Eric Chavez is returning to the Yankees for 2012, officially signing a one-year, $900K deal with incentives. Chavez, 35, will reprise his role as a backup corner infielder and DH for the Yanks. The left-handed hitter posted a .263/.320/.356 line with two homers in 175 plate appearances in the Bronx in 2011, his first season in New York after spending 13 in Oakland.
Though he was once one of the better all-around third basemen in baseball, Chavez has played in no more than 90 games over the past five seasons, so he is strictly a role player at this juncture of his career.
In a corresponding move, the Yankees transferred reliever David Aardsma to the 60-day DL. Chris Dickerson was outrighted recently, so the team's 40-man roster count now stands at 39.
Jon Heyman of CBS Sports first tweeted the agreement on Tuesday, with Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports adding financial details.
I like Chavez. I hope he can stay healthy this season but won’t hold my breath. Welcome back :).
Great signing at a good price.
They spent 2 million between chavez and Ibanez, can they spend another 2 on damon so they don’t have to hand Raul the LH DH spot? or just to have more depth in the outfield
Dickerson and Bill Hall will be there in ST. They can compete for that last spot.
Damon wants 5 though, at least that’s what I heard.
The Yanks already have Branyon as a back up to Raul, plus Ibanez will only be sharing the DH spot. The Yanks couldn’t give Damon enough at bats to keep him happy, plus he want more money than both Ibanez and Chavez are getting combined.
What?!??! I did not see this coming! Out of nowhere!
Good signing. Can you throw Joe Girardi a bone and mention that he broke the signing?
Good for him, great dude…
No surprise here, I like both this and the Ibanez deals. Want to see if Damon will swallow his pride and over valued opinion and be willing to sign somewhere for the $1.5 million he is worth.
Chavez was pretty decent for the Yankees last year before he got hurt. If (big if) he can stay healthy, he’s a solid 3B that can spell A-Rod and not embarrass himself. I’ve got to give the guy credit: he easily could have just called it a career with all his injuries and walk away. The guy has battled through so many injuries and doesn’t cause any clubhouse grief.
Yep. He’s made $76M in his career (according to baseball-reference), so it’d be pretty easy to hang it up. Hopefully he can stay healthy enough to play in 60 or so games.
I don’t see Russell Branyon beating him out now…
Branyon is a backup for Ibanez.
Yes! the team is set!
He hasn’t been decent since 2005 or healthy since 2006 but it won’t cost much and he is probably still half way decent in the field. If he gets more than 200AB for the Yankees though things have gone horribly wrong.
He hasn’t stayed healthy for 200 ABs since 2007. So not an issue!
Cavez is 34
Doesn’t it seem like he should be older? Wow…
Yeah, Andruw Jones too
An interesting wrinkle is that Cash now has an extra $11 million at his disposal if he so chooses…
Well, $3 million this year anyways.
I think the baseball gods owe Chavez a relatively injury-free season, especially since it is likely the last of his career…and hopefully he will win a world championship.
Its a shame that this guy hasnt played a healthy season since he was 27 years old. By this time he had won 6 gold gloves and was a 30 hr guy year in year out. The whole entire prime of his career was robbed by injury. Wish him the best.
Complete homerun for Cashman this off season, the last 2 years he has pushed all the right buttons. Chavez is a good veteran infielder with a decent bat.
The Yanks look to be set now for the season, Chavez is a good veteran back up infielder who is decent with the bat.
Almost all the Yanks are veterans…where is the youth??!
Brett Gardner, Robinson Cano, Russell Martin, and Curtis Granderson are all thirty or younger. Eduardo Nunez will be a major role-player.
In the rotation, Michael Pineda, Ivan Nova, and Phil Hughes are all twenty-five or younger. David Robertson, Boone Logan, and Joba Chamberlain aren’t much older.
The idea that the Yankees are an “old” team is largely tied into the fact that they have a lot of money tied up in a few veterans. But CC Sabathia…Mark Teixiera…Nick Swisher…those guys are still just thirty-one. It seems like those guys are much older since they came up so young.
-wtk
Not a Yankees fan, but i think they’re gonna do good this year! Hope Pineda is a monster! As with Montero. That deal needs to work for both teams as well!
Signing another reliever not named Mo to a multi-year deal: good idea.
/sarcasm
2014 is their possible out from under the luxury tax threshold year. It’s worth a tremendous amount of money that will impact future savings and roster moves. Figgins and Dunn would make that just about unreachable, which is a gigantic cost for two very flawed players. I don’t think Chavez and Ibanez are going to be big contributors, but you have to look down the road to when the Yankees are going to need to spend to replace the old and infirm currently on their roster.
You can’t just assume those trades just happen like that – two, as Mike says below, they’re trying to get below the tax threshold by 2014…that’s what it’s all about.
Absolutely not. Why would you tied up more money over a longer period of time for worse players? What if Dunn doesn’t get better? There is a pretty good chance he’s just done. And Figgins, is that a joke? He might legitimately be the worst player in baseball. Soriano is overpaid but at least he can contribute and provides some value.
Dunn to RF is laughable. Figgins is shot. Gonzalez is washed up. The Yankees have just a good LH options signed to MiL deals. This would be a complete disaster all around. Additionally, why would the Sox want Burnett and why would Seattle want Soriano?
“2014 is their possible out from under the luxury tax threshold year.”
Tex, Sabathia and ARod will account for 70m. Cano’s team option is 14m and then there is Jeter’s PLAYER option of 8m… That is 92m from 5 guys and they still have to figure out what to do with Granderson, Gardner..
No offense, but that cap is an awful lot closer than you may realize already.
No offense taken. I’ve thought of it. It “only” leaves them about another $95MM to fill out the roster. I’m not sure what they are going to do with either Granderson or Gardner, but I really don’t see Jeter playing-he’s a very proud guy. I could be wrong about Gardner, but the market (particularly after Crawford) isn’t placing a super-high value on his type of player. And, for the kind of money we are talking about, the Yankees might just bite the bullet that year and do more of what Cashman (and the Red Sox) are doing this year-working around the edges. They might even do it at the risk of making the playoffs. In the long run, it makes much more sense to have a “bridge year”
I was working backwards, and this is what I got… Start with 207m salary in 2012, and take off the following.
AJ’s 16m, or whatever we’re paying him now, will come off the books, as will half of Jeter’s salary assuming he exercises his player option. Mo’s 15m, (he is human, right?), Soriano’s 14m, and Swisher’s 12m also drops.
So that’s about 60-65m coming off the books. They only need to cut about 20m to get from the current 207m to the target 187m. That leaves roughly 40m to play with. Cano will obviously be re-signed. Grandy, I hope so, but I’m not so sure. Gardner can play center, and hopefully Mason will be up by then in a corner spot. Also, if Cole Hamels or Matt Cain hit free agency, that can screw things up… in a good way. haha
– ECB
That would make sense but if they did try to make it a bridge year, every Yankee fan would try running Cashman out of town (city), they’re just used to being in contention every year that if they take a bridge year they’ll freak out & say “Oh they don’t want to win!”