A look at Yanks offseason pitching targets

With nothing really solid happening on the free agent market yet, we'll take a look at some of the names being associated with the Yankees in regards to offseason plans, and how realistic the chances are they are wearing pinstripes in 2010.

First, note that with the free agents, the Yankees are currently on the books for a 2010 payroll of $166,334,714. There's a great chart at Cot's Baseball Contracts of the future payroll commitments by the Yankees. That number is considerably ($41 million) less than 2009's payroll, giving the Yankees plenty of money to spend (or not spend, but when has that ever happened?).

We'll split this up over a series of posts, organizing them by position. We'll start with what I believe is the most important, starting pitching:

Starting Pitchers
John Lackey
Age: 31
Status: Free Agent
2009 Salary: $10 million

This first target is very familiar to Yankee fans, as they've seen Lackey as the workhorse for the Angels since he came up as a rookie in 2002. He's started at least 30 games 5 times in his 7 full seasons, but the two season's he didn't were 2008 and 2009. He is not a true ace, but would fill in nicely as the Number 3 man in the Yankees rotation behind CC and AJ. Personally, I also loved and respected the fire he showed on the mound when Angels manager Mike Scioscia went to take him out of the game during the ALCS saying, "This game is mine!"

He is apparently looking for the type of contract the Yankees gave AJ Burnett last year, $82 million over 5 years. Considering I thought the Yankees gave Burnett too much money, I'm not sure they should make the same mistake twice. The Red Sox, however, are also interested, which obviously means the Yankees will be involved, if only to jack up the price for Boston.

Roy Halladay
Age:32
Status: Under contract with Toronto Blue Jays through 2010 season
2009 Salary: $14.25 million ($15.57 million due in 2010)

The pièce de résistance of this year's trade market, Halladay will be the most talked about name until he is traded, whether it be this offseason, next season, or not at all. Halladay is not expected to resign with Toronto when his contract expires after next season, and the Blue Jays will try to get some value out of him. In a similar situation a few years ago, the Twins got fleeced in the deal that sent Johan Santanna to the Mets, so the Blue Jays won't want to make the same mistake.

Halladay is a bonafide ace and would give the Yankees two number one starters at the top end of their rotation, which would be devastating during the season and in postseason series. He has won almost 70 games over the past 4 years, and has had an ERA under 3.00 for the past two seasons.

The Blue Jays were reluctant to trade to an AL East team during the season, but a new general manager may see things differently. The Yankees would need to part with one of their top four prospects, Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Austin Jackson, and Jesus Montero, to get this deal done. The talk is that the Yankees seem more inclined to give up Hughes or Joba in this deal, which makes sense. Halladay would come in and take up one of the rotation spots that would otherwise be filled by the two youngsters. Also, the Yankees would move to lock Halladay up long-term. If the Yankees gave him a 5-year extension, the top three spots in the rotation would be set through the end of Burnett's contract following the 2013 season.

As stated before, the Blue Jays will want the best package for Halladay. If they don't get that from teams, they could just sit back and take the two draft picks they'll get when Halladay signs with another team. Also, the Halladay situation could become a lot like the Sabathia situation during the 2008 season. The Indians didn't trade Sabathia during the offseason, but waited until midseason to do it. The Yankees decided not to pursue CC, and waited until he hit the free agent market and only gave up money for him (which the obviously have plenty of) instead of both money and prospects (of which they don't have many of high quality).

Aroldis Chapman
Age: 21
Status: Free agent
2009 Salary: N/A (Cuban Defector)

The other name you will hear a lot of from starting pitchers is Chapman. The Cuban defector has apparently been clocked at over 100 miles per hour by scouts. He pitched in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, going 0-1 with a bloated 5.68 ERA while striking out 8 in 6.1 innings pitched. Besides those six innings, there really isn't too much to go on besides what he does in front of scouts. There are his stats from his time on the Cuban National team, but can you take them at face value?

As a Yankee fan, I'm a little wary of Chapman just because he is so young, and apparently has some control issues. He recently fired his agent and joined the Hendricks Brothers, Alan and Randy. The Hendricks also represent Andy Pettitte and formerly Roger Clemens, so they have a solid relationship with the Yankees. As always, the Yankees and Red Sox will be battling tooth and nail over a player, but I'm still not convinced I want to win this time. We already had the failed Jose Contreras experiment this decade, and no one is sure if Chapman is even ready for the majors, as there is talk he would start in the minor leagues. The AAA Scranton/Wilkes Barre Yankees already have one starter with a huge salary (Kei Igawa, another failed investment in a foreign pitcher), I don't think they need two. Are the Yankees ready to invest upwards of $50 million in a big question mark, especially after the recent mistakes (Pavano, Wright, Vazquez, Igawa, Contreras, do I need to go on, because this is painful?)


So those are the big names attached to the Yankees right now. They could go for a cheaper option to just fill a spot in the back end of the rotation, or trust guys like Hughes, Joba, and Ian Kennedy to take one of those spots. There is also the question mark of Chien-Mien Wang. There's the possibility he comes back, which personally I would like to see. He won 19 games two years in a row, that doesn't usually happen on accident. And he would be the third starter, which would make it much easier on him than it was in 2006 and 2007 where he was the number one guy.

When looking at the plan of attack for the Yankees, or any team for that matter, you cannot simply focus on that year's class. The Yankees did this last year with Mark Teixeira. Brian Cashman knew that the 2010 free agent position players were limited to Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, so he made a push for Tex, and it worked.

The inverse situation exists this year in regards to starting pitching. While this year only has three big names, where one of them must be traded for and one comes with more questions than answers, that is untrue of the 2011 offseason. Some of the pitchers that will be free agents after next season include: Josh Beckett, Matt Cain (has a vesting option, so he will likely NOT reach free agency), Jeff Francis, Halladay (if he's not traded and signed long-term), Cliff Lee, Ted Lilly, and Brandon Webb. That's a very impressive class. Plus, with so many good pitchers on the market, simple supply and demand would indicate that the prices may be lower for these players than usual, if you strike early.

Of the three pitchers I named, I don't see any of them as a real fit right now. Lackey isn't worth what he is asking, but will probably get it anyway. Chapman is too risky of an investment for a AAA starting pitcher or even a major league reliever. Halladay would work only if the Yankees were to give up one of the blue chips and not much else. I'd like to see if the Yankees can take the Sabathia approach with Halladay, but if that doesn't work, at least keep him away from the Red Sox. I would say let Joba, Hughes, and/or Kennedy show you what they can do, for real since it seems the inning limit (at least on the first two) are finally out the window, and go hard after the free agent class next year. A (healthy) rotation of Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte (assuming he comes back), Joba, and Hughes, with the Yankees' lineup, will probably be good for a division title and a good chance at #28.

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Kurkjian and Stark weigh in on MLB, Yankees

The Sport Management Club at Syracuse University hosted two of ESPN's Senior Baseball writers, Tim Kurkjian and Jayson Stark, for a discussion on Major League Baseball. There were a lot of people in the auditorium, but I was able to get one question in. Most of the questions were about the league in general, but people obviously asked some questions about the teams they follow. Being Syracuse, NY, there were plenty of Yankees fans, and there was some very good information on them, including the Joba and Hughes bullpen/starter debate. But I'm not going to tell you here, I'm going to make you read the post. Devious of me, I know. There's a lot of material here, and as I commented to a few people at the meeting, I think I took more notes in that hour and a half than I did in class all last week, so I won't get into every single question that was asked. The easiest way to do this is in Q&A format. I'll put the question, and then TK for Tim Kurkjian and JS for Jayson Stark.

Q: How will history look back on the steroid era in baseball?
TK: Right now there's an imaginary asterisk next to this era. And that should be it. Taking away records would ruin the credibility of the record book and the actual asterisk did not work in 1961 with Roger Maris. We need to take this era and give it to the best baseball fans and say, this is what the stats were, take what it what you will. Instead of attaching asterisks, we should attach stories to these statistics.
JS: The thing about this topic, is that when we talk about it, we talk almost exclusively about 10-15 players. We talk about Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and now Roger Clemens has gotten dragged into this, but the fact is hundreds of players took performance enhancers. Yes, there were people who were taking them to break records and to make more money, but there were also guys taking them to just hang on, or to make it to the big leagues. Then some guys thought that HGH had magical healing powers, and that's why they took them. And when it comes to the Hall of Fame, there is no way to keep everyone who did steroids out. We may have already elected a player into the Hall that used steroids. When there was no testing, it's impossible to think that you can just stop those people from getting in. I agree with Bob Costas when he says that when we get to that era of player, we should just put a sign that denotes these players as part of the steroid era. We know that the statistics in this era were different, and you can look at them any way you want to.

Follow up comment: Despite the dark cloud, it seems that, at least attendance-wise, the game has not been affected.
JS: I am amazed at baseball's success as a business. More people are watching baseball on TV or live in person than ever before. It seems that people compartmentalize, and they have this filing cabinet in their head, and they put the information on the steroid era in there and enjoy the game. To say that you aren't going to watch baseball or go to a game because of something that happened in the steroid era, if you like baseball, you are denying yourself pleasure.
TK: I think it is because baseball is bigger and better than any of the issues it faces. There are people who care more about baseball than almost anything else. We have a researcher at ESPN who can tell you who made the last out in every World Series since 1948 and how they did it. There is another guy who can tell you what every Topps Baseball card over a seven year period looks like. You'll say a player's name and he'll tell you, "There were two. One was him standing at the plate looking down at the third base coach, and the other one was him running out of the batters box." We also work with a huge Phillies fan who we once asked about a game on May 4th, 2004, which, at the time, was over 4 years prior. He was able to tell us they lost to the Cardinals 6-5, the Cardinals scored 2 in the first inning, and Kerwin Daley was the home plate umpire. It was just amazing.

Q: With the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) set to expire in 2011, how will MLB avoid the 9th work stoppage in its history?
TK: When they prevented a work stoppage during the last negotiations, the players stood up to their representatives and told them that they couldn't have another strike because last time they almost lost the game. Now, they know that, in the middle of an economic recession, they won't be able to walk out and say they aren't getting paid enough and they don't have good enough benefits when the average salary is close to $3 million. This is good for us because covering labor negotiations is horrible.
JS: Well, who just won the World Series? The Yankees, and when the Yankees win, people clamber that the system is broken. That's a bunch of garbage, because the system has never been better. Do you know how much revenue the Kansas City Royals take in before they sell a single ticket? $100 million. Some small market teams just aren't spending the money they are getting from luxury taxes and revenue sharing. It's been proven by the Rays, the Twins, and the A's that a small market team can win if you evaluate players correctly and spend money wisely. In the end, there won't be any major changes to the CBA and no work stoppage.

Q: What about a salary cap? Is that in the cards?
TK: Well, the Yankees provide the perfect foil for Major League Baseball. Every good story needs a hero and a villain, and they are, depending whether you love or hate the Yankees. But the fact is, when the Yankees and these other big market teams are good, it's good for the baseball. They make money for the entire league through merchandise sales, TV ratings, and luxury tax. There is no way the Player's Association (PA) will allow a salary cap within at least the next 10 years because there are obviously team's out there willing to pay.
JS: Also, it doesn't appear that there will be a salary floor either because the PA is opposed to that as well. The argument against a floor is that the only way a small market team like the Rays can compete is if, every few years, they blow the team up and start over. I think the way to do it is to set a floor of say $65 million for the payroll. And if a team, like the Rays decides to go under that number, just as the Yankees decide to go over the luxury tax threshold, they should be taxed. It would start out as a small tax at first and increase the longer the team stays under. The biggest flaw in the Basic Agreement right now is that there is no accountability on how teams spend the luxury tax money. They could be spending it on the Christmas party for all we know.

Q: What do you see the Yankees doing when it comes to free agents and other off-season moves?
TK: Of their big three free agents, Pettitte, Damon, and Matsui, I think Pettitte will come back and the other two will be gone. They are trying to get younger and more athletic. They saw how much Mark Teixeira helped them not only on offense, but with their infield defense, and want to do that in the outfield. In regards to the rotation, from talking with people in the know, my guess would be that Phil Hughes returns to the rotation and Joba Chamberlain stays in the rotation.
JS: I agree with most of what Tim said, but I can see Damon returning to the Yankees if the deal is right for the team. If there is a small one year deal with an option, they will probably jump on that. There are three words that are probably going to prevent that from happening, however, "Scott Boras client."

(My question) Q: With Derek Jeter's contract up after next year, and despite him still performing, he is an aging superstar. How do see the Yankees handling their iconic figure?
JS: Well the simple fact is: he's Derek Jeter. He is the heart of the Yankees. The Yankees know they need to take care of him. They have already gone to Jeter and his agent and said, "You're going to be a Yankee forever." The traditional rules don't apply to him. I thought the most interesting thing about them winning this World Series was the "Core Four," and how they all played in the clinching game. They have all been there through the minor leagues and from that first playoff appearance in 1995 and it isn't like they are there hanging on trading stories about the past. They are still four of the most important players on the team. The Yankees know this is a special situation with all of them and are going to deal with it accordingly.
TK: A quick story, last week I'm in the Yankees clubhouse after the game, soaked in champagne, and I need to interview Jeter. I see him and I'm following him through all these people. He dodges what seems like 100 people and over in the corner, he meets his Mom and Dad and gives them a big hug. It's just the type of person he is, and why he's been so successful. I asked Tino Martinez once to tell me something about Derek Jeter that I wouldn't know. Tino told me that if Derek had even just one beer, he will not get behind the wheel of a car and drive. It's why he remains so successful on and off the field, because he is smart enough to not get in trouble by getting arrested for a DUI.

Q: Do you think that Jeter will make a run at Pete Rose's hits record?
TK: I don't think he will, but he'll end up with around 3,500 hits. If he gets to that, he will have 800 more hits than any shortstop in history and anyone in Yankee history. He always plays hard. In 12 years, I have never, ever seen him not run hard to first base. And people still tell me he is an overrated player.


That basically covers it in regards to Yankee-specific material, and since this post is already over 1,800 words, I'm going to wrap it up...for now. I still have plenty of material on what they think of the off-season trade and free agent markets, as well as some stories on the nature of covering Major League Baseball, so I'll save that for a rainy day later this month (except that I live in Syracuse, so make that a snowy day).

*Image via Wikipedia*

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Manny Mania

Manny Ramirez made a rehab start in the minor leagues in the midst of a 50-game suspension. From the way this story is being covered, it is like he is coming back from an injury. Well he isn't. In case you forgot, he is suspended because he took a banned substance (women's fertility drug), which many believe to be used after a cycle of steroids. Everyone is all happy he is comingback and ESPN was cutting into his at-bats, similar to when Roger Clemens kept coming back from retirement. I think this whole thing is more of a disgrace than the Yankees offense.

The man cheated and is suspended and he is still allowed to play in a minor league game. Yesterday on Around the Horn, LA Times columnist, Bill Plashcke made an excellent point. He said, "This is a joke, that is why I am not there covering it. He is suspended from major league baseball yet he is allowed to use Dodgers facilities, play for Dodgers-related teams, and use Dodgers funded bats and balls, that is absurd. Letting him play in the minors is like letting someone suspended from school have someone hand in their homework, take night classes, and have the teacher tutor them while they are out."

I agree wholeheartedly with Plaschke; it is absurd. I know the coverage of A-Rod was just as big as Manny's, but it seems liek Manny coming back is being taken in a lighter matter. Everyone is happy he is coming back and I just get the vibe that people are missing the big picture. He cheated and is still serving a 50-game suspension. Maybe if he did these "rehab" starts after the 50-game suspension I would not have a problem with it. But this a problem Major League Baseball needs to address. If Bud Selig truly wants to make an example out of the cheaters in baseball, he would have never let Manny Ramirez near a Dodgers-related facility during the time of his suspension. The minor leagues won't do anything about it too, because they are making tons of money off this.

Once again major league baseball fails to look at the real problem here and instead of a suspension, Manny ends up with a vacation.

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