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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Oh, no!...Can this be a return to the days of The Elvio Empire!?
This coming offseason might be the last great chance for the Yankees to reverse their current course. It’s going to take a staggering amount of money for the Yankees to land Teixeira and fortify their rotation with the likes of C.C. Sabathia or A.J. Burnett, who can opt out of his contract. Then they’re back in business. But consider that Burnett is a guy who is always hurt. Because there are more dollars chasing fewer players, he’s very likely to choose to forgo $24 million in 2009 and 2010 for a long-term deal. The Yankees will have to pony up about $70 million for four years for him. Sabathia will likely command $25 million annually over six or seven years, and expect a $200 million price tag for Teixeira.
The Yankees roster needs major fortification. Jorge Posada may never be able to catch regularly again given his age and shoulder woes. Derek Jeter turns 34 next month and can’t hit well enough any longer to make up for his tremendous defensive shortcomings. Right now he’s on pace to register about 119 fewer putouts and assists than the average shortstop.
Melky Cabrera is underrated but likely no more than a complementary player and certainly not a cornerstone. Robinson Cano is merely good. Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui will need to be replaced soon. Only Alex Rodriguez is a guaranteed All-Star for the next few years.
The Yankees are old. We think of the 1964 team as one that simply expired, but it had an average age of 28.2 compared to 31.4 for the 2008 Yanks.
Repoz
Posted: May 20, 2008 at 01:26 PM | 105 comment(s)
Related News: General, NY Yankees, Tampa Bay
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Perfect. This sums up a 100 post thread as accurately and succinctly as humanly possible.
Abreu = Stephon Marbury
That's just mean.
The Abreu example is the one I WOULDN'T point to as a test case for what the Yankees will be able to do going forward. That was a misguided salary dump by a team cross-eyed enough to think someone w/ Abreu's talents was a problem (because he doesn't go back well on the ball and never hustled, or whatever nonsense excuse they used). And, unless I'm mistaken, the Yankees gave up next to nothing for him (and Cory Lidle, FFS) -- Matt Smith, C.J. Henry, Carlos Monastrios, and Jesus Sanchez?
Unless Houston's farm system produces something besides Hunter Pence, or a Bonifay or Lamar returns to a front office, it's more likely that any Yankee mid-season salary-pick-ups will include the odious likes of a Raul Mondesi.
Also, re: the in-house core of the Yankees -- yeah, as already noted, it's kind of sketchy to include Posada & Jeter & Rivera in w/ Joba & Cano & Melky, when the Yankees aren't realizing the one true advantage of in-house talent (reduced salary) with those Yankee greats. & calling Pettite "home grown" in 2008 is like calling Schilling "home grown" because he was originally in the Sox system.
Brett Butler maybe. Kevin Seitzer. Richie Ashburn. They all averaged 75 BB's per 162 games despite slugging below .400. Wade Boggs, but he had good doubles power. That type of guy is pretty rare.
They're both carbon-based life forms, yes.
What's funny about that is that it took me a while to realize this fact about hitting, in part because the team I followed as a kid, the late 80s Red Sox, had some guys (Boggs, Reed, Barrett, Burks, later Quintana) that seemed especially good at drawing walks (and not striking out) despite a relative lack of power, or at least HR power as some of those guys hit a lot of doubles. The closest thing they had to a standard high-BB, high-K, big power hitter was Dwight Evans. These teams often led their league in walks and were near the bottom of the league in strikeouts.
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