BIG NEWS For Yankees! Corey Seager Trade Talks? (Yankees News 2026)

Yankees fans, there is a lot to go over today, so we're just going to dive right into it. According to John Heyman, the Yankees and Rangers have held dialogue regarding a trade around Corey Seager. The Yankees are also in active talks with catcher Carson Kelly. This is from John Heyman, shared by Everything Yankees over there on X. Let's start off with Carson Kelly first. Carson Kelly, pretty good catcher, right-handed hitting catcher, hit .258 last year, 10 home runs, a .713 OPS. Not the sexiest numbers, .336 on base percentage. That's okay, but why would you get him? You would get him because he hits left-handed pitching incredibly well. Last year against left-handed pitching, he hit .298 with an .871 OPS. He would be a really good platoon with Austin Wells. Depends on how much money Carson is commanding, but I would like that signing. 32 years old, you're probably not signing him for more than two or three years. I would see if you could pull that off and bring in Carson Kelly, and I'm glad they're talking to him. Now I wonder if the Yankees are going to... Talked with Ryan Jeffers. Of course, he's got the qualifying offer attached to him, which he could very well take. But the Yankees really like Jeffers too. They were trying to trade for him at the deadline. They couldn't. Didn't happen. The Twins held on to him. But the Yankees were trying to get him at the deadline. And there were reports then that if the Yankees were to trade for him, that they would be very interested. And signing him when he would become a free agent. So the Yankee front office likes Jeffers. I like Jeffers. I think Jeffers, he would make a lot of sense. You could kind of put Jeffers in that Paul Goldschmidt role as well, where he could get some of the at-bats that Goldschmidt was getting. And so you could play Austin Wells and Jeffers at the same time. Now that opens up a can of worms because probably have to put Jeffers. I'm not too sure if Jeffers has played first base. I don't know. You'd probably have to put him at DH if you were to play both guys at the same time in Jeffers and Wells. But Ryan Jeffers is somebody who I would love the Yankees to go and get, but will they get him? We'll see. I'm not sure if they want to swim in those waters considering he's got a qualifying offer attached to him. So Carson Kelly is the other guy who I would like. We'll see what he ends up getting though on the market because I think his contract could surprise us. Now, Corey freaking Seager. A guy who has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career. That was one of the Yankees' concerns with Corey Seager back when he was a free agent five years ago. So the Rangers signed him to a five-year deal, a 10-year deal rather, a lot of money. And Seager, his last full season was his first year with the Rangers. It was in 2022. That's the last time he played a full year. He's been, yeah, I think he played 120 games, I think in 2024. But the last two years, he's played 102 games a pop. Very good baseball player. He kind of regressed offensively last year. He had like a 730 OPS. He's a lot of money. He's a very good defender. He would have to move to third base. Is he willing to waive his no trade clause to come to the Yankees and to play third base? Now, some people are saying he would rather a low profile place. He would rather stay in Texas. It's more low profile. Well, here's what I think about that. Once upon a time, he wanted to be a New York Yankee. He said he grew up a Yankee fan. He grew up a fan of Derek Jeter. I don't think that stuff goes away. His parents at the time lived in New York. So this stuff doesn't go away. And it could still be some kind of, I don't want to say dream, but it could be intriguing for him to play for the Yankees. Now, if you're the Yankees, you could have signed him to that 10-year deal and had him anyway. And you chose, if you do trade for him, you would be choosing to trade for that back half of his contract. Yes, in this scenario, the Rangers would have to eat some if you were to get Corey Seager. And you'd have to unload McMahon to Texas. So they'd be taking McMahon's $16 million and giving you $50 to $60 million. towards Corey Seager. So that's the difference. But if Texas doesn't want to do that, I don't think this deal happens simply because once upon a time, you could have had him. And a lot of teams are against signing players to 10-year deals. You were a team that didn't really want to sign him to that kind of a contract. So you didn't. And the reason why is because of that back half of that deal. Well, you would be trading for that back half. But if Texas eats money, then I suppose it does make sense. But a lot has to happen. Corey Seager has to waive his no trade. That stuff has to happen. I think he would, but now it depends how much the Rangers are willing to eat of his contract. So here's another thing from John Heyman. While the Yankees and Rangers have held dialogue surrounding Corey Seager, the word is that the Yankees bosses may slow play the offseason until they have a better understanding of what the CBA will look like post-lockout. We heard a week or so ago from Jack Curry that things are going to move fast and furious, that the Yankees are going to be aggressive. They're going to take a different approach than what they took last pre-lockout. Okay, well, John Heyman just contradicted that completely. And it may seem that the Yankees may slow play the offseason. Now, talking to teams about certain players that you want to trade for, talking to free agents, you're doing your job there. You're doing your due diligence there. So that's fine. That's great. But if they slow play this frigging thing, you can't. You don't have a bullpen. You can't risk losing David Bednar. If Bednar wants to sign before the lockout, If he wants to, and you're saying, David, we got to wait until after. We have to see what happens. You might lose him. That's a guy you can't afford to lose. You can't. You have to bring him back. He needs to be in the back end of your bullpen because you don't have a back end of your bullpen right now. Blackburn, he's a free agent. Bednar, he's a free agent. You have to figure out that back end of that bullpen. And if you don't do it before the lockout, that's a gigantic red flag. And that's very scary. Because Bednar may sign before the lockout begins. Now, the Yankees lost some coaches today. James Rousein, he's going over to the San Francisco Giants to be like an offensive coordinator, I read. That's kind of funky. I've never really heard of that in baseball. But anyway, to help their offense. And also today, Brett Ausmus took the Astro manager job. Here's what upsets me. You had Shelly Duncan recently take a job in the Boston Red Sox organization. You had Tanner Swanson just a couple days ago take the bench coach job over with the Mariners. Yes, he's from that area. I get it. You're telling me that you couldn't promote either of these guys? You're telling me that Tanner Swanson, if he wanted to be a bench coach, you couldn't say, hey, Tanner, want to be our bench coach? That would be ridiculous if you didn't at least offer him that. Because now you don't have one. Yes, you didn't know if Brad Ausmus was going to take the job or not. But that shouldn't have been a thing. You shouldn't have planned your offseason around if Brad Ausmus was going to take a manager job or not. Like, who cares? Who cares? Now he did. He's gone. Now you need a bench coach. Now you also need a hitting coach. That I'm not as concerned about. But you had a guy in Shelly Duncan who's familiar with your younger players on the team because he managed them down there in AAA. Now he's at Boston. Now he's at Boston. You're telling me you couldn't find a spot for him? And I'm not saying he should be the bench coach. That's not what I'm saying. But now there's a big opening there. I would love if they could bring back Rob Thompson. I don't think that's going to happen. I wonder how the Yankees are going to approach this offseason when it comes to their coaching staff because now they have to improve it. You have to get guys in who are better than what you had before. And Joe Espada, who used to coach for the Yankees, is being named as a potential replacement for Brad Ausmus. That's kind of funny. If he does replace Ausmus, Ausmus replaced him. He replaced him because Espada managed the Astros for the past couple of seasons, past three years. So he got replaced by Ausmus, and he's replacing Ausmus in the Yankee organization. Kind of funny. But as far as hitting coach goes, Aaron Bates, Dodgers, former Dodger hitting coach, they were negotiating a contract, nothing happened, and now he's a free agent, and he's a candidate for the New York Yankees. Go out and get him. Just go out and get him. If you can, go get him. I'm all for that. But guys, listen, thank you so, so much for watching. I'll keep you guys updated. If the Yankees do anything, you'll know here. So thank you guys so much. I'll see you next time. Take care.