Jennifer Hoffer – Sports Editor
The Yanks are on, yet another shopping spree. Yep, that’s right. The club that said at the beginning of the 2013 season that they were going to cut their payroll to $189 million; well that was short-lived.
The Yankees are already on their heels in pursuit of acquiring St. Louis Cardinals outfielder, Carlos Beltran, Atlanta Braves catcher, Brian McCann and Japanese starter, Masahiro Tanaka.
Sounds pretty similar to the 2008-2009 Yankees signing Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett; in a season they would go on and later win the World Series. Oh yeah. The Yankees spent $423 million on them over their contracts.
Although these players are worth a lot of money, the Yankees office will convene on Monday for a meeting to discuss how they could still reduce the team’s luxury tax.
Hal Steinbrenner, team owner, wants to be able to reinvest the money instead of having to pay out to smaller markets.
So how can the Yanks accomplish this? Well after a dismal 2013 campaign, the Yanks are willing to shed a few players. Players on this list that could be leaving the Bronx due to free agency are Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Hiroki Kuroda and Curtis Granderson. And of course with Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte retiring, their contracts will also be gone.
The captain, Derek Jeter, will hopefully rehab well enough and be able to take the field for the Yankees for more the 17 games like he did this past season. If Jeter opts to go for the player option that will drop his salary from $17 million to $9.5 million.
And of course there’s that whole A-rod thing. The Yankees would be more than happy to rid themselves of Rodriguez. If A-rod ends up getting his 219-game suspension the Yankees will not have to pay him the $31 million that would be due to him next season. But we’ll all have to wait to see how that headache ends.
First on the Yanks list- holding onto Robinson Cano. They know that he’s going to cost them money; somewhere around the ballpark of just under $200 million. They are expected to make an offer to Cano that would offer him $25 million for the 2014 season; that’s a $10 million bonus from this past season- not too shabby.
Tanaka is on the top of that list too. While he will also put a hole in the Yankees pocket, the Yankees are targeting and are hot on acquiring both these players.
The Yankees had little to no production from behind the plate. Romine and Stewart were not really productive at the plate, and recorded a lot of errors at the catching position.
So that is the reason for the Yankees shopping around for a catcher. Brian McCann is a left-handed batter and is a wall behind the plate.
As for Carlos Beltran, he has stated that he wants to come to New York, so the Yankees are in the makings of trying to get that acquisition.
Whatever the Yankees are stirring up, it better come out a hell of a lot better than last year. Life needs to be struck back into that stadium, and I think changes are the only way that’s going to happen.
