NEW YORK -- Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the "number one priority" for the club this winter is to have DJ LeMahieu return in pinstripes.
LeMahieu is one of the top free agents on the market after completing a team-friendly two-year, $24 million deal. He rejected the Yankees' $18.9 million qualifying offer for the 2021 season.
"I think it's no secret that he is probably our number one priority to bring back this winter," Boone said Tuesday afternoon during MLB's winter meetings virtual media availability. "I know [GM Brian Cashman] is working on that. And hopefully, at the end of all this, DJ is a Yankee for a long time."
One of the most valuable players in the majors the last two seasons, LeMahieu won the 2020 batting title with a .364 average -- the first Yankee player to win since Bernie Williams (.339) in 1998.
The 32-year-old LeMahieu, who spent his first seven seasons with the Colorado Rockies (2011-2018), also won the batting title in 2016, becoming only the second player in MLB history to win the title in both leagues.
"There's not much more to say about DJ other than, I think if we look over 2019 through 2020, and did a two-year MVP in the American League, it's probably him," Boone said. "His play completely speaks for itself. Then you couple the fact that he's this really great teammate that's been, despite his quiet reputation, a tremendous leader for us and an influential person by the way he goes about things."
Boone, who played a role in recruiting ace Gerrit Cole to the Yankees last offseason, said he had yet to become as involved in the recruitment of LeMahieu to stay with the team.
"I'll probably reach out to him here before Christmas at some point just to touch base with him and talk to him," Boone said. "But as far as getting into the recruiting process with him, I haven't really gone there. ... Usually you don't have to have a lot of words with DJ, but I'll hopefully connect with him more than my normal touch-base before Christmas and talk through anything from my perspective."
LeMahieu said after the season that "I want to stay here ... [but] you never know how it goes."
After a tumultuous pandemic-shortened 60-game regular season that saw the Yankees fall short yet again of a World Series appearance, managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner is expected to tighten the purse strings in order to keep payroll under the $210 million luxury-tax threshold.
The Yankees also have to consider what to do with several high-profile free agents, starting with Masahiro Tanaka, the Yankees' most durable pitcher the last seven seasons, and left fielder Brett Gardner, the longest-tenured member of the team. Many of those decisions will impact New York's starting rotation, which at the moment appears thin behind Cole, its $324 million ace.
"Generally speaking, I always want all our guys back, and that's not always the reality. Even in the best of situations, there's going to be turnover every now and then. I hope that's not the case with those guys," Boone said. "... Both those guys not only have been great Yankees and had outstanding careers, but are still in both cases we think impactful players, so we'll see how it all shakes out.
"And I'm certainly excited about the people we have behind Gerrit Cole; from a depth standpoint, from a number of young guys getting opportunities to pitch this year and showing a lot of promise. We still have a couple of months for the offseason to unfold and I know Cash is working hard to try and add pitching where he can. But you never know how, in the end, that's going to flush out, so you've got to be prepared to go in with what you have."