The New York Yankees are “flunking” their offseason, wrote Randy Miller and Bob Klapisch of NJ.com on Thursday. While The Bronx Bombers have made a few mostly minor, housekeeping moves, they have done nothing to acquire a major free agent such as four-time All-Star Kyle Tucker, three-time All-Star Bo Bichette or even their own wayward 29-homer outfielder, Cody Bellinger.
Bellinger, because he played the 2025 season for the Yankees, is the free agent who has seemingly been general manager Brian Cashman’s top priority. A report by The Athletic Thursday revealed that the Yankees had offered the 30-year-old a “multi-year contract” that “featured an average annual value of more than $30 million a year.”
Then, on Friday, ESPN baseball insider Buster Olney revealed that “contract negotiations between the New York Yankees and Cody Bellinger are at an impasse.”
Yankees Lose Promising Outfielder
That annual paycheck would make Bellinger the fifth-highest paid outfielder in the game on a yearly basis, though he ranked eighth in the outfield in OPS last season. But according to the Athletic report, Bellinger is holding out for a contract of at least seven years.
The report did not specify the number of years in the Yankees’ offer, but clearly it was fewer than seven.
But even as deep uncertainty remains over whether the Yankees will be able to reel Bellinger back into the Bronx, the Yankees very quietly lost another outfielder who was once considered one of the top outfield prospects in the game, and posted an impressive .975 OPS across three minor league levels in 2025.
Brennen Davis Ranked No. 15 Overall Just 3 Years Ago
Still at an age when further development is possible, 26-year-old Brennen Davis chose to become a minor league free agent after one year in the Yankees system, when he belted 17 home runs in just 170 at-bats — a rate of one homer for every 10 official trips to the plate.
As a point of comparison, in his final minor league stint before being called up to the Boston Red Sox, last year’s No. 1 overall prospect Roman Anthony hit 10 home runs in 212 at-bats, one every 22.2 at-bats. Yankees three-time American League MVP Aaron Judge in his final minor league season, 2016, went deep 19 times in 352 at-bats, once every 18.5 at-bats.
A 2018 Chicago Cubs second-round draft pick out of Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona, Davis by 2023 was the No. 15 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline rankings, and No. 3 in the Cubs’ system.
So what happened?
Injuries Devastate Davis’ Career
As it turned out, 2023 was Davis’s first fully healthy season at least since 2019 — not counting the 2020 season when the minor leagues were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Surgeries to his back and his core muscles, a separate back injury, multiple concussions and a severe ankle fracture threw the once-heralded prospect off what had seemed like a fast track to the big leagues.
The Cubs finally gave up on him after his injury-shortened 2024 season, designating him for assignment in November. The Yankees signed him in December, and for much of the 2025 season it seemed like they had found a forgotten gem in the career .792 OPS minor league hitter.
But the Yankees for some reason were not interested despite his impressive stats in a noteworthy comeback season for Davis. They let him go to free agency after the season. The Mariners signed Davis on December 18, assigning him to their Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers affiliate, but the transaction was not publicly reported until this week.
Yankees Lose Former Top-5 Prospect to Seattle as Bellinger Talks Hit ‘Impasse’