BREAKING NEWS: Yankees Re-Sign Hiroki Kuroda

There aren't any details on the money yet, but the Yankees and Hiroki Kuroda have reportedly agreed to a new 1-year deal.  Normally I'd wait to get a few more details before posting, but when the tweet confirming the deal is coming from Buster Olney, that's good enough for me.

Kuroda was always the top priority this offseason, and it's good that this has now been resolved.  There's still a lot of work to do, but at least there's one space we can fill in on the open roster card for next season.  More details to come...

** UPDATE- 6:43PM- The deal is worth $15 million for next season, with a little less than $1 mil worth of incentives.  Sounds like a good deal for both sides.  Yanks and Kuroda both get the 1-year deal they wanted, and Hirok gets the raise he deserved and earned with his 2012 performance. **

Billions Of Dollars, Billions Of Dollars...

(Relevant)

That's what the Yankees are worth.  Forbes magazine's annual list of the most valuable sports franchises from June of this year had the Yankees tied for 3rd with the Dallas Cowboys at an estimated $1.85 billion.  The YES Network is worth even more than that, an estimated $3 billion according to recent reports, and that number stands to go up in the years to come with News Corp. in line to purchase a 49% stake in the network.  While that deal shouldn't and in all likelihood won't affect the way things are run on the baseball side of the organization, part of me can't help but try to connect this move clearly designed to make more money with the baseball side's efforts to cut costs this and next offseason.

Situation Heating Up With Ibanez

I'll just make this quick to try to avoid it veering off into another talk about roster rigidity and an older-than-dirt team actively seeking to make itself older.

According to Ken Davidoff, the Yankees have progressed from the "preliminary discussions" portion of their offseason courting process to the "significant interest" stage with respect to re-signing Raul Ibanez.  Ibanez hit .240/.308/.453 last season, and punctuated his first season in pinstripes with some of the most dramatic home runs in a long time.  His first-ballot election into the "True Yankee" club notwithstanding, Ibanez would be best as the DH-only bench piece he was supposed to be this season.  If the Yankees are interested in him being any more than that, then actively pursuing him this early in the offseason is probably a mistake.