I like Shiggy, but if the Yankees are able to keep the M’s from spending too much for his services, that’s probably a good thing. Besides, it’s not as if there aren’t a ton of relievers — Aaron Taylor, Aaron Looper, JJ Putz, Allan Simpson — lazing around the system ready for work.
I have heard, but been unable to confirm anywhere, that Hasegawa has reached an agreement with the Yankees. I report this because it’s interesting if true: the Yankees will spend more on their bullpen soon than 1/3rd of the teams in baseball spend on their entire team. But not being able to confirm it, I don’t put much stock in that yet.
Big news for the M’s, potentially, is that the Mets are making an offer for Kazuo Matsui (NY Times link). Some report the deal is 3 years, $21m, to which I say “pah”. Matsui’s a modest upgrade on Glass Guillen, but he’s not 7m/year of upgrade value. This also seems to mean Jose Reyes shifts to second which is — I’m just going to say this — dumb, as Reyes could be a superstar shortstop. I’ve never understood why teams pile on their problems and… ahhh, you’ve heard that rant before.
Also, while we here at the USS Mariner are in the Vlad-Vlad-Vlad cheering section (which is pointless) the word on the street is that Vlad is asking for Manny Ramirez money for a long, long time, and I don’t know that anyone, even Alex Rodrgiuez, would get that kind of money with a really long-term deal on the market today.
For those of you keeping score at home, that brings the Yankee lineup to
DH: ?
C: Jorge Posada
1b: Jason Giambi
2b: Alfonso Soriano
SS: Derek Jeter
3b: Aaron Boone
LF: Hideki Matsui
CF: Bernie Williams
RF: Gary Sheffield
The obvious next move, if the Yankees are really blowing the doors off (and they are), is to go get Beltran and move Bernie to DH/spot corner OF. When Giambi’s knee goes out again, they’re still in trouble, but offensively they’d field the best offense in baseball.
As for the M’s, I think Rhodes might be a bargain: his injury-hiding, awful season may cost him a huge chunk of money that would make a healthy Rhodes cheap.
Anyway.
Its time for your daily Yankee transaction. Today, they’ve added Javier Vazquez, one of the best pitchers in baseball, reportedly for Nick Johnson and a throw-in.
This week alone the Yankees have signed Gary Sheffield, Aaron Boone, Tom Gordon, Paul Quantrill, and Felix Heredia, and you can add the trade for Javier Vazquez today. Hey, Brian, share the wealth, man.
In other bad news, Hasegawa wants 3 years, $9 million, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we gave it to him. Hello disaster signing! I’d put the odds at 50-50 that the M’s could get better performance from Simpson or Taylor than Hasegawa, and for the league minimum to boot.
Oh, and we’re also attempting to overpay for Eddie Guardado. He’s been a pretty good pitcher the past two years, but has the “proven closer” label attached, and thus will be paid more than he is worth. The M’s should have learned their lesson from the Sasaki debacle. Don’t pay for closers; develop them, then sell them to other, less intelligent teams for actual pieces of value.
Of course, we could be optimistic and say that if the Mariners are interested in Guardado, the whole Sasaki-to-Japan thing may have more teeth than some people believe.