J.A. Happ is in favor of the New York Yankees signing Manny Machado, and part of the reason is that he doesn’t want to pitch against him.
It’s unclear whether New York Yankees lefty J.A. Happ is more scared or impressed by Manny Machado. What is certain is that Happ would love to have the free agent infielder as a teammate in 2019.
Happ just wrapped up his own deal with New York on Monday, getting $34 million for two years, with a performance-based option for 2021. The option would be for another $17 million.
Machado stopped by Yankee Stadium on Wednesday as part of a free agency tour that ended in Philadelphia on Thursday. Naturally, when Happ made himself available to the media, he fielded questions about Machado joining him in the Bronx.
“I would certainly welcome that, especially as a left-hander,” Happ told MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. “You see the all-around numbers, the defense and the arm strength. He’s an all-around superstar type of player, so to get any player like that on your team, that would be exciting.”
In his career against Happ, the righty swinging Machado is 8-for-34 (.235) with three home runs, per RotoWire. Hopefully Happ has more confidence against other righty hitters, such as Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez.
One Yankee lefty who might want Machado on his side even more than Happ does is CC Sabathia. Machado has slashed .375/.407/.768 with five bombs in 56 at-bats against the big lefty.
Yankees pitchers aren’t the only ones concerned with where Machado ends up. Toronto Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman is already gearing up to face a hypothetic Bombers’ lineup with Machado in the middle:
Happ’s pitch to Machado might get drowned out by cold hard cash from Philadelphia. The team’s owner is on the record as willing to get a little nutty with spending in the MLB offseason.
In contrast, the Yankees are playing a pretty convincing Ebenezer Scrooge this holiday season. That’s why we’re talking about J.A. Happ’s Machado comments rather than Patrick Corbin’s or Nathan Eovaldi’s.