2014 Storylines: Platoon City

(Kelly Johnson, king of the platoon possibilities.  Courtesy of Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News)

As baseball continues to evolve and become more specialized, platoons have become a common part of most team's lineups.  Rather than plug 1 player with a skill or 2 and a weakness or 2, or a substantial hitting split, into a full-time role, teams have learned that it's more valuable to split those roles up among 2 players to cover for their combined weaknesses and lessen the negative effect of that hitting split.  The Red Sox and the Rays are 2 teams that have utilized the platoon strategy to great success recently, and it's no coincidence that they've been 2 of the best teams in the American League.

The Yankees' strategy when it comes to platoons has been more reactionary over the past few seasons.  Rather than proactively attempt to build a lineup that includes 1 or 2 platoons, their attempts at utilizing them usually come as a response to injuries to their everyday starters.  That's a dangerous strategy to employ when the core of your lineup is as old as the Yankees' has been, and their failure to adequately prepare for the injury situations that have arisen in part led to the carousel of suck we saw at third base and shortstop in 2013.

The strategy has taken a small step forward with this season's roster construction, although it hasn't fully made the leap to completely proactive.  The Yankees enter the 2014 season with an array of platoon situations, some born out of injury-related necessity and some out of proactive strategy.  The effectiveness of these various platoons will be a season-long factor in determining how good this team can be.

Jeter Says He's Been Working Out For 2 Months, Confirms What I Most Feared About Last Offseason & Already Knew About His Medical Skills

 

(Courtesy of the AP)

Saw the highlights of Derek Jeter's MLB Network interview over on LoHud this morning and his comments on his offseason workout status stood out the most to me, for obvious reasons:

“I feel good. It’s been a good offseason. Last year at this point, literally I’d just come out of the boot. I’ve been working hard since the beginning of November. … I don’t know if I learned anything (from last season), I just had more time. It’s my fault. Look, I rushed to get back. I wanted to be back. I set the goal for Opening Day. I don’t know how real that goal was, but set it, and it’s my fault. I really didn’t have enough time, or I didn’t take enough time. I wasn’t careful like I should have been.”

Couple of things here, one good and the other not so good.

Report: Tanaka Will Be Posted

(Courtesy of Getty Images)

It's a Christmas miracle!  After a few months of waiting, a negotiation of new posting rules between MLB and NPB that took longer than expected, and a report last week to the contrary, the Yankees and the rest of MLB got some good news yesterday when the Rakuten Golden Eagles announced that they will in fact post Masahiro Tanaka this offseason.  I'm so late to the game that I don't even know who had the story first, but most reports said the posting could happen quickly, possibly as soon as today.

This is big news for the Yankees and the report they were hoping to get after the new posting details came out.  Their biggest current need is another top flight starter and they were hoping that Tanaka would be that.  They've shown no willingness to entertain the rest of the top MLB free agents as backup plan options, and Tanaka represents everything their rotation needs.

Whenever he is posted, I fully expect them to go in guns blazing with a big contract offer and the full $20 million posting bid.  Because of the new posting rules, Tanaka's contract will be worth more in terms of AAV, enough that it will probably push the Yankees over the luxury tax threshold.  But they can't worry about that when it comes to a pitcher with Tanaka's ceiling and I don't expect that they will.  If they're going to break through that ceiling, this is the player to do it for.

Whenever Tanaka is posted, the Yanks will have 30 days to work out a deal for him.  There will definitely be other teams in the mix, but I have to think New York is the early favorite to sign him.

MLB And NPB Officially Announce New Posting Rules

The details have slowly been coming out on the new posting system over the past few weeks, but Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball made it official today with the announcement that an agreement has been reached and the new posting system will go into effect today and for the next 3 years.  The major details of the new posting system are:

• $20 million maximum bid limit, paid only if a team submitting it agrees to a deal with the player being posted.
• Negotiating rights for any MLB team who pays the maximum $20 million posting fee.
• 30-day window after the player is posted for all MLB teams to agree to submit the posting fee set by the NPB team and negotiate a new contract with the posted player.
• Fee payment for the winning MLB team to come in installments set by the NPB team.  NPB team has the right to set the posting fee for any player at any level they want up to the $20 million cap.

There's good and bad in this system for the Yankees, which doesn't detract from the fact that it was a complete screwjob to the Yankees by the have-nots in MLB.  It also won't mean much for them this offseason if the Rakuten Golden Eagles decide not to post Masahiro Tanaka.  He's their only real target for the rotation in this year's free agent class, and I highly doubt the team would be happy using a Phelps or a Warren in the rotation in place of Tanaka.  His club has all the power right now, and the last I read they were leaning towards not posting him and trying to convince him to stay for 1 more year.  If that happens, this new system won't mean much to the Yankees until the 2014 offseason.

A Quick Look At The Current 25-Man Roster

There was no shortage of needs for the Yankees heading into the offseason, and there's been no shortage of activity on their part to address those needs.  In less than 3 weeks, they've spent $307 million to upgrade at catcher (Brian McCann), the outfield (Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran), the infield (Kelly Johnson, Brendan Ryan), and the rotation (Hiroki Kuroda).  Losing Robinson Cano to Seattle was a big blow to their rebuild plan, but they continue to move forward without him and try to find a way to replace his lost production.

With the Winter Meetings coming and passing without any new developments this week, it's as good a time as any to stop for a minute and evaluate what the Yankee 25-man roster would look like if the regular season started today.

Aggressive Yankee Offseason Approach Being Thwarted On Multiple Fronts

("Psssst.  Do you think it's time offer Robbie a bonus package based on running hard to first base?"/Courtesy of Getty Images)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

The Yankees entered this offseason knowing they had a lot of work to do.  Luxury tax avoidance goal or not, they were and still are an old team with a ton of roster holes to fill.  Years of focusing their efforts on older free agents, overpaying to retain some of their own, and sticking to their outdated and foolish team policy of not negotiating new deals while they still had team control over guys has caught up to them, and the Yankees find themselves very much in need of a makeover this offseason to avoid slipping into another down era.

To their credit, the Yankees prepared themselves well for this offseason and have been among the most, if not the most active team since the offseason officially began.  They've been engaged with nearly every big name MLB free agent, they've done extensive research and scouting of the top international free agents, and they've been proactive in trying to re-sign their own free agents that they're interested in keeping.  Yet despite their best efforts, and despite multiple assurances by the highest-ranking front office members that they would not, the Yankees find themselves being slowed down and even delayed in executing many of their big offseason plans.  It's been frustrating to say the least and potentially problematic if the team is still trying to build their next championship contender on a luxury-tax avoiding budget.

The A-Rod Appeal Resumes

(Photo courtesy of Sweeny Murti)

The sides were back together yesterday for the continuation of Alex Rodriguez's suspension appeal against Major League Baseball.  After not being well enough to make it to New York for a scheduled interview with MLB last Friday, The Horse was in good enough shape to rejoin his legal team yesterday (yay!).

This is supposed to be the final session for this hearing and the early word is that it will go continuously through the next 10 days if needed.  No breaks, no taking weekends off, it sounds like the goal is to get the hearing wrapped up by Thanksgiving so the arbitrator can take his time needed to consider everything and hand down his ruling.  That could take another 3-4 weeks, which would push the decision into late December, after the Winter Meetings are over.  A-Rod, Bud Seling, and Randy Levine could all be called to testify during this session.

The Yankees have been saying all along that they're operating under the assumption that A-Rod and his salary will be around next season, but their aggressive actions on the free agent market speak otherwise.  If something unexpected happens and A-Rod's suspension is completely lifted, we'll see how true those "payroll goal" statements really are.

Jeter Says He Expects To Play Shortstop Next Year

The Yankees have seemingly been doing everything in their power to prepare for Derek Jeter no longer being their everyday shortstop in 2014.  They met with Stephen Drew's agent at this week's GM meeting, they're reportedly close to a deal with Brendan Ryan, who took over the starting job in September when Jeter hit the DL again, and they paid him more money than they needed to in an apparent attempt to appease The Captain and keep him from causing problems in the media.

As expected, none of that has changed Jeter's mentality this offseason.  He's started his workout program already and speaking to reporters at a Joe Torre foundation fundraiser this week he had this to say about his expectations for next year:

"My job is to play short. It’s been my job since I came up, and it will continue to be my job. I understand the concerns because of everything that went down last year, so I understand that, but I’ll be ready to go."

I'm sure Jeter is going to do everything in his power to get his body ready to play shortstop next season.  What I'm not so sure of is how well it, particularly that ankle, is going to hold up to the rigors of playing everyday after basically taking a year off to heal.  The body doesn't just ramp back up to the everyday physical grind at age 40 like it did at 35, 30, or 25.  I think the fact that his ankle is good enough to do leg strengthening exercises regularly is a great sign, but the real test will come when the ST games start.  If Jeter can't play every day then, there's little reason to expect he'll be able to once the regular season starts.

Report: No Progress On The Cano Contract Talks

The Yankees made a qualifying offer to Robinson Cano on Monday.  He has until next Monday to make a decision on it, which will 100% assuredly be a decision to decline.  Other than that it's been all quiet on the Cano contract front with not a lick of new information, from the Yankee side, the Cano side, or from the rest of MLB.  Maybe it's just me, but that seems a tad strange for the premiere position player in this year's free agent crop.

According to Dan Martin, there has been "no recent movement involving Cano and the Yankees."  This comes over a month after both sides made waves in the media with their reported asking prices and offers and over 2 weeks after the Dodgers apparently took themselves out of the running by signing Cuban infielder Alexander Guerrero.  It's still very early but the market for Cano hasn't come together at all, something that may work in the Yankees' favor.  The longer it goes without any other teams getting in the mix, the more leverage the Yankees should gain in trying to re-sign Cano to something closer to their desired 7-year/$161 million deal.

A-Rod's Offseason Battles Starting To Hinder The Yankees' Offseason Plans

(Courtesy of Anthony Delmundo/NY Daily News)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

There are a lot of words you could use to describe the back-and-forth mud slinging in the media between Alex Rodriguez's legal camp and Major League Baseball right now.  Hilarious, ridiculous, and pathetic are a few that come mind.  But how about problematic?  While the verbal haymakers being thrown don't appear to have much impact on the Yankees as a team, the dragging out of the process is going to become a big problem now that the offseason and free agency have started.

Who knows what's going to happen with Alex's "witch hunt" lawsuit against MLB.  I'm sure he and his lawyers thought filing it would help strengthen their suspension appeal case, but with the way things are going between both sides in the media you have to think the arbitrator won't be swayed too much by it.  The real concern from the Yankees' perspective is the appeal hearing and the still lengthy amount of time until it starts again.

Cash Speaks On A-Rod

Brian Cashman was a guest on Ian O'Conner's radio show yesterday and he had a lot to say about Alex Rodriguez and the idea that the Yankees would rather have him suspended and his salary off the books than have him on the field next year.  Cash dismissed the idea that the Yankees would prefer A-Rod to be suspended, citing the lack of available and comparable talent to replace him at third base.  Here's the money quote:

"It's not like going down to a Home Depot and pulling something out that you need that's broke and you've got to fix it.  So ultimately from a baseball operations standpoint, taking out all the areas of controversy, having Alex Rodriguez man third base is obviously by far the best option for the Yankees than what the alternatives would be in theory."

You can decide for yourself how honest you think Cash is being when he makes that statement, but there's plenty of truth in the logic.  Yeah, it's easy to say that having that $27 million off the books is a huge help to the Yankees, but that line of thinking assumes they are going to be able to easily replace A-Rod's presence and production and that's just not the case.  He proved he can still play well when he's healthy in his limited time on the field this season.  Losing that production along with losing the salary commitment does work out to a net loss for the Yankees and it's a loss that's going to be more difficult to overcome than people realize.