While the Yankees get a lot of flack for stockpiling veterans, Joel Sherman of the New York Post doesn't believe that having an older team is inherently problematic. Older players can often clog things up for promising young players but in the Yankees' case, veterans are actually helping the club stall for time as they wait for Michael Pineda or Manuel Banuelos to bounce back from arm surgeries. Here's more out of the AL and NL East..
- Ken Davidoff of the New York Post writes that the Mets can't overspend on David Wright or R.A. Dickey just to satisfy fans. The Mets are understandably more open to a contract extension for Wright than they are for Dickey and the third baseman's value is much easier to peg. Wright and the Mets can start from the Nationals' deal with Ryan Zimmerman (six-years, $100MM) while there's no easy comparison for a 38-year-old knuckleballer at Dickey's level.
- Orioles Executive Vice President Dan Duquette told Jim Bowden of SiriusXM (via Twitter) that the club should not be expected to go after "high ticket" acquisitions this winter and doesn't see them doing anything as major as the Blue Jays' mega-deal. The O's have been mentioned as a player for Josh Hamilton but ESPN.com's Buster Olney recently cautioned that they're not expected to be overly aggressive in their pursuit of him.
- However, the Baltimore exec wouldn't completely rule out a play for Hamilton or Zack Greinke, Bowden tweets. However, it doesn't seem like they plan on being serious contenders for either free agent given their financial constraints and Duquette's other comments in the interview.
- Also from the SiriusXM interview (transcript provided by Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com), Duquette discussed Friday's deadline to offer arbitration to Mark Reynolds. "If we bring back Mark Reynolds, that will help our ballclub," Duquette said. "If we don't bring back Mark Reynolds, I know we have some people in-house that are very capable of doing that job." On Thanksgiving, MLBTR's Tim Dierkes named Reynolds a non-tender candidate.
Edward Creech contributed to this post.
