{"id":545884,"date":"2026-03-19T03:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T03:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545884\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T03:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T03:00:09","slug":"yankees-former-all-star-could-leave-contract-for-free-agency-but-has-different-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545884\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees’ former All Star could leave contract for free agency, but has different plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yankees’ former All Star could leave contract for free agency, but has different plans<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The New York Yankees<\/a> signed a former All Star this offseason in free agency and it flew almost entirely under the radar.<\/p>\n

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Despite that, Paul DeJong has reached a key part of his contract already.<\/p>\n

Given his veteran status and the deal he signed, DeJong could actually opt out of his deal Thursday and return to free agency.<\/p>\n

He doesn’t plan to do that, though, according to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Source: Paul DeJong does not plan to opt out of his minor league deal with the Yankees tomorrow (Thursday) as is his right as XX(b) free agent,” Sherman wrote on X on Wednesday. “His plan is to try to make the team and, if not, at least begin the season at AAA.”<\/p>\n

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MORE:\u00a0Cubs’ Daniel Palencia completes improbable rise for Venezuela<\/a><\/p>\n

DeJong was never really expected to make the Opening Day roster. He’s just trying to keep his career alive.<\/p>\n

The 32-year old infielder hasn’t been a key contributor for a while.<\/p>\n

His All-Star season was all the way back in 2019 for the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a>, when he hit 31 doubles and 30 home runs.<\/p>\n

His overall game has fallen off since then.<\/p>\n

Despite that, DeJong did hit a combined 24 home runs in the 2024 season between the White Sox and Royals.<\/p>\n

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He struggled in 2025 with the Nationals, and now he’s trying to stick around however he can.<\/p>\n

The Yankees are missing shortstop Anthony Volpe to start the season with injury. Jose Caballero will start in his place.<\/p>\n

DeJong might feel like he isn’t that far off a starting gig in the early going, at least. He could always opt out later.<\/p>\n

For now, he’s staying put.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yankees’ former All Star could leave contract for free agency, but has different plans originally appeared on The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[14251,49,48,18695,14108,6690,41211,14925,189988,462,23762,3980,164728,82,3982,212778,1497],"class_list":["post-545884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-anthony-volpe","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daniel-palencia","tag-free-agency","tag-free-agent","tag-joel-sherman","tag-jose-caballero","tag-minor-league-deal","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-post","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-paul-dejong","tag-sports","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-veteran-status","tag-white-sox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}