Lucky for me, it would appear that the Yankees have “zero interest in Carlos Zambrano. I cannot say how happy this makes me. Zambrano’s performance is “meh” and his contract is awful–avoid at all costs. They apparently prefer lefties and/or rentals. The LHP rentals listed in the article–Paul Mahalom, Bruce Chen, Zach Duke, and Jeff Francis–should not be realistic options. Regardless of that, I’m just glad the Zambrano rumor (that seems to come up ever year, no?) is dying, if not completely dead. Now, I think we need to kill another rumor: Jose Reyes to the Yankees in 2012.
This is not going to happen. It doesn’t make sense on a few levels, so, please, let’s try our best to kill this rumor before it even gets legs. First of all, there’s Derek Jeter. If you didn’t know, that guy plays shortstop for the Yankees and is under contract for next year…and the year after…and the year after. Reyes is the better shortstop. He is also the better bet to be a productive hitter over the next three to five years. If Derek Jeter’s contract were ending after this year, it would be a no brainer. But, that’s not the case. As silly as it sounds, the best reason for not signing Jose Reyes is that it would be an absolute logistical nightmare.
So Reyes plays shortstop and Jeter plays…? Can’t play third unless A-Rod becomes the full time DH, and I don’t think that’s necessary. Plus, can Jeter handle third at this point? I’m not sure he has the raw arm strength nor the reaction time to man the hot corner. Can he play left field? Well, theoretically yes but that’s likely to result in a huge negative in many ways. 1. Brett Gardner is a brilliant left fielder. Moving him off of LF for a guy who’s a) old and b) never played the outfield before would probably be pretty dumb. You could, theoretically, do this if you let Nick Swisher walk, move Curtis Granderson to right, and play Gardner in center field, and have Jeter in left with Reyes at short. This would work if not for reason #2: Derek Jeter has, obviously, never played left field. He’s not only a defensive question mark, but an offensive question mark at this point. We’re at 1,032 plate appearances of just bad hitting from Jeter between 2010 and 2011. His bat more or less plays at shortstop, but it would be a complete loss in left field. Brett Gardner makes up for his lack of typical corner power with fantastic defense. I don’t think Derek Jeter can do that. For the Yankees to enact this plan, they would have to be sure of a lot of things, these at the least:
1. That Jeter can handle left field.
2.That Jeter’s bat can bounce back.
3. That Brett Gardner can handle CF (probably the surest thing of all).
4. That Nick Swisher won’t bounce back from what’s been (overall) a sub-par year for him (though he’s hit well since May 2nd at .235/.381/.432, not including last night’s 3-4, 4 RBI performance).
Aside from the logistics of moving players around, there’s the contract itself. At this point, you have to figure that 5/100 is the starting point for Jose Reyes and I don’t think the Yankees want to gamble on a five year contract to a shortstop who, though fantastic when healthy, is pretty dependent on his legs for offense.
A switch hitting shortstop who plays good defense, can run, and hits for some power? Sign me up, right? If only. I would love to see Jose Reyes on the Yankees, and in a perfect world, a vacuum, he would be on the Yankees in 2012. Sadly, we don’t live in that world. Please, people, don’t pump this growing narrative.
P.S.
Speaking of young shortstops, I had a lot of fun watching Starlin Castro this weekend. He’s definitely raw, but his arm strength is something to behold and it seemed like everything he hit against Yankee pitching was driven into a gap. Enjoy watching this guy for years, Cubs fans; it definitely looks like you’ve got something special in that (very) young man.
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10 Responses to With one rumor dead, another needs to die
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Like virtually everyone who has been a Yankee fan since Jeter made the team I have been a big supporter and follower of him. That makes watching him play these past two years very hard and scares the devil out of me about the next 2 to 3 years. I really wish he would call it quits after this year, but I know that is only a wish. The team would be much better with Reyes at short, but you are absolutely correct — it ain’t gonna happen.
We’re a long way from the days when Ruben Sierra said that the Yankees don’t care about their players, they only care about winning.
Excellent post on all points, Matt. I’ve been shocked by the number of Met fans I know talking about Reyes getting traded to the Yankees like it’s a sure thing. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re dopey and don’t realize that Jeter is a major block to this possibility or they’ve just been conditioned to think the worst because of the Wilpon Era.
And while we’re at it, can we also eliminate the “Cash is trying to work his way out of town” rumor. I’m sick of that being the first card that people play every time he says something or the team makes a move.
It pains me to talk seriously about Jeter’s decline. I hope that he a: becomes more productive offensively after his return or b: realizes he isn’t what he once was and retires before he’s a true negative to the team.
That said, I wouldn’t touch Jose Reyes under any circumstances at 5 years. 3 years at most. His injuries just scare me too much. As you said, “when healthy …”. I just don’t trust him to be healthy and productive over a 5 year period.
I just don’t have enough faith in Reyes staying healthy and his contract will be massive, a simple no-go for me (though when he is healthy he is quite fun to watch). I actually think Nunez could be our future shortstop, that is assuming he learns to field and throw a ball, but this should come with time (he has been doing a fair amount of position switching so I’ll give him a break for now). He has good defensive range, an okay hitter (I project .280′s like) with a little pop (15-20 HR) and good speed (25-30 SB). He probably won’t turn into a Derek Jeter, but I can handle those numbers from a shortstop.
.280, 15, 30 is a pretty high projection IMO. I think he’s more a .260 guy, who can hit 8-12 HRs, with 20-30 steals. But I think that is the max on his potential. I would love for him to turn into that though, he would be an upper echelon short stop with the numbers you are putting up.
Yeah my estimate was a little closer to his ceiling, but I could easily see some .270 13 HR 20 SB years in the future. He has some great tools but only time will tell if he can put them all together.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but Eduardo Nunez had a .095 IsoP in over 2,700 minor league plate appearances. He’s showed some pop at the ML level, but there’s nothing in his background that shows he’s going to hit for too much power.
He hit 30 home runs in his minor league career so I have a hard time believing he’ll average 13 a season any time soon.
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