A.J. Burnett will likely not be a Yankee a week from now. We’ve all heard that various teams, but most notably the Pirates, are willing to take on somewhere between $10-15 million of Burnett’s salary over two seasons. While it’s entirely possible that the Yankees will pocket the savings, I suspect that the extra cash will be heading somewhere on the Yankee roster.
Some of that will go the a designated hitter, but I don’t think too much of it will. We’ve already heard this offseason that the Yankees did have a few million available to fill the position, and it’s not like Johnny Damon et al. are fielding tons of free agent offers. The Yankees shouldn’t need to dip too far into the budget to fill that position from a current free agent. That means that the extra savings of $5-8 million could be used for another purpose. I think there are three possibilities:
- Contract extensions. With free agency on the near or medium-term horizon for Granderson, Cano, and Swisher, the Yankees may opt to lock one of them up early. Cano in particular could get a raise over his current $14 million to something like $18 million, in a long term extension. Another possibility, albeit more remote, could be a Michael Pineda extension.
- Trade for a DH. Instead of a cheaper free agent, the extra salary room would open up some opportunities for the Yankees to expand their pool of potential designated hitters. Bobby Abreu and Travis Hafner’s names have come up, but I’m sure there exist plenty of creative opportunities out there.
- A midseason acquisition. Halfway through the season, $5-8 million buys the Yankees a $10-16 million rental contract in a salary dump.
Either way, I think it’s worth remembering that while the Yankee roster is strong right now, it will probably improve further once the Burnett business is out of the way. The trade is both an addition-by-subtraction deal and an opportunity opener.
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4 Responses to Where Is Burnett’s Salary Going to Go To?
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TIQ IQ
It should be noted that the savings would most likely be spread over 2 years, not just this season. It’s unlikely the Yankees would view the entire 10-15M savings as money to be spent this season, especially since its been reported that they had to expand the budget already to fit Kuroda.
Are you really thinking Cano gets an AAV of 18 million on his next deal? Or is that just a one year total? Because I’ve been think this whole time that between his production over the last several years and his agent he’s going to get 20+ million per season. I’d sign up for 18 right now.
8 year/ 144 million dollar contract for Cano. I’d be more than happy to do that.
I think the savings to go Miguel Montero at the trade deadline
I’m not so hot on 8 years. I don’t want a 37 or 38 year old Cano on the Yankees. Cano doesn’t seem like his skill set is the best for late career success, unless he dramatically picks up his walk rate. He also isn’t likely to fit at DH as he gets older so he’d be trotting out to 2B or maybe 3B everyday at 36+. Second basemen already have a track record of not aging well, combine that with his skill set and I’m wary of even 7 years. I’ll go 7 years just because we have to, but I’d rather ink him now to the 7 year deal if we can keep it under 20 million. I still have a feeling he’s going to ask for,and get, more than 20 million AAV.
Why would the Diamondbacks trade M. Montero? They made it to the playoffs last year with pretty much the same team, though with Cahill there rotation should be better this year. So at the very least they should be buyers at the deadline trying to make it to the playoffs again. I also see no advantage for the Yankees to make a trade for M. Montero at all. We have Martin all year long, if he gets hurt things may change but I have a feeling they would be fine with Romine or Cervelli for a month or so long abscence. Why trade Banuelos or someone like that for a player you can just sign at the end of the year, for a position you already have an above average starter at. In the offseason M. Montero makes all the sense in the world, though his price may mean the team passes to try and make it under 189 million. In that case I expect Martin to be back on a 3 or 4 year deal.