{"id":28374,"date":"2025-02-24T07:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T07:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=28374"},"modified":"2025-02-24T07:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T07:38:10","slug":"unfinished-business-yankees-17m-4-time-all-star-pushed-to-return-as-player-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=28374","title":{"rendered":"UNFINISHED BUSINESS? Yankees\u2019 $17M, 4-Time All-Star Pushed to Return as \u2018Player-Coach\u2019!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Rizzo was selected by the Boston Red Sox\u00a0in the sixth round\u00a0of the 2007\u00a0MLB\u00a0draft out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That is the same high school that current Red Sox top prospect,\u00a0and No. 1 prospect in baseball, Roman Anthony was drafted from in the 2022 second round.<\/p>\n<p>But while\u00a0Anthony&#8217;s big league career\u00a0has yet to get started, Rizzo&#8217;s appears to be coming to a close. Once the New York Yankees, just two days after losing the 2024 World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, told Rizzo\u00a0they would decline\u00a0his $17 million option for 2025, the 14-year veteran and four-time All-Star became a free agent. And he is still a free agent almost four months later.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"imageBox\">\n<div class=\"innerBox ar23-innerBox\"><picture class=\"mapping-embed\"><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.webp?w=790&amp;f=fc9b22eae11b16b6a89709d6d77eafcf 1x\" type=\"image\/webp\" media=\"(min-width: 992px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.jpg?w=790&amp;f=fc9b22eae11b16b6a89709d6d77eafcf 1x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\" media=\"(min-width: 992px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.webp?w=900&amp;f=15b413eadb3fbc577676a20f31965120 1x\" type=\"image\/webp\" media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.jpg?w=900&amp;f=15b413eadb3fbc577676a20f31965120 1x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\" media=\"(min-width: 768px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.webp?w=790&amp;f=fc9b22eae11b16b6a89709d6d77eafcf 1x\" type=\"image\/webp\" media=\"(min-width: 481px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.jpg?w=790&amp;f=fc9b22eae11b16b6a89709d6d77eafcf 1x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\" media=\"(min-width: 481px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.webp?w=450&amp;f=20734cf14d6917f029bc34bdd3a97d9c 1x\" type=\"image\/webp\" media=\"(min-width: 0px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.jpg?w=450&amp;f=20734cf14d6917f029bc34bdd3a97d9c 1x\" type=\"image\/jpeg\" media=\"(min-width: 0px)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.webp?w=1200&amp;f=d288c69e1b9e09975d1baa0124a1d1c6\" type=\"image\/webp\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"i2593772\" class=\"mapping-embed imgPhoto\" src=\"https:\/\/d.newsweek.com\/en\/full\/2593772\/former-yankees-first-baseman-anthony-rizzo.jpg?w=1200&amp;f=d288c69e1b9e09975d1baa0124a1d1c6\" alt=\"Former Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" \/><\/picture><\/div><figcaption class=\"caption ar23-caption\"><span id=\"short-cap-description\" class=\"cap\">CLEVELAND, OHIO &#8211; OCTOBER 18: Anthony Rizzo #48 of the New York Yankees looks on while playing in the first inning against the Cleveland Guardians during Game Four of the American League Championship Series at&#8230;<\/span>\u00a0<button id=\"read-more-cap\">More<\/button>\u00a0<span class=\"credit ar23-credit\">Maddie Meyer\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On one hand, Rizzo sounds like he knows he could be at the end of the line as an\u00a0MLB\u00a0player,\u00a0saying in a recent interview\u00a0that he has &#8220;definitely thought about&#8221; the possibility of retirement, saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m not naive to it. It could be it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the 35-year-old who was\u00a0traded by the Red Sox\u00a0for San Diego Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez in 2010, is not ready to fully accept the end of his career just yet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think I have a lot to give to the game still. I want to play,&#8221;\u00a0he told The Athletic in an interview\u00a0published Friday. &#8220;I want to win. And I love talking the game with pitchers, with hitters. There&#8217;s so much to dive into. Everything that goes into it, on the field, off the field, I&#8217;ll still be talking about it with guys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, the popular\u00a0Yankee fan blog &#8220;Bleeding Yankee Blue&#8221; might have a solution that would allow Rizzo to split the difference \u2014 come back to the Yankees in the dual role of &#8220;player-coach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rather than seeing this as the end of\u00a0Rizzo&#8217;s journey, I think it could be the start of something pretty special,&#8221; wrote Bleeding Yankee Blue head writer Robert Casey. &#8220;Especially if the Yankees are paying attention. Picture this: The Bronx Bombers offer Rizzo a unique one-year deal, not just as a player but as a &#8220;Player-Coach Mentor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Casey said in his Saturday post that Rizzo would take the leadership role that manager Aaron Boone, in Casey&#8217;s opinion, fails to take.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whether he&#8217;s hitting dingers or delivering pep talks, Rizzo has a role to play. And if the Yankees are smart, they&#8217;ll make sure that role keeps him in the game, even if it looks a little different than before,&#8221; Casey continued. &#8220;If this Player-Coach Mentor idea takes off, it might just be the most Yankee move ever \u2014 both bold and sentimental, with a touch of that New York flair.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If Rizzo were to return, he would be one of only two players on the 2025 Yankees roster with a World Series championship on his resum\u00e9. He homered and drove in five runs for the Chicago Cubs in the 2016 World Series, a historic victory for the Cubs \u2014 their first and, to date, only\u00a0World Series win since 1908.<\/p>\n<p>The sole Yankee player with a ring at the moment is newly acquired free agent\u00a0lefty pitcher Max Fried, who started two games, winning one and losing one, in the 2021 World Series won by his team, the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anthony Rizzo was selected by the Boston Red Sox\u00a0in the sixth round\u00a0of the 2007\u00a0MLB\u00a0draft out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. That is the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UNFINISHED BUSINESS? Yankees\u2019 $17M, 4-Time All-Star Pushed to Return as \u2018Player-Coach\u2019! - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=28374\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UNFINISHED BUSINESS? 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