The Yankees may be facing a strange little offseason dilemma that goes beyond the usual lockout noise. The looming shutdown could wipe out the Winter Meetings, and with them, the Rule 5 Draft - but that possibility creates a tricky choice for New York when it comes to Carlos Lagrange.
Normally, the Yankees don’t sweat the Rule 5 Draft all that much. They rarely make a pick, and when they do, the player usually comes back quickly, as happened with Cade Winquest last year.
New York does lose more players in the draft than just about anyone, but most of the time those losses don’t sting. Garrett Whitlock in 2020 is the rare exception.
This time, though, the stakes are different because Lagrange is involved. The Yankees’ most promising pitching prospect is Rule 5 eligible this offseason, and if they want to keep him out of reach, they’d need to place him on the 40-man roster by November 17 at 6 p.m. That’s the protection deadline, even though the draft itself is not scheduled until December 9.
If Lagrange is left exposed, he would be a tempting target for another club. Rule 5 picks come with an obligation: the selecting team has to keep the player on the active roster, or injured list, for the entire 2027 season. It’s a rare mechanism, but it can uncover value for clubs willing to take the chance.
The problem for the Yankees is that protecting Lagrange would also move him into a different bucket during the lockout. Once a player is on the 40-man roster, he falls under the MLBPA’s no-contact rules during a work stoppage. That means no direct work with Yankees coaches, including Matt Blake, who, along with Sam Briend, is part of the organization’s highly regarded pitching development group.
For a pitcher like Lagrange, that matters. The source material describes him as someone who will need help with command and expanding his arsenal, and that kind of work would be put on hold if he were protected and the lockout dragged on.
Established players can usually absorb that kind of interruption. Younger ones trying to climb the ladder may not.
There’s a wrinkle that makes this even more unusual: minor leaguers who are not on the 40-man roster are not subject to the same work-stoppage restrictions. They operate under a separate collective bargaining agreement, which means they can still use team facilities and work with affiliated coaches during the lockout. So if Lagrange stays off the 40-man, he could keep developing as normal while the major league side sits frozen.
That leaves Brian Cashman and the Yankees with a genuine gamble. They could protect Lagrange now and lock in their control of him, but risk stalling his development if the shutdown runs deep into the offseason. Or they could leave him exposed, preserve his access to team resources during the lockout, and trust that the Rule 5 Draft never actually happens.
The draft was canceled during the 2021-22 lockout, and the expectation now is that this one could meet the same fate if the stoppage stretches far enough. Still, there’s always a sliver of danger that a rescheduled draft could surface later, and that tiny possibility is enough to make this decision matter.
So the Yankees are left weighing two uncomfortable outcomes: protect Lagrange and block his development, or leave him vulnerable and hope the rulebook side of the lockout works in their favor. It’s the kind of call that could hang over the organization - and plenty of others around the league - as November 17 approaches.
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