Yankees free agents

The Yankees have a total of 14 players hitting free agency, with the key free agents being Russel Martin,  Nick Swisher, Hiroki Kuroda and depending on the status of Mariano Rivera, Rafael Soriano. The last three of these guys will receive a qualifying offer, but the only one with any chance of accepting the $13.3 million dollar qualifying offer would be Hiroki Kuroda, as Soriano and and Swisher will receive large muti year deals. The Yankees seem likely to move away from Swisher, despite him being the best Right Field option for the Yankees and as I said before the Yankees will only look to retain Soriano if Mariano Rivera retires and even then he may be looking for a deal bigger than the Yankees are willing to provide, considering they have several internal closer options.
Russel Martin is an extremly critical retention for the Yankees and he will likely get a multi year deal from them, because he and and AJ Pierzynski are the only everyday catchers on the market. The Yankees have also expressed intrest in brining back Ichiro Suzuki and Raul Ibanez on short term deals, but I don't know how much playing time Ibanez would get due to the rotating DH for the veteran Yankees. Some people really want Ichiro to return, but he should be the Yankees B or C options due to his age.
Andy Pettitte joins Mariano Rivera as someone who is going to either sign with the Yankees or retire and it remains to be seen what either will do at this point.
There is also a chance that the Yankees will retain Eric Chavez and Jayson Nix, but after that none of the Yankees free agents are likely to be retained on anything more than minor league deals and i personally doubt that Nix or Chavez will return. If the Yankees do not retain any of their free agents then there will be a number of holes to fill, that will require a venture into free agency as they will not be able to fill them internally.

A True Yankee Inagural Podcast

Contributing writer Brooke and myself decided to start a podcast of which we hope to do on a bi-weekly basis. In our first show we talked about the injuries to Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia, as well as minor league promotions, the trade deadline, Nick Swisher and the Yankees bullpen. Give it a listen and tell your friends.





download the episode from podOmatic here

Swisher vs. Martin

One of the biggest storyline's this spring training has been Hal Steinbrenner reasserting that the Yankees will try and be under the luxury tax when it rises to $189 million in 2014. This has been met with some skepticism since the Yankees have Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and Alex Rodriguez all making $20 million a year until at least 2016 and Robinson Cano may soon join them. This has led to some speculation about this seasons soon to be free agents of Nick Swisher and Russel Martin. The problem for the Yankees is that these guys are going to be looking for long term deals as well as their first and likely only large free agent payday.
Swisher is going to be the best power hitting outfielder available on the market with the possible exception of B.J Upton. Swisher has been a good supporting piece for the Yankees since they got him from the White Sox and his personality has been loved in New York, but he has been criticized for struggling in the postseason and some fans wanted to see the Yankees dump him and sign Carlos Beltran. Swisher is making $10.5 million this season and will be looking at making more money with this new deal. The problem facing the Yankees is that they really have no good internal options for the Outfield options that will be ready by next season and a platoon would be most likely.
Russel Martin is a more recent example and both he and the Yankees expressed interest in signing a long term deal but a deal was never completed. Martin had a good season offensively and defensively last year and good catchers are a luxury that Yadier Molinas $75 Million deal shows. However the Yankees do have a plethora of Young cathcing and unlike Swisher, Martin could be replaced by Austin Romine. The question though is whether or not Romine could be a productive player in the majors and that's a big risk to take.
The Yankees could retain both of these players but more likely they will have to pick one and its hard to gauge who the Yankees will try and retain, but both players will be looking at 3-4 year deals with a definite possibility that Swisher could try for a fifth year on the free agent market. Both Martin and Swisher are nice complimentary pieces who have hit in the bottom third of the lineup and while I think the Yankess may wish to retain Swisher more than Martin, the market may end up pricing Swisher out of the Yankees range. Do not forget Jayson Werth received a huge deal last offseason and Swisher could get a team to overpay him like the Nationals did with Werth. There also exists the possibility that the Yankees will retain neither player and opt to trade or sign a cheaper Swisher and Martin solution or simply go with their current internal options. If I had to pick a player for them to retain it would be Swisher, but I think it is more likely that they will retain Russel Martin as I expect that Swisher will become too expensive for the Yankees to put in their new plans and a team like the Dodgers, who will have new ownership, may look to add one one of the biggest bats on the market.

Stop hating Nick Swisher!

Haters gonna Hate

 Stop Hating Nick Swisher. There is a phrase I never thought I would have to utter but seriously people stop it. All I keep hearing is how Swisher is a great guy and great clubhouse personality, but he isn't a good enough player. Really people? After another poor postseason some have advocated that the Yankees should dump Nick Swisher. The most popular idea seems to be that the Yankees should decline Swisher's option and sign Carlos Beltran to play RF. This is a terrible idea for several reasons:
1.) Beltran is 34
2.) Beltran would command at least 3 years
3.) Would need to DH significantly.
4.) The 2012 Free agent class is awesome


The first and second reasons are pretty tied together, but I mean come on would you really want to sign an older declining veteran for three years? When Beltran has productive years he has been very productive, but he has had some trouble staying healthy only playing more than 150 games 3 times in the last 9 years. Also for all the talk about how Beltran would be more productive than Swisher in the postseason, he hasn't actually played in the postseason since 2006 and his only other time in the postseason was with Houston in 2004. Also one of the benefits of Nick Swisher is that he will only be under contract for one more year and if he isn't productive then we can cut him lose but Beltran would command at least a 3 year deal and possibly 4 years which would probably force him into more of a DH role in the last year or two of his contract which would be a problem with the already crowded DH role.
The other big factor is that the 2012 Free agent class is going to have some big names with Josh Hamilton, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp and B.J Upton highlighting the Free agent Outfield class. All of these free agents are better than Beltran in terms of age and are not he injury risk that Beltran is.

Also people really don't appreciate Nick Swisher for his regular season production. In his Three years as a Yankee Swisher had hit 81 Home Runs and has been very productive as a Yankee with a .267 BA with 250 walks and 256 RBI's. Nick Swisher isn't just with the Yankees cause he has a pretty face hes been a solid hitter with power, patience and has gotten better in the field. This may not be the reason but also who do you think will be the number one suitor for Nick Swisher if we decline his option? The Red Sox, they need a Right fielder and he is better than everyone else out there with the possible exception of a Healthy Carlos Beltran. Some People have suggested that the Yankees should sign Josh Willingham, but they are surprisingly similar in terms of career stats and Willingham has never played more than 144 games in a season and he only player 96 games in the outfield this year. Swisher on the other hand has played exactly 150 games each of the last three years for the Yankees and despite all the criticism his overall value during his time as a Yankee ranks 7th among Right Fielders and Swisher is a consistent 3+ WAR player and even in this down year for Sisher he has a higher WAR rating than Michael Cuddyer who had a career high 3 WAR year, so please forget about that idea.
The end result is that there really isn't anyone at Swisher level for this year other than Carlos Beltran and as I said before Beltran is probably going to be looking for a 3 or 4 year deal as it will be his last big payday. The Yankees have a cheap option for Swisher who has outperformed his salary in each of the last 3 seasons by far and 2012 will likely be no different. As Fans we always want the best players for our team, but you need to appreciate Nick Swisher for the quality player he is and honestly their is  good chance he will be with the team for the next several years as he would make a great stopgap player while the prospects develop in the minors. Also think of it this way, if Nick Swisher slumped in any other 5 game time period would you want the Yankees to not renew his option because of that 5 game period?