The 27-23 Yankees sit in third place in the American League East and the 28-23 Mets occupy third place in the National League East. Here's the latest from New York on an off day for the city's two teams…
- Baseball officials are skeptical that Melky Cabrera can sustain his performance as an elite player, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports. However, there’s no denying that Cabrera has played at an All-Star level since the 2011 season. “He has turned into one of the better hitters in the league,” Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers said. Sherman chronicles Cabrera’s journey from extra outfielder in New York to middle-of-the-order hitter in San Francisco.
- Sherman suggests the budget conscious Yankees will probably not sign Cabrera or Nick Swisher when the switch-hitting outfielders hit free agency after the season.
- Ken Davidoff of the New York Post offers a template for how the Mets can handle David Wright’s contract status in the coming months and years. Davidoff suggests the Mets offer Wright an extension later this year — maybe $115MM for six years — and exercise their 2013 club option if he declines to sign. The Mets could then listen to trade offers for the third baseman and make a deal if an exceptional offer emerged. Though the Mets can’t control the result of their discussions with Wright, they can manage the process, Davidoff writes.
Sabean may indeed be the only GM who would be willing to give a LT contract out to Cabrera with Hendry and Molina gone. Good thing for Cabrera that Sabean is still around.
Some other GM would probably be willing to give him 2 w/an option, but anything over that is very risky.
Agreed. If the Giants do not give him an extension and IF Cabrera has a good slash line at the end of the year, I think the Yankees should let Swisher go and take a chance on Melky. He would cost them much less.
I really think Swish is the perfect Yankee stadium player with his power from the LH side, but if Cabrera would sign for only those 2 years and an option? They would pretty much have to go with the younger player who seems to have shown he is on an upswing like Cabrera has the last 1 and a half seasons and then hope he can continue.
Melky will get A LOT more than 2 yrs. Two years in a row (albeit if this year’s success continues), was a burnout who has shown he knows what it takes now to be successful. 27 yr old, the atypical peak of baseball players is 28-32 when they build experience. The kind of player every team will want
The Melkman showed flashes of these talents many times in NY, but never quite tossed it all together. I think its easy to assume he can’t keep hitting like 2011 because people have seen him play five years without hitting like this. Problem with that is people forget how young he was during that time, his first semi-regular season was at the age of 21. Now after being in both leagues a bit the guy is in his prime (27), and though I don’t think he could possibly be the second coming of Pete Rose or Ichiro (Like he is playing now), I do think he could consistently hit between .290 and .300 for the next six years or so. With a good average, and his little bit of speed and pop he could be on that fringe elite level for a bit.
The chances of Swisher being re-signed by the Yankees are slim and none at least to a long term contract. I have no doubt the Yankees will make him a qualifying offer of about $12.5M for 1 year just so they get the draft choice of whichever team signs him long term.
If the Yankees are intent on getting to the $189MM Luxury Tax threshold both Swisher and Martin are luxuries the Yankees can not afford. Although based on Martins offensive performance so far he’s hardly a luxury period.
‘The budget conscious Yankees’, you don’t hear that too often.
If Melky just hits to his career BABIP (.309) the rest of the year he’ll finish roughly .325, with 30+ 2B, 12 or so 3B, dozen HRs, 20-25 SB and very solid LF defense. Uh, I’m definitely down with that. I don’t know if I’d give him “The Rowand” but I’d think 4×40 or so, especially if the Giants part ways with Pagan since they’ll have like 1.25 decent-ish OFs left.
I also think he’ll see a slight uptick in pitches to hit when Pablo comes back. Not that Posey isn’t great protection, but it’s one thing to have Cabrera followed by Posey-Pagan and another to have him followed by a permutation of Posey and Pablo
…of course, if he hits for his career BABIP all year during the future years for which you sign him, he’ll be his regular old .265/.310/.440 self. and that’s assuming the power doesn’t regress as well
1. His career OBP is .336 (not that that is fantastic), but it isn’t .310
2. I don’t think it’s fool-hearty to expect some difference between his early career and his current prime
3. He’ll definitely lose some dingers in AT&T, but he should be pretty solid for additional 2B and 3B due to his gap-to-gap nature
and his career average is .281, not .265. completely misses the point
the difference between his early career and his “current prime” is already reflected in his career numbers, which are skewed upwards now. if we controlled for those, the BABIP would be more like .285 than .306 and the slash line would be even worse
the point here is that you don’t give him a contract based on the fact that he could regress this year and still end up with a great season because of a crazy couple of months. you give him a contract based on projected future performance. projecting a normalized BABIP means projecting the same player he’s always been – with a little extra power, maybe
I refuse to believe the Yankees, of all teams, will just let Swisher walk, given the power and consistency he’s provided for them. Also, Swisher swears up and down that he LOVES being a Yankee. Add to that the fact that nobody has ever stated Swisher’s truly perceived value on the open market.
I could see Swish and the Yanks coming to a 2 year/$25MM extension or something along those lines, unless, that is, Swisher gets a 4-5 year offer in the $14-16MM range as he very well could.
I acknowledge my bias. I’ve been a huge Swisher fan since his debut in Oakland and it’s been a dream come true to watch him play, succeed and lead on my hometown Yankees.
If Cabrera has another 200 hit season, that would be an elite player. That would be like Rose and Garvey. If Cabrera waits until the end of the season, he would get a better contract.
I don’t think the Yankees will let Swisher walk. Who else fills RF for them and who else hits in his spot?
Melky is 27 years old!! He is reaching his potential. Seems to me after last season and this season, he is just “Getting it”!