The Yankees announced that they have declined their 2025 club option on , and the veteran first baseman is now a free agent. It was an $11MM decision for the team, as Rizzo will receive a $6MM buyout instead of the $17MM salary he wouldve received if the option had been exercised. The move probably ends Rizzos tenure of three-plus seasons in the Bronx, which began after he was a trade deadline pickup from the Cubs in July 2021. He hit well enough that the Yankees re-signed him to a two-year, $32MM deal that winter, and since that deal contained an opt J.J. Redick Jersey -out clause after the first season, Rizzo parlayed that opt-out into another two-year, $40MM pact the following offseason. Rizzos 2022 season was easily his best in New York, as he hit .224/.338/.480 with 32 homers over 548 plate appearances. He was also off to a hot start in the first two months of the 2023 campaign before his career was altered by a collision at first base with on May 28, 2023. Rizzo picked up what was deemed as a neck injury on the play and returned to action after sitting out a few games, yet he then went into a brutal slump over the next two-plus months until finally going on the IL at the start of August. Rizzo was diagnosed with post-concu sion syndrome, which naturally led to quite a bit of controversy over how Rizzo was both misdiagnosed in the first place, and why his head-related injury went seemingly unnoticed for so long. That IL placement ended Rizzos 2023 season, and he returned to more bad injury luck this year when he fractured his right forearm after another awkward collision at first base in June. Rizzo went on the 60-day injured list and didnt return until the start of September, and he then suffered further injury when he had two fingers broken by a pitch near the end of the regular season. The broken fingers kept Rizzo out of the Yankees ALDS matchup with the Royals, though he returned to hit a respectable .267/.421/.300 over 38 PA in the ALCS and World Series. Since Opening Day 2023, Rizzo has hit only .237/.315/.358 over 796 regular-season plate appearances, over 191 of 324 games. His translates to 0.6 fWAR and a below-average 91 wRC+, and since Rizzo turned 35 last August, it made for a pretty easy call for the Yankees in declining the option. The health question is clearly paramount for Rizzo as he returns to the open market, as po sible suitors will surely have concerns of what Rizzo still has in the tank after 14 Major League seasons. His track record and respected locker room presence probably means that he should be able to land some kind of big league contract for a low guaranteed salary, if likely as a platoon bat rather than a regular at first base. A return to the Yankees at a lower salary seems po sible, but the likelier scenario is that New York either fortifies the lineup with a bigger bat at first base, or perhaps rotates and others through the position. Tony Carr Jersey