For the second offseason in a row, the Braves invested a decently high amount of money in a corner outfielder in his 30s. Just so we’re clear, I loved the Profar deal; I like the Yaz deal. So, take the below for what you will.

Frankly, there are probably fewer words to say here, though I will likely natter on too long anyway: the years aren’t that long, the dollars aren’t that high, and while the guy is getting older, he’s been quite consistently effective as a two-win hitter. For a team whose last two seasons have hinged on our abysmal lack of depth, he’s a nice piece. He’s not a game-changer, and this contract may not be the most cost-effective way of acquiring two wins, but we needed a guy like him, and now we’ve got him.

As Ben Clemens wrote at Fangraphs: “Clearly, then the Braves wanted this veteran outfielder and thought they couldn’t risk waiting to see if he would sign with them for less.”

Still, good player. Glad we have him.

So, it’s essentially a three-year deal for $26 million, or they can save $3 million by cutting him after year two. He’s already 35, and he’ll turn 38 in August of 2028, but frankly, given the small amount of additional money, I think there’s a decent chance we pick up the option unless is value goes into negative territory in year 2.

So, Mike Yastrzemski has a famous last name, but that’s really it. He went to St. John’s Prep, a Catholic high school in Danvers, MA not particularly known for its baseball program. Mike was the third graduate of the school to be selected in the draft, but all were low picks and none signed. When his grandfather’s team, the Boston Red Sox, selected him in the 36th round of the 2009 draft, he declined their charity and went to college.

(Six years before Mike, the Dodgers tried to draft Matt Antonelli out of St. John’s Prep in the 19th round. But Antonelli declined, opted for college at Wake Forest, and later became a first round pick, and ultimately a prospect bust.)

Yastrzemski got a baseball scholarship to Vanderbilt, which is nothing to sneeze at, but while he made the SEC Academic Honor roll each year from 2011-2013, he only really got athletic accolades his senior year, when he was named First Team All-SEC, Second Team All-South, and Third Team All-American. You get where I’m going with this: he’s got bloodlines and makeup, and he’s a hard worker, not a toolshed.

He was a senior sign out of Vanderbilt, taken by the Orioles in the 14th round of the draft, a college senior out of Vanderbilt with zero leverage; the previous year, the Mariners selected him in the 30th round. He spent the rest of 2013 and the 2014 season in the low minors, where he did fairly well, and made it to the upper minors for good in 2015, and spent the next three years shuttling between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk.

In all, he spent six years in the Baltimore farm system, hitting .260/.337/.428 while mostly playing corner outfield, and clearly they didn’t see a place for him on the major league roster, trading him to the Giants in 2019 for an organizational pitcher named Tyler Herb who never made the majors.

The Giants sent him to Triple-A, where he immediately started hitting, and they finally gave him his callup three months before his 29th birthday, and he rewarded them by being worth about 2.5 wins a year for seven seasons before free agency. He plays adequate defense in the outfield, has a good walk rate and decent power, though his overall hitting stats may be somewhat muted by playing half his games in one of the more extreme pitchers’ parks in the majors in San Francisco.

He hits for a low average, which suppresses his walk rate; last year, he had a noticeable dip in his power, too. His fielding is fine for a corner, but he only spent a handful of innings in center last year, so he wouldn’t be more than emergency depth out there. Due to his long stay in the minor leagues, he has fewer miles on his knees than many his age – he’s only played 20 more games in the majors and 200 more games in the minors than Austin Riley, though he’s seven years older.

As Ben Clemens points out in his piece at Fangraphs, the Braves are paying more for Mike Yastrzemski than other teams have paid other players who seem roughly comparable — Adolis Garcia and Cedric Mullins took one-year deals, and Miguel Andujar and Willi Castro are still available. So the Braves pounced quickly and arguably paid a little more than they had to because they wanted this specific player.

It’s easy to point out the things to like: he’s been very consistent, he’s very well-liked, he clearly deserves a lot of respect as a hard worker and a grinder who has achieved far beyond what his modest draft status and prospect profile would have suggested. Also, the Braves front office has several refugees from Farhan Zaidi’s front office in San Francisco, most notably AGM Pete Putila, and it’s quite likely that they loudly advocated that AA target him in particular.

The downside risk is also easy to see: he’s getting older, he’s striking out more, and his power just dipped last year.

He’s probably going to be a glue guy, which is something that the clubhouse appeared to lack last year, as injuries contributed to a growing malaise. He’s not going to be able to produce more than complementary value. But he’s a nice player. I’m glad he’s on our side.