Long Live Frank Fixaris!

"you want to compete with those guys across the street, you better bring it, period."

-david ortiz

sounds to me like ortiz is concerned about a complacent off-season by the sox. or maybe he's just paying his respects to the champs. i think the yankees will be moderately conservative this off-season as they probably can afford to be. pettitte will be their number one priority with a replacement if necessary their second one. i think that with the innings limits behind him joba will return as #4 starter and hughes will return to the rotation as the number five. robertson, marte, coke, melancon, bruney, and aceves will stock the pen with maybe more added by free agency or trade. i think damon will leave and matsui will be re-signed because he is open to a cheaper deal. nady or someone in his talent level/affordability will fill damon's spot. i don't really see any dramatic changes for the yankees unless pettitte retires and they decide to go after halladay or lackey.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091125&content_id=7717516&vkey=news_nyy&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy

i guess duncan got sick of hanging around. it did seem like the yankees put a bunch of no names on their 40 man roster to fill the spots of the players that declared for free agency passing over duncan. still, with their corner outfield situation still a little uncertain he probably had an outside chance at sticking in the majors this year. on the other hand, he can probably find another team willing to give him a much better shot at staying with the big league club.

I'm hoping that this off-season results in the Yankees burning in eternal hell. [bleep] all of you and your ruinous assholery.

supposedly the yankees will not offer arbitration to any of their free agents. i guess the assumption is that both damon and matsui would earn raises on their $13 million deals and they will be worth less than that on the free market. the only thing is that it might seem worth it to risk paying the higher price to get them on a one year deal. pettitte i don't think is as much of an issue because i think pettitte either returns to the yankees or retires. the mlbtraderumours blurb i read didn't mention wang but i assume not offering wang arbitration is basically non-tendering him and letting him become a free agent.

I think Wang wasn't included because he's pre-free agency. The deadline today was for offering arbitration to free agents to be. There's another deadline for the pre-FA arbitration offers (tender/non-tender).

Not that I don't think you might be right that they'll non-tender him, but I don't think he's in the same boat as Matsui and Damon.

that makes sense. i wasn't sure about that. everything i've read indicates wang will be non-tendered. i hope they still try to keep him. he really was quite dependable before the injury bug bit him.

that deadline is december 12th.

apparently george is participating in the yankees' organizational meetings in tampa where they are outlining the budget and the direction they are going to go this off-season. who knows how much sway he has but i would assume that given his history he's going to be more in the "go ahead and sign them" camp in regards to damon, matsui and of course pettitte, unless he's more in the "go ahead and sign them" camp for bay or holliday. i'm guessing the yankees do not want to reinvest all of the money that "came off the books" at the end of last season so i still think the big contracts are not going to happen unless prices fall dramatically. an early signing of an extension for jeter might already be in the works, too. i just think having george in on it, makes the "fiscal restraint approach" a little less likely, if it really even is in the first place.

the yankees dump bruney for a player to be named later from the nationals. i assume they just didn't want to give him a raise in arbitration and the other option would have been to non-tender him. reports are that pettitte has decided to pitch again next year, has rejected the yankees first offer, but will almost certainly be returning to pitch for the yankees in 2010.

i wasn't in the car long enough to hear details but sedanka was talking about a rumored edwin jackon/curtis granderson trade to the yankees. mlbtraderumors has quite a bit about a rumored jackson trade, but with only passing mention of the yankees and no mention of granderson. that would certainly provide the yankees with fixes for two needs.

I can't see the Tigers trading Granderson. He's signed to probably the most team-friendly contract they have and worth every penny of it to them. They have money issues, and rumors abound that they want to dump salary, so if they really are going to trade him, I have to think they'd package him with one or more of their problem contracts (Ordonez, Guillen, Willis, Bonderman), not Jackson. Jackson's still in arbitration and probably also payroll-friendly so he might fetch them a good prospect package from the Yankees by himself. Seems silly to put he and Granderson together in any deal.

your reminding me of what the original rumor was: granderson and ordonez to get rid of ordonez's big contract. what am reading now is that granderson is on the trading block but the tigers are looking for a big return on him and while they are apparently also aggressively shopping edwin jackson too, i still don't see any rumors mentioning them in one deal.

the latest rumors are a 3 way deal with a lot of pieces but basically jackson goes to arizona and the yankees get granderson with the yankees giving up kennedy, austin jackson, and phil coke...apparently as of now only arizona likes the deal.

jon heyman has it as a done deal pending physicals with the yankees giving up ian kennedy, austin jackson, and phil coke to get curtis granderson. i assume that leaves damon headed for the door with melky headed for left but you never know...

I was in Boston when I heard this. Nice Deal.

it seems to me to be a very good deal. marte bounced back and proved to be the #1 lefty out of the pen in the post-season and they still have dunn to grow into coke's role, and jackson and kennedy are both still simply "maybes". granderson's bad year hitting lefties last year does concern me, but he's entering his prime, he's a solid center-fielder, and he might hit a ton of homers in yankee stadium. i assume he slides right into damon's spot in the order. maybe he sits some against lefties in some part of a dh/of rotation that includes posada and a dh/left-fielder with melky sliding to center. in the end i think it shows both that they are trying to get younger but also realize that they wanna strike while the iron is hot: they've got a lot of stars in their primes and if they wait for all their young talent to season the timing might be off. they want to win it all in 2010 but not hit a wall in 2011 or 2012 if everyone gets old at the same time.

i just hope he can hit lefties better than he did last year...

Solid deal for the Yankees, I think. I agree with you, jabanga, about being concerned with Granderson against lefties. He was extraordinarily bad last year, but even so, he's never been all that good against them (career .210/.270/.344/.614).

With Jackson being included in the deal, I think any posturing by the Yankees that they aren't in the mix for Holliday or Bay (more likely Holliday) is just that, posturing. They can no longer argue that they are staying away from those guys for fear of blocking Jackson. And I can't see them standing pat on Cabrera and Swisher as their regular corner OFs (it would smell a bit like the whole "Swisher is our 1B" stuff last winter). Even if their true target is Carl Crawford in 2011, I can't see why they wouldn't go for Holliday anyway. It's not as though they couldn't fit both guys into the lineup in 2011. Holliday, Granderson, and Swisher/Cabrera would be a stronger offensive OF than they had in '09, but also a far better defensive alignment.

Although I have read speculation that the guy the Yankees might end up with for a platoon kind of situation in LF/CF is Mike Cameron. Good righty bat, can still play CF very well (leaving Melky in LF full time), and will surely come on a short-term deal still allowing them to pursue Crawford next year.

It'll be curious to see what they do. And it'll also be curious to see if the Tigers are done shedding payroll. They've already traded two of their more attractive pieces, but are still looking at a substantial payroll in 2010. Will they go whole-hog and try to deal Cabrera too for more immediate relief, or will they just suck it up and wait out a bunch of the bad contracts and build toward a 2011-2012 resurgence?

i don't know who it will wind up being but with granderson most likely batting second in damon's spot the yankees pressing need whether it is a leftfielder or a dh (or both) will be a #5 hitter to bat behind arod. it could well wind up being matsui. damon has already expressed his opinion that left field is still open for him and maybe with his power granderson could slot at #5 but he seems more like a top of the order guy to me because of his speed. i could be wrong, but i still don't see the yankee being interested in signing either holliday or bay to a big long term deal.

i haven't even heard a whisper about it but one guy who seems to me could be an extremely exciting #5/dh for a couple of years would be vlad:

jeter
granderson
tex
arod
vlad
posada
cano
swisher
cabrera

the fact that that line-up might not be quite as lefty heavy as yankee line-ups have been in recent years might help granderson by making them as a team less susceptible to lefty pitching on a whole. melky might not be a bay or a holliday, but with all that other pop in the line-up he's fine down there at #9. i understand the concept that you have higher production expectations from your corner outfielders than your cf, but if you are getting damon and matsui's production from cf and dh what difference does it make in overall production if melky is playing center or left?

cashman is working fast: pettitte has re-signed already. as far as i am concerned, the yankees have already done the "heavy lifting" of this off-season. they could still get another impact bat, mid-rotation pitcher, and bullpen help but anything they do from here forward they are not doing from a position of strong need so they can be choosy.

i guess the yankees wound up getting the #1 pick in tomorrow's rule 5 draft but are supposedly looking to trade it before the draft. probably harder for them to commit to keeping a marginal player on the major league roster than other teams...

Pretty sure they can just pass on selecting anyone. Unless there's a team looking to move up to make sure they get "their guy", or they themselves have their eye on someone, I expect the Yanks will just pass.

they just accepted it in the bruney trade though so they must have thought it had some value...

if they don't make a trade it looks like the yankees will use their first pick in the rule 5 draft on a young outfielder from the dodgers:
http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/hardball/yanks_to_pick_hoffman_first_in_rule_XvbGsee6w7BOOLy9C6aaUP

if they wind up sending him back, they wind up sending him back...

its funny watching all the posturing going on between cashman, boras, damon and matsui since the granderson deal. well, not really much on matsui's part but certainly cashman is regarding both he and damon. clearly, cashman is looking at it as if they both really want to come back and while it would be nice to have either of them back, he's looking at it as a luxury not a necessity. he has already anointed granderson as the #2 hitter against righties although he says he'll drop down in the order against lefties. kevin long is apparently chomping at the bit to work with granderson. in the meantime boras is dissing granderson a bit and saying that because of his strikeouts, he is not a viable #2. in the meantime, cashman is talking about using cuban lefty juan miranda, who is coming off a solid season in aaa, as the primary dh. i would say it is safe to say, at this point, there is no way both damon and matsui will be back. however, it seems to me what cashman is clearly trying to do is leverage both of their desires to return in a kind of reverse bidding war: who ever offers themselves up at the most agreeable terms first gets to come back. the other one winds up moving on, along with probably one of the group of swisher, cabrera, and gardner, if not two (with rule 5 draft pick hoffman in line for the of reserve spot).

matsui might be going to the angels. maybe the yankees can snatch up their dh.

i guess matsui to the angels is official. its kind of a bummer but i think the yankees first choice is still damon. i have no idea if they really would have any interest in vlad because his of days are probably over, too, but i've been imagining a 3-4-5 of tex-arod-vlad with vlad being reborn and revitalized and how fearsome that could be.

I have a hard time picturing Vlad being reborn...

2007 - .324/.403/.547/.950
2008 - .303/.365/.521/.886
2009 - .295/.334/.460/.794

The only 35 year old sluggers that are reborn and revitalized to the point of being fearsome once again usually have help (Bonds, Manny). I think Vlad's days as a fearsome hitter are pretty close to over.

But with the Sox now having apparently signed Mike Cameron, the Yankees now find themselves in a position where they could go after one of the two marquee LFs and get him much more affordably than if the Sox were also in the hunt. Say they sign Bay...play him primarily in LF in 2010, then slide him to DH (or maybe RF) when they go after Crawford in 2011. It's a thought.

I have to agree about Vlad. His best days are long gone.

i don't know. i can't name them all of the top of my head but i can think of some instances where a former star as a late 30s dh in a new situation was very productive and a couple of them were yankees: cecil fielder and darryl strawberry. i am not talking about a "peak year" vlad, rather an affordable dh who can still put the fear in pitchers and offer arod some pretty strong protection in the 5 spot. remember, he was still the primary clean-up hitter for a very good angels team just last year. i also think speaking of manny and bonds as being reborn as being a questionable example, because i don't think either one of them ever needed to be reborn.