Anthony Rizzo Remains Unsigned Three Weeks Into Spring Training

It is February 24^th, and Grapefruit League and Cactus League games are in full swing. Players with numbers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are dotting ballfields up and down Florida and all across the Phoenix Valley. But one player you won’t see on any such field, in any dugout, in any clubhouse, is three-time All-Star Anthony Rizzo. After fourteen big league seasons, Rizzo remains unsigned at this late date.

According to an interview Rizzo gave to Ken Rosenthal and Brendan Kuty of The Athletic, he thinks he has “a lot to give to the game still” and he said, “I want to play.” Unfortunately, to date, there have been no takers. Actually, that isn’t completely accurate. Per Rizzo, it seems as if some clubs have reached out for a team-friendly deal – somewhere in the neighborhood of less than seven-figures. And Rizzo is not about to sign a deal that could or would hurt the future earning potential of other players.

On the Baseball Tonight podcast last week, Buster Olney interviewed Kansas City Royals’ first baseman Vinny Pasquantino. The “Pasquatch” was lamenting that he may be the only left-handed throwing, left-handed hitting first baseman in the game. He wants us to get back to the days when Don Mattingly, Keith Hernandez, Will Clark, Mark Grace, Wally Joyner, Bill Buckner, etc. filled lineups across the league. And then Olney mentioned Rizzo. Pasquantino responded: “Rizzo! Let’s get Rizzo a job. Let’s get that guy a job!”

The Chicago Cubs traded Rizzo to the New York Yankees at the deadline in 2021. He then signed a two-year, $32 million contract to stay in New York for 2022-2023. But after hitting 32 home runs with a .817 OPS and a 130 OPS+, Rizzo opted out of the second year, and then negotiated a new two-year deal with the Yankees that paid him $20 million per year. There was a third year option for $17 million, which New York declined, electing to pay him a $6 million buy-out instead.

The above terms became very interesting this off-season. After declining Rizzo’s option, the Yankees signed former St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to a one-year, $12.5 million contract. Said differently, instead of just paying $17 million to the 35-year-old Rizzo to continue to be a clubhouse presence, a leader on and off the field, who has a career .828 OPS and 123 OPS+, who has three Gold Gloves, three Top-10 MVP finishes, and one World Series title, they elected to pay a total of $18.5 million ($12.5 million to Goldschmidt + $6 million to Rizzo) for a 37-year old whose resumé is slightly better (seven-time All-Star, four Gold Gloves, six Top-10 MVP finishes including winning the award in 2022). Brian Cashman rolled the dice on Father Time and may have sacrificed clubhouse tranquility.

In Rosenthal/Kuty’s story about Rizzo, they quoted Jazz Chisolm, Jr. as saying: “Oh, man. Rizz is such a great guy…He really helps everybody’s spirits.” Oswaldo Cabrera said, “He’s a leader, man…Rizzo was one of the guys who guided me in the right way to be a Yankee…We love Rizzo.”

Will the Yankees get the same level of leadership from Paul Goldschmidt? Maybe. He tends to be a quiet leader who shies away from the limelight. He has played his entire career in Phoenix and St. Louis. He has never had the white hot spotlight of a massive media market. And now he gets his introduction in his age-37 season, coming off his worst statistical year of his career, joining a team that won the pennant but lost the last game of the World Series on their home field and then the biggest free agent ever. Rizzo has won a World Series in the third largest media market in the country. He was an integral part of the team that won that pennant last season; and he was also an integral part of the play that opened the floodgates to the Yankees’ Game 5 fifth inning meltdown.

And that just may be the answer. The Yankees couldn’t cut ties with their best pitcher, Gerrit Cole. They couldn’t cut ties with their best player, Aaron Judge. They couldn’t cut ties with their current and future shortstop, Anthony Volpe. So they cut ties with the one player involved in the worst inning in the long and storied history of the New York Yankees. They agreed to pay an additional $1.5 million dollars to not have to worry about another ground ball wide of first base; to not have that replay repeated every time Rizzo fielded a grounder or made an error. One cannot blame the Yankees for simply trying to forget.

Rizzo has made nearly $130 million in his career, battled and beat cancer, ended the 108-year “Curse of the Billy Goat,” and has a baby boy due in June. He will be fine without baseball. But we, as baseball fans, will be worse off. The days of the slick fielding left/left first baseman are waning, and Anthony Rizzo was that and a whole lot more. “Let’s get that guy a job!” Indeed!