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"I'd like to add, if I could"

Posted by Steve S. at 10:01 pm 12 Responses »
Dec 112009

Photo Courtesy of NoMaas

That was Brian Cashman’s answer when he was asked by WFAN’s Mike Francesa if he feels like he has enough starting pitching on the roster right now. I transcribed that portion of the questions and answers (Someone tell Mo to double my salary!) for our readers. They are as follows:

Mike Francesa-”Do you have enough on your current roster to go to Spring Training right now, as far as Starting Pitching goes, or in your mind do you have to add a Starting Pitching component?”

Brian Cashman-”I think I’d like to add if I could. It’s just that the prices on some of these (free agents) are prohibitive, and it’s a very limited list as well, the list that we would have an interest in. It goes from a comfort level of knowing this will help, versus the choices of players that you want to take flyers on, and hey, you might get lucky and catch lightning in a bottle like we’ve done in years past with certain guys. That’s kind of where it’s at right now. If we go that route (the latter) we’ll obviously pour more money into a position player addition or so. Or if we want to go with more certainty, we play on one of the more obvious players that are out there. That’s the wrestling match, it all depends on the conversations (with agents) and how they go. That can push it one way or the other. ”

Mike Francesa-”So you could be a player for one of the prominent guys out there? It’s not out of the question.”

Brian Cashman-”I wouldn’t rule anything out, but some things are harder than others. “

Sounds like Lackey is someone who’d have to come way down on his price for the Yanks to have any interest. A ‘lightning in a bottle’ guy could be a Kelvim Escobar or even a Chien Ming Wang in the spring, once they’ve had a chance to see him pitch. Even Ben Sheets at 7-8 mil (plus incentives) sounds like it could be difficult, but I wouldn’t rule it out from what Brian said. He clearly would like to add a pitcher, but spending that kind of money would mean he’s pretty much done for the off season. With the Damon talks breaking down, the 9 mil they offered Johnny could go to bolstering their rotation with a player like Sheets. When he said “it all depends on the conversations” with agents, it’s fair to assume that since the Damon talks didn’t go well, Cash will now be pursuing his Plan B. If that means Sheets, that would also mean one of Joba or Hughes would likely go to the bullpen, according to Brian. He said later in the interview that getting a “killer” pitcher could very well change one of their roles as starters. It remains to be seen if Ben Sheets would qualify in that regard, coming off elbow surgery.

If he misses out on adding some pitching, the position player he was referring to could be a Mike Cameron (who’d be a perfect fit in every way) or a Nick Johnson or a few bench players. Toward the end of the interview, he reiterated that the he has a firm, set payroll for 2010, and it will be lower than the 2009 payroll was. He’d have to get approval from Hal Steinbrenner to exceed that number, and he made clear that is something Hal doesn’t do lightly, the way his father did.

To listen to the interview in its entirety, click here.

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Damon wants $52M over 4 years

Posted by Chris H. at 4:00 pm 10 Responses »
Dec 112009

Via Buster Olney (ESPN), we learn that in “the early conversations between the Yankees and Johnny Damon’s side, there appears to be a very wide gulf between what the team is willing to pay and what Damon expects to get paid in this winter’s market.” In fact, Jon Heyman (SI) tweets that the Yankees and Damon are $34M apart, as the Yankees are only offering $18 over two years while Damon wants $52M over four ($13M per). Clearly, the two parties view the market from differing perspectives (the Yankees’ view is more realistic). Perhaps the Yankees would be best served waiting until January to get a deal done. Then again, they may not be able to prolong the patient approach for such an extended period, as there are other priorities on Brian Cashman’s ledger.

One of those priorities is finding a DH. According to Mark Feinsand of the Daily News, “if Damon is unwilling to take a two-year contract in the next two weeks or so, a source said the Yankees would likely turn their attention to Hideki Matsui, who is willing to accept a one-year deal to return to the Bronx.” If you’re the Yankees and you can have Matsui back for one-year, whether or not Damon wants to come back, you do that deal.

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Why Trading Jesus Montero and Hughes/Chamberlain for Halladay Is A Bad Idea

Posted by EJ Fagan at 2:11 pm 63 Responses »
Dec 112009

Rumors still place the Yankees in the hunt for Roy Halladay. The Blue Jays want Jesus Montero, one of Hughes or Chamberlain, and lesser prospects for the star pitcher. Following the trade of Ian Kennedy and Austin Jackson, this would leave the Yankee farm system almost completely barren of top-end, near-MLB talent.

Roy Halladay is a fantastic pitcher, maybe a Hall of Famer, but he is also 33 years old. He is not a long term solution at the position, and carries with him plenty of injury risk as he becomes a baseball senior citizen. A trade for him would fill the classic Yankees trade: trade lots of long term value for short term value. And this is a terrible idea.

The Yankees are finally running their organization the right way. Their farm system is starting to produce high-quality major league talent. Their major league roster is, for the first time since 2004, completely devoid of albatross contracts (although Alex Rodriguez’s deal has the potential to become one) that bothered them for so long. While there are issues with the 200 million dollar payroll, they are making much better use of it than the late-Torre era teams.

Part of this is because of the Yankee core of players. Soon, the Yankees are going to have to replace Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera as the team’s HOF-caliber core to lead them to year-in, year-out playoff appearances. While they have been supplemented by outside help, the outside help has fluctuated in value.

With proper roster management, the Brian Cashman’s goal should be perpetual competition. Most teams operate in cycles: they build up, win for a few years, decline, trade away their best players, get a few high draft picks, and reload with the stars that they acquired. This cycle has been a reality for even the well-managed, large-budget teams. The Yankees are about to lose the 15-year core that have allowed them to stay out of this cycle for longer than any team that I can remember. The continue this run of success, the Yankees are going to need to find some more Hall-worthy talent to prop their team up for very long periods of time.

Alex Rodriguez is a Hall-worthy talent. So may be Mark Teixeira and C.C. Sabathia. However, They are entering the decline phase of their careers. While the core-four Yankees have aged remarkably well, we can’t really expect guys who won their first ring in 2009 to do the same. Teixeira and Rodriguez will probably be all-star caliber players for most of their Yankee career, but toward the end they are likely to suffer inevitable declines while being paid quite a bit of money. Teams constructed via long term free agent deals will always have to deal with this problem.

To top things off, the Yankees don’t have the payroll advantage they used to. While their 200 million dollar payroll still dwarfs the next-largest by two or three large contracts, the number of teams that have lifted payroll to the 100 million or more range has increased dramatically. 13 clubs have had payrolls of 99 million or more in the past 2 seasons. The high-dollar club for free agents used to be reserved for just a few teams, but big-contract free agents face a much better buyers market for their services. And the Yankees have shown no indication that they are willing to push payroll higher than 200 million in the near future.

What does this all mean? It means that roster construction needs to look beyond the next season. In order for the Yankees to put out a Series-caliber team every season, they need to balance young players with old. They’ll have a few big productive contracts (Teixeira, CC, AJ, Alex Rodriguez) at the same time as aging ones (Jeter, Posada, Mariano), and pre-free agency young players to balance out the difference. That is exactly why Jesus Montero is so useful: he’ll be cost controlled until some of the slightly younger Yankee stars age.

And here is the catch the Yankees are in: they absolutely have to look long term, because rebuilding won’t be as easy for them. If the team finds itself with a bunch of untradeable, unproductive contracts, they can’t just be Oakland and clean house, get a bunch of prospects, sign some free agents, and jump back in. They’ll have to wait for the untradeable contracts to phase out. This high-budget team Dutch Disease should be familiar to New York sports fans: the New York Rangers had it for years before the NHL salary cap, and the New York Knicks still have it. Poor management combined with a high budget are a deadly combination that can wreck a franchise for a very long time.

Jesus Montero, Phil Hughes, and Joba Chamberlain have some serious star potential. They may or may not be stars, but that caveat is true of any young prospect. It was true of Brien Taylor, and was true of Derek Jeter. Sometimes, you have to place your bets, wait, and see if the result pans out. Because when you bet on a young player and lose, you only lose the opportunity cost of not trading him. When you bet on a 100 million dollar contract for a 33 year-old former Cy Young winner, you’re stuck with the bill, and your future options are limited.

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The Non-Tender Candidates

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 12:01 pm 16 Responses »
Dec 112009

The deadline to tender contracts to arbitration eligible is tomorrow, as any eligible player not offered a contract immediately becomes a free agent. Matt at Fack Youk took a look at the 4 Yankee candidates (Wang, Gaudin, Mitre, and Cabrera), and concluded that Chien MIng Wang would be the only one to go. He says:

Wang is universally regarded as a goner. The Yankees do not want to offer him arbitration and play him more than the $5M he made in 2009 after he’s missed nearly the entirety of the past two seasons. Wang started a throwing program last week, and his agent claims he won’t be far behind other pitchers in spring training, stating he’ll be ready to pitch by May 1st. Still, the Yankees don’t figure it wise to commit the money to Wang given his injury history – including three shoulder injuries now – his poor performance last year and the uncertainty that surrounds him moving forward. I’ll be sad to see him go. He was a very good pitcher for the Yankees for three plus years before that freak injury in Houston nearly two years ago. The Yankees likely botched his rehab and then didn’t really put him in a position to succeed or improve upon his return.There’s a chance Wang re-signs with the Yankees for less money, but I just don’t see it happening. He’ll likely receive a better offer from someone else; Joe Torre and the Dodgers have expressed interest.

Although I wrote about Wang leaving last week, I have been having second thoughts. If Ben Sheets is truly going to hold out for a deal that exceeds 10 million dollars, Wang might be the best fit for the 2010 Yankees. They likely plan on having Chamberlain and Hughes start, so they may just need another starter who can fill in and soak up some extra innings, rather than a big money acquisition that will slot into the 2 or 3 spot in the rotation. If the Yankees do not believe that he can provide quality innings or feel that his health will continue to be an issue, letting him go will be the right move. But if they have any faith in Wang’s ability to give them, say, 80-100 league average innings, it would be prudent to tender him a contract and focus their resources elsewhere.

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What Might (not) Have Been

Posted by Steve S. at 6:36 am 7 Responses »
Dec 112009

New York Times  December 27th, 1995 by Murray Chass

Jim Bowden, the Reds’ general manager, declined to discuss the Yankees’ involvement, but an official familiar with the (David) Wells talks said Steinbrenner called Bowden Saturday night and offered pitcher Mariano Rivera and catcher Jorge Posada.

Bowden, looking to cut his payroll, obviously decided he preferred Goodwin, a 23-year-old left-handed hitter, who in 87 games with the Orioles last season batted .263 and had 22 stolen bases in 26 attempts.

Anyone who has followed Baseball for a while has heard stories like this. Joel Sherman had a tidbit in his book “Birth of a Dynasty” that had the Yanks dealing Mariano Rivera for a washed-up Felix Fermin at a time when Derek Jeter was almost ready to contribute on the big league level. But at least in that case, it was the Yanks who turned it down. This proposed deal was shot down by Reds GM Jim Bowden, which makes it a much closer call.

Another good ‘Thank God we didn’t make that trade’ was the Randy Johnson deal with the Diamondbacks. You may recall, those talks were on again-off again as The Big Unit wanted to go to the Yanks (for a big contract extension) and the D-Backs didn’t really like any of the Yankee farmhands. So Brian Cashman offered them a list of players to choose from, one that included Robinson Cano and Chien Ming Wang.

1050 ESPN Radio personality Jody MacDonald often recounts a story from when his Dad (Joe MacDonald)  who was the NY Mets GM from 1974-1978. In 1976, where the Yanks were looking for a veteran bat off the bench. They called the Mets inquiring about (then player) Joe Torre, and offered a young lefthander who was struggling a bit in the majors at the time named  Ron Guidry. MacDonald liked the idea, but the Yanks backed out at the last minute.

Any others?

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