The Yankees have signed three big-ticket free agents over the past few years. They got Aroldis Chapman back after trading him away for $86 million and five years, the biggest contract ever at that point for a closer. They signed Gerrit Cole for $324 million, the biggest total contract any starter had ever been given. And they originally signed DJ LeMahieu for $24 million and two years before he got an even better deal last winter for $90 million and six years, and he has turned out to be as important as anybody they have.

Oh, sure. You know the kind of value the Yankees got with LeMahieu, especially off the first contract, when he became, in terms of what top players are getting now, as great a free-agent bargain as the Yankees have ever made. He showed up in New York, and even though he didn’t even start on his first Opening day, he proceeded to become their best player over the next two seasons.

His first year in New York, he hit 26 home runs and had 102 RBIs, batted .327 and finished fourth in the American League MVP voting. His second year, the short season of 2020, all he did was hit .364 and win another batting championship to go with the one he won with the Rockies in 2016, as well as finish third in the MVP voting. Even on a team with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, the 6-foot-4 LeMahieu has been the biggest Yankee.

And it is his size that makes LeMahieu even more interesting than he already is, to his own fans most of all, because nobody as tall as he is has ever been this good of a second baseman.

How good? It doesn’t take much sweat or grind to say that right now, he is the best and most valuable second baseman in the whole sport at the age of 32.

I called my pal John Labombarda at the Elias Sports Bureau (they know everything) and inquired about LeMahieu’s height and asked him if there’d ever been a big second baseman like this. And he said that he couldn’t find anybody his size who had even played 200 or more games at the position.

So what LeMahieu has done, then, in addition to providing crazy value on the dollar and making himself indispensable, is bust the image of the small second baseman. He is nine inches taller than the late, great Joe Morgan. He is nearly a foot taller than Jose Altuve. Rogers Hornsby was 5-foot-11. Robinson Canó, whom we thought was on his way to the Hall of Fame once, is 6 feet. Bill Mazeroski was 5-foot-11, and Nellie Fox was 5-foot-10. Jackie Robinson was 5-foot-11. Robbie Alomar was 6 feet. Jeff Kent was 6-foot-1. I am probably excluding other star second basemen. But you get the idea.

Ryne Sandberg, now in the Hall of Fame, comes closest to LeMahieu in terms of size at 6-foot-2.

There was the idea when he got to the Yankees, that because of DJ’s versatility -- his ability to play both third and first, if necessary -- that he was this amazingly gifted utility man. He is. But that’s not who he is. He’s an elite second baseman, at the plate and in the field.

I read back on LeMahieu’s defensive ability, and I found this piece written by Casey Light of Mile High Sports back in 2017:

“The Society for American Baseball Research [SABR] released their final defensive rankings index for the 2017 season, and it confirmed something fans of the Colorado Rockies have been saying for years: DJ LeMahieu is the best defensive second baseman in baseball. In 2017, no one was even close.”

In the world of The Shift, it is way too difficult to properly measure just how good someone like LeMahieu is in the field. But there is something he once said about his defense, which has been good enough in the past to win him a Gold Glove Award, and where he ranked against the field:

"Top couple in the league. The defensive metrics, to me, are not very accurate."

They aren't. Has he lost a step from his Gold Glove of ’14? Everybody does eventually. Derek Jeter sure did at shortstop at Yankee Stadium over time. But LeMahieu has still won three Gold Gloves in all over the past seven years. He always seems to be where he is supposed to be, making all the plays he is supposed to make. He was drafted by the Cubs out of LSU as a shortstop. He had always dreamed about being a big, star shortstop the way Cal Ripken was, and Alex Rodriguez, and Jeter. And guess what? He’s taller than Rodriguez and Jeter, and the same height as Ripken. At second base. In so many ways, all good, he has broken the mold at his position.

He is one of the great players in the game right now who still isn’t discussed that way, at least not nearly often enough, outside of New York (and maybe Denver, still). I don’t think even the Yankees knew what they were getting. Now they do. We all do. DJ LeMahieu: Big second baseman. All ways.