-Newsday’s Ken Davidoff reports that the Yanks don’t plan to extend Joe Girardi’s contract heading into the final year of his deal and coming off a World Series championship. In other breaking news, water is wet. The Yanks have rarely extended anyone over the past 20 years, player or manager. They have let such Yankee greats as Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera go all the way to free agency before signing them, and did the same with Joe Torre in the waning years of his deal, despite his displeasure with the idea. Brian Cashman himself has had his last 2 contracts expire before signing a new one. If memory serves, the last time the Yanks extended someone before his deal was up was Joe Torre in 2004.
-Japan is not an option for Hideki Matsui, according to his agent. The stuff about the Red Sox being interested just tells me that Hideki would really, really like to come back to the Yanks and is trying to scare them into signing him, which won’t work. That tactic used to work on George, but he’s out of the picture now.
-Curtis Granderson’s availability could pave the way for the Yanks to let Johnny Damon AND Hideki Matsui go this off season, according to Ken Rosenthal. Very interesting proposition, it would allow the Yanks to get younger and maintain power and production in their outfield while upgrading their defense at 2 positions, since Melky would move to Left Field. Now we just need to see what Dombrowski wants for him, and if the Yanks think they can improve his sagging BABIP that Joe Pawlikowski from RAB discussed yesterday.
-LoHud’s Chad Jennings spoke to Brian Cashman yesterday and asked about the possibility of bringing back both Damon and Matsui. Here’s the quote:
When asked about retaining both Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon, Cashman says: “If I did that I wouldn’t have room for anybody else unless I made trades.” Cashman seems to be referring to position players here, so how much flexibility they have to add pitching could be another story.
Sounds very much to me like that is not his first option. That’s the kind of answer I would give if it was my Plan D.
-Since Scott Boras brought it up, Dave Cameron from Fangraphs breaks down Matt Holliday vs Mark Teixeira. Good read, and I would add hitting behind Albert Pujols doesn’t hurt, either.
-Jeff Zimmerman of Beyond the Boxscore has an excellent piece breaking down Umpires’ strike zones and why its not as simple as a graphic you see on FOX broadcasts and we won’t be moving to computerized strike zones anytime soon. Check it out
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8 Responses to What's Cookin on the Hot Stove-Quick bits
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TIQ IQ
Just for the fun of it, can you imagine a Yankeee outfield of Holliday-Granderson-Swisher? Fantasies like this are the joy of the off-season.
Add Roy Halladay and you have the Baseball equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters
Fine by me so long as the Red Sox play the part of the New Jersey Americans
Matt Holliday is way overrated and I think he would find it hard to adjust to New York, they may compare his to Mark but Tex is the much better player and he seemed to fit in well from the start but still struggled more than usual at the start.
I don’t want Doc Halladay personally because you are basically trading for the last 2 or 3 years of a great career and then paying for the shadow of that player for 2-4 years after that when he no longer is an ace.
I would prefer an outfield of Cabrera-Cameron-Swisher, and then Crawford-Jackson or Cameron(club option)-Swisher in 2011.
I like your think John… I have been trying to get some Cameron support forever! However with the recent Granderson move being made available (possibly) I think we should at least pursue that option and end up with Cameron-Granderson-Swisher and then Jackson can take over in LF after Cameron leaves (if Jackson proves himself).
This about the defensive upgrade to the outfield… Your biggest weakness would be Swisher and as Rfers go he improved his defense a lot over the year and is more than solid defense for RF. We would go from one of the worst playoff outfield D’s to one of the best, and no one would run on us that much because we would have average to above average arms around the outside.
If you trade for Granderson to play CF and sign Cameron to play LF (or have Melky play LF) then that gives you the room to let Damon go and never think twice (which we should anyway) but why let MAtsui go at that point? You still need an everyday DH because personally I think the revolving DH is a terrible idea! IF you always have Posada, Jeter, Arod and Tex DHing then you also have them getting almost no real rhythm, playing the field when they have to, as soon as they get in a groove they would be DHing again. Matsui should come back to DH, we know he can DH for a full year and be productive and his knees should be better this year than last, probably not well enough to play the field but enough to put up better numbers probably.
Jeter, SS
Granderson, CF
Tex, 1B
Arod, 3B
Posada, C
Matsui, DH
Swisher, RF
Cano, 2B
Cameron, LF
That is a really dangerous lineup, everyone but Jeter should have 20+ HRs at the end of the year and Jeter as an outside shot of 20 himself but it’s an extreme upgrade in defense in 2 spots in the outfield. You basically have the same or better offense than you had last year and a better defense, if you can just upgrade the pitching a little (enough to have a legit 4th starter) then you give your self every chance in the world to repeat.
This was on MLB Rumor, it’s just an article about the Yankees farm system and possible trade chips that could be had or not had…
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2009/11/13/deep-farm-gives-yanks-plenty-of-chips/
He actually lists Austin Jackson as “untouchable” and lists both Manny Banuelos and Noesi as trade bait while listing Brackman as high risk talent… However I don’t much agree with any of that in different ways but still a read.