{"id":111596,"date":"2026-01-04T15:35:46","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=111596"},"modified":"2026-01-04T15:39:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T20:39:56","slug":"yankees-sign-paul-dejong-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/04\/yankees-sign-paul-dejong-to-minor-league-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Yankees Sign Paul DeJong To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to <em>The New York Post<\/em>&#8216;s Jon Heyman, free agent shortstop <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dejonpa01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul DeJong<\/a> has signed a minor league deal with the New York Yankees. The former Washington National is also an invitee to the Yankees&#8217; Major League camp, and if he makes the team, he will earn $1 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Paul DeJong agrees to deal with Yankees. Minors deal, MLB camp invite.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/2007831201952981145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 4, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>DeJong, a longtime St. Louis Cardinal who has bounced around on several different teams over the past few years, slashed .228\/.269\/.373 over 57 games with Washington last season. The Yankees, who will be <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/10\/23\/yankees-anthony-volpe-one-last-chance-in-new-york\/\" target=\"_self\">without starting shortstop Anthony Volpe<\/a> for at least the first month of next season, could be picking up DeJong as insurance for Volpe&#8217;s presumable fill-in, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cabaljo01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jose Caballero<\/a>. New York traded for Caballero from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline last year, with the 29-year-old appearing in 40 games in pinstripes.<\/p>\n<h2>Bounced Around<\/h2>\n<p>DeJong, 32, has been a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants, Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals, Nationals, and Cardinals, all since 2023. Over those 3 seasons (308 games), he has a .200 batting average, a .658 OPS, and just 84 extra-base hits. His defensive stats have fallen off a bit as well since DeJong departed St. Louis.<\/p>\n<p>On the Yankees, DeJong might hope to earn back the (interim) starting shortstop job. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/09\/15\/yankees-starting-shortstop-undecided\/\" target=\"_self\">Caballero did perform well with the Yankees<\/a> last season, but his track record suggests some regression on the offensive side of the ball. If DeJong can perform well in camp and subsequently Spring Training, he could have a shot to make New York&#8217;s roster, or even take over for Caballero at short during Volpe&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<h2>Third Stringers<\/h2>\n<p>Adding a veteran righty who can play 3 positions in the infield could just be their way of bolstering their bench. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/01\/03\/rice-is-key-for-yankees-next-season\/\" target=\"_self\">The Yankees have not been very busy this offseason<\/a>, with the vast majority of their transactions concerning minor leaguers. If this doesn&#8217;t change soon, the Yankees might find themselves in a hole they can&#8217;t quite dig themselves out of in the spring.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Jeff Curry- USA Today Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to The New York Post&#8216;s Jon Heyman, free agent shortstop Paul DeJong has signed a minor league deal with the New York Yankees. The former Washington National is also an invitee to the Yankees&#8217; Major League camp, and if he makes the team, he will earn $1 million. Paul DeJong agrees to deal with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5148,"featured_media":60096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1071,5],"tags":[3461,28376,2600],"class_list":["post-111596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mlb","category-yankees","tag-anthony-volpe","tag-jose-caballero","tag-paul-dejong"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111596"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111611,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111596\/revisions\/111611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}