Next week's General Manager meetings for Major League Baseball will probably see quite a bit of activity in free agent signings and trades. Big names will move to new teams. Truckloads of money will change hands. There will be rumors, mistakes, reports and more rumors, and Yankees Hot Stove (my new favorite winter TV show because I'm jonesing bad for baseball) will lose its collective mind trying to report on things that haven't happened yet.
In other words, business as usual.
Don't expect the Yankees to be huge players next week. Yes, Bombers fans, we know you're desperate to steal some thunder from those freakin' Red Sox and their (predictable, read below) David Price signing. Sure, what we have so far is last year's so-so team a year older. Absolutely, this team's history indicates it will open up Fort Knox and back it up to some free agent's backyard.
Not this year.
Show me the position where the Yankees have flexibility. Let's see which huge contracts they can move to make room for new talent. Identify the free agent who will make an impact on the team as it exists and lead it to a better finish than in 2015.
That's right. There are none of those things.
Because they have operated like the Yankees in the past, the Yankees are stuck with contracts that couldn't be moved with a 747 (Teixeira, Sabathia, Mr. Rod, Ellsbury, McCann, Headley). So that means we would have to watch the team pay a ton of money to some of these guys--most of whom have major no-trade clauses in their contracts--not to play for them in order to bring in someone else. Is that better?
There are some signs of progress. Brian Cashman has gotten enough control that draft picks are being protected. Young players (Greg Bird, Rob Refsnyder, Luis Severino) are coming up and being allowed to play in place of dusty old stars. The "formula" that produced Jeter, Williams, Posada, Rivera and Pettitte is at least being considered.
But for 2016, there won't be much change. There can't be. Does that bode well for the coming season? Not really, no. Expect more decline from some aging players. Don't even imagine that at least two of the starting five pitchers will not spend some time on the disabled list, and I don't mean a couple of weeks. Assume that Carlos Beltran will allow every fly ball hit to right field to fall in front of him.
I don't see this as a playoff team. Hal Steinbrenner can go on all he likes about how each year a "championship-caliber" team will be put on the field, but this is not going to be one unless big moves are made. Big moves are not going to be made.
We'll have Ellsbury in center. Beltran in right. Headley at third. Didi at short. Refsndyer/Ackley at second. Tex at first, until he gets hurt, at which time it'll be Bird, which is fine with me. Brett Gardner in left? Probably the most likely to be traded, probably for a middle-of-the-rotation starter, which isn't exactly huge impact.
McCann will catch, but J.R. Murphy will not be backing up because he has earned the chance to start elsewhere. Austin Romine or Gary Sanchez backing up, probably Romine because they won't want Sanchez to sit five days a week.
Pitching: Tanaka (the default ace because there isn't another), Severino (the ace in the making), Sabathia (the ghost of aces past), Pineda (the ace a third to half of the time), and Eovaldi (he's really learning to be an ace now, they'll say). Inspiring huge amounts of confidence? Not so much.
Expect there to be some buzz around the Yankees next week, but not much in the way of big moves. Tweaks, changes, some new faces, but not anybody who'll play every day. It's just not all that possible. This might be a great team in 2017 or (more likely) 2018, but not in 2016.
But of course President Trump is a big Yankee fan, so maybe he'll just bomb all the other teams and that'll make this one seem so much better...
No comments:
Post a Comment