Rule 5,Greg Golson, Hiroyuki Nakajima and Yu Darvish.

The rule five draft was today and it was unclear if the Yankees would make a pick, but they did by taking Brad Myers from the Washington Nationals. On top of that the Royals traded their pick of Cesar Cabrel to the Yankees for cash. Myers is an interesting choice as the Yankees are gonna try him as the long man and he really hates walks, he only waked 15 guys in 138 innings last year and still had a 7.5 k/9 rate. Cabrel is another pick scouts like and the Yankees will try to keep him around as another lefty out of the pen, but I doubt he will stick around for the full year either way. Cabrel has good stuff but it will be tough for him to stick with the club past spring training and even if he does he would probably have to go back as soon as soon as Joba finished rehabbing. Myers definitely has the best shot of sticking around and he could prove to be a reliable long man who wont be blocked from potential upside in that role like Noesi was. Baseball America says that Myers is a command/bullpen type with 87-91 fastball & three fringy secondary pitches, while Cabrel is a RP type with low-90s fastball, changeup better than breaking ball.
In order to make room for the two Rule 5 draft picks the Yankees released Greg Golson who was also out of minor league options and was likely out anyway. Golson was taken 21st overall by the phillies in 2004 but he hasn't been able to put it all together despite having some great tools and his only measure of success came last year in 23 PA for the Yankees in which he hit .261 with 2 RBI's. Golson did have one very memorable Yankees moment where he gunned down Carl Crawford trying to advance to third to end the game in the 10th. You can see the video below, it was an absolute laser shot and I don't think anybody expected it, especially not Crawford or A-Rod.

The Yankees only real noise as of late is that they won the posting for Hiroyuki Nakajima which seems to have surprised them as most people expected the posting fee to be around $5 million and the Yankees won with a bid of about half that. Nakajima doesn't make a ton of sense for the Yankees as he is essentially Eduardo Nunez and they will likely try and trade Nakajima's rights as they don't think of him as anything but a utility infielder and he may want to start. It will get figured out but there is a god chance that he goes back to Japan.
Yu Darvish also officially announced that he will be posted today and the Yankees do plan on making a bid and unlike Hiroyuki Nakajima I think they hope to win and would actually plan on signing him. The posting fee would not count toward the Luxury tax and he could be very valuable to the Yankees but they do seem unsure about him. I'd like to see Darvish sign with the Yankees but I get the increasing feeling he will sign with Toronto, Texas or Washington. People are scarred of Japanese pitchers right now and that may hold them back, but many experts expect that Darvish will cost $100 million including the posting fee. We wont know anything for about a week and it will probably end up being somebody that nobody thought of just like with Pujols.

Possible Yankee

2012: Payroll, the Sox and more

Before anyone says that its way to early to talk about 2012 when 2011 hasn't even started yet, I know and I also know that I already did a post on the future of the rotation. I got to thinking about this when I was listening to to RAB radio show and they talked about the Yankees payroll for this year which they think will likely come in at around $190 million which seems very likely and the only real factor left is who will get the 4th, 5th starter and long man job. My bet is that 4th and 5th rotation spots go to Colon and Nova while the long man job goes to Garcia and Mitre is DFA. The Yankees are looking for another quality Starting pitcher, but unfortunately so is half of the MLB and the other half doesn't really have anyone that they are either a) willing to part with or b) is any good. There are a few people that the Yankees may trade for and unless they are named Andy Pettitte they will likely be around in 2012. However pitching is really the only big question mark for the Yankees in 2012, but there does exist two small ones in shortstop and catcher. If everything goes well for Jesus Montero then 2012 will likely feature Montero and Cervelli behind the plate, while the shortstop question is simply if Derek Jeter can show he is still one of the top shortstops in the AL in 2011 and can carry that over to 2012. This could be Jorge Posada's last year in the MLB and/or as a Yankee but if he shows that he can still hit the Yankees may choose to bring him back in 2012 to DH once again and he is only 39 shy on 300 HR, but he would probably get about 7-8 million or less if he did. The Yankees likely will be shedding a lot of payroll as  Damaso Marte, Jorge Posada, Russel Martin and Rafael Soriano could all come off the books, but Robinson Cano is getting a $4 million raise in 2012 and Phil and Joba could get long term extensions this coming off-season. Despite all the money leaving after this year the Yankees will likely stay pretty close to where they are now in terms of payroll even before they look at free agents. Also don't forget that CC has his opt out clause and what he will likely do is work in either a raise or simply an extension and if he does opt out he will really only do it to get a better deal with the Yankees. The Yankees will likely target a starting pitcher this season and if they don't get one or if they get a rental pitcher that they let go after the season then they will have several options but the top two are that the Yankees sign Yu Darvish or one of the B's has a unbelievable year and joins the rotation. So don't worry the Yankees payroll will in all likelihood be back over $200 million in 2012 and possibly before that.
The reason that I started doing this post was because of the talk around the inter web of the possibility that the Sox payroll will eclipse the Yankees in 2011 and beyond. If the Red Sox payroll currently stands at around $165 million and that is before the Adrian Gonzalez extension that will come pretty soon, however his salary wont count toward the luxury tax even though he will be getting around a $16 million raise. Also after this year the Red Sox will be shedding a lot of payroll as J.D drew, Papelbon, Mike Cameron, Ortiz and more will all be entering free agency and unlikely to re-sign. I also doubt that the Red Sox will add anyone significant through free agency as Kalish or Reddick will likely move to RF and other than catcher there is no area that they will sign a long term free agent. If Adrian Gonzalez is 100% by opening day and stays that way he is likely going to run away with the AL MVP award, however shoulder surgery is huge and you never know what will happen. Also it is never good when the only person on your offense not added through free agency to play 150 games was Marco Scutaro and the only other people who played more than 110 games was JD Drew and David Ortiz.

Some guy who only played 75 games in 2010

Also in 2012 Bud Selig has said that he will step down as commissioner of Baseball and hopefully we will be able to get a commissioner who doesn't think that General Doubleday invented Baseball. However he wants to go and teach History at the University of Wisconsin which I find odd, not that he wants to do it at his Alma mater, but that somebody would have Prof. Selig former commissioner of Baseball as a Professor.

The Future of the Yankees Rotation

Well Friday 2/4/2011 is the day that Andy Pettitte officially announced his retirement and as much as I hoped he would come back I had a strong feeling he would retire this year. With the Yankees losing out on Cliff Lee and every other remotely desirable Free Agent Starter we have to wonder who will man the Yankees Rotation not just this year but for the next few years. If the Yankees had given Lee the rumored 7 year deal then he would have been pitching on the team until 2017 and he was 39. Right now the Yankees Rotation looks like:
Sabathia LHP, AJ Burnett RHP, Phil Hughes RHP, Ivan Nova RHP and one of the all RHP Sergio Mitre, Bartolo Colon, Mark Prior, Freddy Garcia and possible Andrew Brackman. Overall not something we hoped for especially with the Left handed heavy Sox. The Yankees will more than likely make a move for a 4th Starter who is hopefully a lefty and the Yankees have to hope that Burnett is better, Nova is a least decent and Hughes has a year like last year, the only player who I don't have any concerns about is Sabathia and he will continue to be a workhorse for the Yankees. The Yankees could try for a deal with any number of pitchers but they wont be King Felix, Josh Johnston, Johan Santana or anyone from the Red Sox or Phillies not named Joe Blanton. Unfortunately for the Yankees there are a lot of teams looking for starting pitching and the Yankees won't want to take any pitchers with long term deals due to some very good pitching prospects who are getting very close to being MLB ready. There is a good article about possible pitchers for the Yankees staff and the two I think are the most likely are Paul Maholm from the pirates who would likely take a scattered assortment of crap prospects for the 30 year old lefty, the other possibility is Edwin Jackson who could be trade bait for some decent relievers especially if the White Sox struggle.

The 2012 rotation could still feature 4 of the 5 starters from the 2011 rotation, but the Yankees rotation could see the addition of Japanese ace Yu Darvish who has said that he will post himself in 2012 and at 26 is considered to be the best Starting pitcher in Japan right now. I seriously doubt anyone would outbid the Yankees for Darvish if the Yankees want him and unless they find gold in both a trade and Nova they will want him. The dominant RHP would turn the Yankees rotation around and leave the 5th starting job for Nova or one of the Yankees other top Pitching prospects. This is of course hoping that Sabathia won't opt out which i don't expect him to.

In 2013 the Yankees will enter a slight conundrum as AJ Burnett will enter the last year of his contract and i'm willing to bet that the all of the Killer B's will be at or near MLB ready, however unless he is extended David Price will also be entering the last year of his contract with Tampa and the rays may look to move him for prospects. The Yankees could trade for the Lefty who will be 28 but the Rays may ask for more than the Yankees will be willing to give, especially within the division. If the Yankees did trade for Price they could either trade Burnett or move him down in the rotation. A likely package for Price could be Brackman, Nova and another top prospect. The Yankees could also sign Price in the off-season but they might not want to fork over the draft pick especially if the Killer B's develop the way they want them to.

2014 has a number of possible Yankees rotations including:
Sabathia, Price, Darvish, Hughes, Banuelos/Betances or
Sabathia, Darvish, Hughes, Brackman, Banuelos/ Betances or
Sabathia, Hughes, Brackman, Banuelos, Betances/Nova or any other combination of back end pitchers

The future looks bright for the Yankees rotation but still we ended the 2010 season thinking we would have a rotation of:
Sabathia, Lee, Hughes, Pettitte and Burnett and instead we are looking at  Sanbathia, Hughes, Burnett, Nova, Colon/Garcia/Prior/Mitre. The one good thing is that the current rotation will change as the season progresses and possibly before opening day. The worst part is that the offense could be awesome this year, but we will need a rotation to back it up.