hit a respectable .267/.421/.300 over 38 PA in the ALCS and World Series.

Since Opening Day 2023, Rizzo has hit only .237/.315/.358 in 796 regular-season plate appearances and 191 of 324 games. This translates to 0.6 fWAR and a below-average 91 wRC+, and since Rizzo turned 35 last August, it made for a pretty easy call for the Yankees to decline the option.

The health question is paramount for Rizzo as he returns to the open market, as possible suitors will undoubtedly have concerns about what Rizzo still has in the tank after 14 major league seasons.  His track record and respected locker room presence probably mean that he should be able to land some kind of big league contract for a low guaranteed salary, if likely as a platoon bat rather than a regular at first base.  A return to the Yankees at a lower salary seems possible. Still, the likelier scenario is that New York either fortifies the lineup with a bigger bat at first base or perhaps rotates DJ LeMahieu and others through the position.