Yankees Trade Buzz Heats Up as Marcus Stroman Unfollows Team on Instagram

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Marcus Stroman

Are the New York Yankees, who have long been MLB’s financial powerhouse, now playing “third fiddle” when it comes to spending money on players? The very concept seems strange, but that was the judgement of one of baseball’s most knowledgeable “insider” journalists, speaking on Thursday.

But it is starting to look as if the Yankees are paying closer attention than ever to the profit-loss ledger, as they are believed to be in a “holding pattern,” according to Dylan Backer of Empire Sports Media, when it comes to making new player acquisitions until they can free themselves from their $18 million commitment to one disappointing pitcher in 2025.

Now that pitcher, Marcus Stroman, may be giving indications that he is done with the Yankees as he apparently unfollowed the team’s Instagram account as of January 28, only adding fuel to the rumors that he is on his way out of the Bronx, one way or the other.

Yankees 4th in Payroll But Still Trying to Shed

The Yankees are not exactly penny-pinching this season, however. According to figures compiled by Fangraphs, the Yankees are projected to go into the 2025 season, which opens for them on March 27, with a payroll of $303 million. That puts them fourth in MLB.

They may be somewhat removed from their years of overpowering the competition with cash. For 14 straight seasons, from 1999 to 2012, the Yankees topped all of MLB in payroll totals as of Opening Day. During that period, the Yankees made it to five World Series and won three of them. The Bronx Bombers also got all the way to the American League Championship Series on three other occasions during those years.

Since that era, the Yankees have topped the payroll table only twice, in 2013 and 2020. They have appeared in only one World Series, in 2024. That was their first appearance in the Fall Classic since 2009. They lost the Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers last year when they entered the season with the second-highest payroll in MLB behind only their crosstown rivals, the New York Mets.

The Yankees reportedly want to dump Stroman’s salary to keep the team below the third Competitive Balance Tax (aka “luxury tax”) threshold, but ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan is not buying it. He appeared on the Michael Kay Show Wednesday, where he tore into the Yankees.

Yankees Playing ‘Third Fiddle,’ Passan Says

“At the end of the day, these are the New York freaking Yankees. If a luxury tax threshold is impeding them, that says more about where they are than it does the luxury tax itself,” Passan told Kay. “When have the Yankees ever played third fiddle in baseball? That’s where they are right now when it comes to spending.”

But that does seem to be where the Yankees are. Can they trade Stroman? So far no team has been willing to absorb his $18 million payday, or even a portion of it, According to reports earlier this month, the Yankees have offered to cover a significant portion of Stroman’s salary, but still found no response.

The result, as Yanks Go Yard blogger Thomas Carannante wrote is that “here we are…writing about a petty unfollow on social media that might foreshadow a trade. Wait, are we sure Stroman ever followed the Yankees in the first place?”

According to The Yanks Center account on X (formerly Twitter), where Stroman’s Instagram unfollow was first reported, the 33-year-old righty was indeed following the Yankees as recently as Tuesday.