The Yankees agreed to trade A.J. Burnett to the Pirates yesterday, two days before their pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to Spring Training. With less than 24 hours officially remaining in their offseason, let's round up the latest news surrounding the team…
- Burnett will take his physical tomorrow and final approval of the trade from the commissioner's office is likely to come Monday afternoon, reports Erik Boland of Newsday (on Twitter).
- Even after the Burnett trade, the Yankees have room in the budget for Eric Chavez or a left-handed DH but not both, according to Joel Sherman of The New York Post (Twitter links). Team executives plan to meet after the trade becomes official to discuss whether room can be made for both.
- The Yankees still prefer Raul Ibanez to Johnny Damon because he's better against right-handed pitchers and on defense, but Damon is not entirely off the board according to Sherman (on Twitter). MLBTR readers were split pretty evenly between those two (and Vladimir Guerrero) in this morning's poll about the club's DH spot.
- Hiroki Kuroda reported to camp today and spoke to reporters (including Chad Jennings of The Journal News) about his decision to stay with the Dodgers at the trade deadline last year. The 37-year-old right-hander also wouldn't commit to any plans beyond this season.
- Joe Brescia of The New York Times chatted briefly with Gene Michael, the team's former GM and current advisor to Brian Cashman. He talked about the Jesus Montero–Michael Pineda trade, the difference between how the Yankees are run now compared to George Steinbrenner's heyday, and more.
Wait wait wait. So even AFTER this trade we don’t have enough for both? I’m sorry but that is total BS. Posturing to get the DH’s to lower asking price? I thought Ibanez was relatively cheap already?
It was just poor wording.
Ibanez is not better than Damon defensively. Also, if they don’t have room in their budget (I don’t believe that though) for both Chavez and a left handed DH, then just get Chavez. Yes he’s the most likely out of the 3 to get injured, but he would be far more valuable than Damon or Ibanez.
LOL, saying that you prefer Ibanez to Damon defensively is like saying that you prefer fat chicks as opposed to cripples.
And i would have to say Ibanez is probably slightly better than damon, strictly because of arm strength. Raul’s arm is not a total liability, where as both of them have lost any semblance of range long ago.
If you do it based on arm strength, then I guess Vlad would be the best of the 3?
but Vlad bats right and can’t play D anymore at all. I’m a huge Vlad fan and really hope he gets a shot somewhere. I mean if you are a crappy team why not take a chance on him and give your fans a chance to see a hall of famer. There should be several teams that fit this bill.
Correct, Vlad can’t play D, and Ibanez is getting worse and worse. Damon while nothing great or anything, is a lot better defensively than both of them.
“The Yankees still prefer Raul Ibanez to Johnny Damon because he’s better against right-handed pitchers and on defense”. As bad as Ibanez is defensively he is still much better than Damon. Damon’s arm strength has a range equal to Stephen Hawking’s.
Just because Damon’s arm is terrible doesn’t mean he’s worse defensively than Ibanez. Brett Gardner doesn’t have the greatest of arms and he’s arguably the best defensive OFer in baseball.
DUDE……. If he were the best defensive outfielder in baseball he would be playing center field for your team. Ellsbury is better for one. There are several OF’s who are better than Grdner. He’s a nice player and a very good defender but lets not get crazy ok…
Ellsbury is certainly not a better fielder. He takes poor routes and just allows his speed to make up for it. Gardner won the Fielding Bible award, which is based on defensive metrics rather than popularity+offense like gold gloves. Granderson is NOT the better defender. He was just put there because he is viewed as a franchise player.
Ellsbury is certainly not a better fielder. He takes poor routes and just allows his speed to make up for it. Gardner won the Fielding Bible award, which is based on defensive metrics rather than popularity+offense like gold gloves. Granderson is NOT the better defender. He was just put there because he is viewed as a franchise player.
The reason he is not playing CF is because of Curtis Granderson. Gardner has played CF many times before. 1186 innings in CF with a UZR of 21.2, which is better than Ellsbury, although Ellsbury has played over 2000 more innings in CF. Ellsbury has a career UZR in CF of 6.2 which is still very good.
ok so the Yankees play an inferior player at a premium position because of his contract and b.s. sabermetrics? Since Gardner is playing LF have you considered that his “uzr” is inflated due to that? I’m not a Yankee fan and I do think Garner is a very good player but he is not the best defensive Outfielder in the game. If he were….and is….then it is a crime he is not playing the most premium defensive OF position on a winning team. Granderson is better by the way…just sayin…
MB923 only used Gardner’s UZR rating in CF.
Where have you been the last 3 years? Gardner is the best defensive outfielder in Baseball!
so that’s why Gardner consistently ranks as 1 of the top defenders in the OF? and he’s in LF because of Granderson, and we all know Gardner is better at CF than Granderson
Gardner’s UZR the past two years has been 31.8 and 29.5. If that isn’t the best defensive outfielder in baseball then I don’t know what is. He is being compared to other left fielders here, but you put him in center and he’s still a +20-25 UZR player.
Gardner is a good defensive OFer but he is no way the best by any analysis.
Who’s better?
Why do they need a Always hurt replacement for a third baseman who is always hurt? Why not let a farm kid back up a rod?
Arod is always hurt?
ya…what planet have you been living on????
How about finding a shortstop who can field the position, sliding Jeter to third, and using ARod as the DH.
I know Cashman isn’t intellectually advanced enough to consider run prevention, but it might actually be better to find a shortstop with range, rather than adding an eighty-four-year-old DH.
Yes, let’s let the Yankees learn some advice from the Houston Astros.
And if you’re not smart enough to understand that Jeter is there because those above Cashman WANT him there and that Arod is going to be the for the next 5 or 6 years because someone OTHER than Cashman decided to give him another 10 year deal then I simply am without words for you.
Cashman is trying to make the best of somethings that are forced on him.
Cashman is a terrible GM. It is evident in his small moves just as much as his bigger contracts. The Orioles were smart enough to move Cal to third when the time came. Did that have an impact on the fanbase?
Its pretty clear that you have no idea what you are saying
Yup what does cashman know about putting together a winning team.
Presumably, he knows that having a lot of money can reduce the importance of logical analysis. We all know about his struggles with that.
”
We all know about his struggles with that.”
And what is your source for that? Clearly you are bitter that your club is not a good ball club and you just wish you were as good as the Yankees (who I am not saying is the best team in baseball by the way)
The source of that is logical analysis of his tenure. Some of us take pride in coming up with our own thoughts. Everything opinion that I put forward does not have to come from the Yankees website.
Ummmmm, okay?
I am really not sure how anyone picks Ibanez over Damon here…
If I had a choice here, I would go with Damon without question because apart from what in my opinion is obvious skill advantages, Damon has also already played in New York. He has proven himself in the pressure cooker of the AL East for years on 3 different teams against AL East pitching and with the amazing pressure of playing in Boston and New York. Ibanez has done none of these things, and while he has played in arguably one of the craziest sports towns on earth, that division is nowhere close to as deep as the AL East, the Phillies are divisional favorites by a long shot.
On top of that even, I watched Ibanez last year and he looked like a beaten player, his enthusiasm seemed down, his numbers were down and bringing that attitude into New York would be bad for the team and the chemistry.
I go with Damon all the way here without a shadow of a doubt.
Ibanez has played in the AL. He’s also played in Philly were the media is not equal to NY but is pretty intense as well. The transition from NL to AL isn’t as significant for a hitter as it is for a pitcher.
Also, never have I heard anyone say anything negative about Ibanez and his personality.
To me, there isn’t a great difference between Ibanez and Damon. However, as much as I like Damon can we PLEASE quit with the bromance many Yankee fans seem to have for him. He’s not the JD of 2009. The sooner we can remember that then the clearer we can judge things.
Ibanez has more power and should hit for more hrs in NYS. Offensively, the only thing JD offers over RI is speed.
The bromance and damons legacy are both good reasons to pick ibanez over damon, if damon falters i feel the yankees will be alot more willing to cut him loose. While damon may just stick around
Hahaha. In the article it says the yanks are run differently then they were under George Steinbrener. Uh then why do they still have a 200 million dollar payroll. I mean that is so unfair. All the yank fans say oh teams with lower payrolls get in the playoffs and win the world series. Thats true. But with that payroll they have you are pretty much guaranteed to make the playoff every year. Money might not win championships every year but it guarantees a shot at one because the playoffs is all about who is hot at the right time.
“Uh then why do they still have a 200 million dollar payroll. I mean that is so unfair.”
It’s unfair for a business to maximize all of it’s resources? If money guarantees a shot at the playoffs, why have the Red Sox missed it, two years in arrow or the Mets?
The red sox payroll is 50 million less then NY. Thats a big difference
Not the point!!! The Red Sox have all the resources they need and they still have missed the playoffs the last 2 season’s. The Yankees are the most well-operated organization in the history of sports and they have instituted a strong farm system under Cashman and my man Damon Oppenheimer.
200mil gives you a shot at the playoff, but 160-150mil doesn’t? Are you serious right now?
I think the difference is that the Yanks have moved away from the attitude that they have to have every single major free agent each year, they don’t trade prospects for 1 year rentals and the “Ken Phelps’s” of the world and for the MOST part, w/ a few exceptions, Cashman is making the majority of the decisions. He still has to deal with meddling but I would imagine it’s still no comp to when George dictated things back in the 80’s.
If it’s either Chavez or Ibanez … Chavez is the best choice here. He played well in limited time last year. Would love to see him brought back, his swing looked a lot like Don Mattingly’s
I was under the impression that Ibanez was the worst defensive OF’er in baseball last year by a fairly wide margin. His defense alone gave him a -1.3 fWAR for 2011. It was that bad. Damon may have a noodle arm but I seriously doubt he’s worse than Ibanez overall defensively.
And even as a baseball fan that’s pretty indifferent to the Yanks, I’m excited to see how Kuroda and Pineda do for them.
It doesn’t matter whether the Yanks sign Damon or Ibanez when you have Branyon the Bomber to back them up if they aren’t sucessful.
I have no idea what to expect from Branyan. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was very, very good or very, very bad.
Yanks appear to prefer the power of Ibanez.
It’s interesting to watch the “evolving” opinions about Kuroda from Yankee fans. When he stuck with the Dodgers last season, a lot of them said good riddance — if he didn’t want to play for NY, it was because he lacked the desire to win. Turns out, it was really about loyalty to his uniform — something he takes very seriously. Dodger fans already knew that and more about Kuroda. I hope Yankee fans learn to respect this man as much as we did in LA.
What’s not to like about Kuroda? I think many Yankee fans would have been thrilled if he’d been willing to accept a trade to the Yankees last year. I know I would have.
I’m not the one talking Kuroda down, far from it, but lots of Yankee fans were last summer. After he decided to stay in LA I got into several long drawn-out arguments with Yankee fans who were questioning whether he had enough “desire to win.” These were from fans who’d probably never seen him pitch and were basing their opinions about his personality on nothing more than whether he was willing to walk away from the Dodgers and play for the Yankees in mid-season.
The only thing I’d be concerned about with Kuroda is that he gave up a career-high 24 HR’s last year. While it did come in a year where he threw a career high in innings (202), in 2010 he gave up 15 HR’s in 196.1 innings. As a Dodger fan, I hope he does well, but we’ll see how he does in Yankee Stadium
More HRs and fewer runs. Sounds like a good tradeoff to me.
Is anybody worried that Ibanez’s stats may be an illusion based on having a very hitter friendly home ballpark?
His Home/Road OPS split in 2010:
Home .881/Road ..705
His Home/Road OPS split in 2011:
Home .833/Road .577
I’ve read that his swing is tailor made for Yankee Stadium. But still…