Living on Borrrowed Prime
It's Christmas Eve, and though I am incredibly grateful for Hope Week, Title 27, and the offseason moves Cashmoney Green has made so far this offseason. In fact, in the last two offseasons Cash has done a lot to make the Yankees younger and more athletic. He let Giambi and Abreu go last year, and this year he's let Matsui, Damon, and Molina go. He replaced Giambi with an in his prime Teixeira. He replaced Abreu with Swisher. He replaced Matsui with OBP Jesus. He's replacing Molina with a pre-prime Cervelli. That brings up to Granderson. Curtis was an upgrade over Melky and Gardy in CF, but he was also the replacement for Johnny Damon the CF we signed 4 years ago, but who had been playing left for much of his deal. The one thing he hasn't done is replace the Damon who played Left. In fact this week he traded his apparent replacement.
So, right now in Left we're looking at something like a Brett Gardner/Reed Johnson platoon. And while that would give us great D, it just doesn't seem to match up with the rest of the plan. I still think we're lying in the weeds for Matt Holliday, hoping his price will meet what we have in mind for him. We'll see if it happens. Go Yanks!
11 Comments:
Reed Johnson made $3m last season. He is 33. He put up a 89 OPS+ overall. His splits were:
v. R: .628 (97)
v. L: .903 (68)
In this market, a paycut wouldn't be unreasonable. So if they really wanted him, wouldn't they have signed him? That leads me to believe that they are looking at someone else and that he is a fallback option.
That's what I think, too. They could always get him for the bench later.
Merry Christmas Phil, to you and all the readers of the blog!!!
Phil, RE: your last point from your previous post, I think the Yankees should offer Mo $10.5 million per, and Jeter $15 million per, and wait out the inevitable whining from both parties. Not sure how many years to offer either.
It is imperative that the Yankees begin to raise up homegrown position players that could filter in as the old guys get even older.
I would go ahead and sign Reed Johnson anyway, just to have him as a bat off the bench vs. lefties, regardless of whether the Yankees get a better option for left.
Mike,
I think they can offer them more than that and just bonus it out over many years. They're both Yanks for life.
Thanks Michael. I'll have a Christmas post up later.
I agree with Mike K., although I would never offer Mo more than one year. If Jeter can repeat his 2009 season, which is highly unlikely, he may get a raise. If he regresses to his recent seasons, he should get a paycut.
Merry Christmans to everyone.
Reed Johnson wouldn't be bad off the bench and split time with Gardner in LF.
yeah, but I suspect we are now in an endgame with the Holliday camp.
I wish Holliday would happen but doesn't look like it will.
It looks like we have a hole in LF and Matt Holliday hasn't signed anywhere.
Everything else is speculation whether informed or otherwise.
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