TAMPA — The first thing Luis Severino’s mother asked when she picked up the phone Friday night was if her son had won.
“No,” the Yankee ace told her, “but I got $40 million.”
At the last minute, Severino and the Yankees on Friday agreed to a four-year, $40 million deal that can max out at $52 million because of an option for the fifth year. The deal buys out all four years of Severino’s arbitration eligibility, while the option covers his first year of free agency. It takes him into his age 29 season.
The family can consider that a win — not only is it life-changing money, but it allows Severino to avoid the ugliness of arbitration.
“My agents told me they were going to say some bad things about me,” Severino said of the arbitration hearing. “It’s not fun, but it’s part of the process.”
The sides came to the brink of arbitration — postponing the hearing as they hammered out the details. Aaron Nola’s four-year $45 million extension with the Phillies on Thursday seemingly helped get them to the finish line.
“We were fully prepared, as they were, to try the case. The data point with Nola was very instructive. Thursday night, didn’t bear fruit. We circled back 30 minutes before the hearing, I called (Severino’s agent) and asked if he wanted to swing back to my room again,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said. “The atmosphere was better or different, not that it was bad before. Again, we both said we’d rather not walk into this hearing and do whatever we have to do when there really should be common ground we’re finding here if you are interested.”
Severino had asked for $5.25 million while the Yankees had filed at $4.4 million. The last time the Yankees went to arbitration was in 2017 with Dellin Betances. The Yankees won, but some comments by team president Randy Levine left some hard feelings in the clubhouse.
With this deal, Severino and the Yankees can turn their focus onto the 2019 season without any hurt feelings.
“Arbitration can always be a kind of tricky thing for a player or organization to go through,” Yankee manager Aaron Boone said. “To not only settle, but know he’s going to be here the next four-plus years, I know I was really excited when I finally got that news yesterday. Really happy for him.
