He isn't Yu Darvish, who could be posted today, but the Yankees did win the posting for Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima yesterday for $2 million. Not a major move by the Bombers, but one that should help bolster the Yankees IF depth if they can negotiate a deal with Nakajima by January 6.
The most important thing about this move may be what other moves it signals the Yankees are interested in making. Allow me a minute to play hypothetical trade carousel. If they sign Nakajima, the Yankees essentially cover second base, third base, and short, filling both the Eduardo Nunez and Eric Chavez roles from last season. This frees them up to use Nunez as a trade chip and they include him in offers to bring in a John Danks or Gio Gonzalez while at the same time coming to an agreement with another team for how much of A.J.'s contract they will eat and moving A.J. for a bag of balls. That would leave the Yankees with their backup infield covered, some more flexibility to fill the other bench spots, and the upgrade for the rotation that they were looking for through both the addition of solid #2 pitcher and the subtraction of their worst pitcher.
I don't see any way any Yankee fan couldn't be happy with that playing out, but first things first, the Yanks have to sign Nakajima. If they don't, they just don't pay the posting fee and they're right back where they were. But if they do, I expect things to start happening and players to start moving quickly afterwards. Even if they don't make any moves after, adding Nakajima is still a smart, cost-effective move to help fill the bench for 2012. There's no really downside to this move by the Yankees.
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