Trading Robinson Cano

You want to do what?

I was reading today's chat at The LoHud Yankees Blog and questions regarding trading Robinson Cano were flying around. The first time I read it I rolled my eyes and thought it to be ridiculous, but they didn't stop. Since there's a chance some of those "trade Cano" people come to The Greedy Pinstripes, I decided to share my reasons why Robbie will not be dealt.

1. Cano only has one year remaining on his current contract, meaning the team trading for him would be hesitant because there's no guarantee that they would have him for longer than 2013.

2. Due to Cano demanding a lot in a trade, chances are the team that acquired Robbie would want to re-sign him. That means the team acquiring him would be able to spend quite a bit of money. When I say "quite a bit of money" I'm talking about a 7+ year deal for $20+ million per season. How many teams in MLB are willing to shell out that type of money? Besides the Yankees, the only teams that spent $20 million or more on one player were the Red Sox who have Dustin Pedroia possibly signed through 2015 (club option in '15), the Angels who have Howie Kendrick signed through 2015, the Mets who have Daniel Murphy under team control for 4 more years, the Phillies who have Chase Utley signed for one more season, and the Tigers who have Omar... LOL! So the Tigers are probably the only team that would be willing to trade for and sign somebody of Cano's caliber.

3. Which brings me to my third point... do the Tigers have the players to trade for Robbie? Well, Jacob Turner would have certainly been intriguing in such a deal, but since he's in Miami now we can forget that. According to Detroit's top 10 prospect list put out by Baseball America last season, the only position players that would be of interest to the Yankees would be catcher James McCann and outfielder Avisail Garcia. However McCann is not only not MLB-ready because of age, but he's not MLB-read because of talent either, as James put up a line of .200/.227/.282 in 64 AA games last year. Avisail did see some MLB games late last season, and had an impressive batting average of .319 and OBP of .373. However, Garcia didn't put up a .319 or better BA, nor a .373 or better OBP, in any of his 5 minor league seasons, which tells me chances are not good that he's going to put up that same batting line in a full MLB season.

That's a really nice gift basket, but I'm going to need more than that for Mr. Cano's services.

Those three points go for trading Robbie this offseason. But what about mid-season? Well that's a little simpler. See, the only teams that would trade for a rental player are those teams that are in the hunt for at least a postseason berth. But seeing how the Yankees will very likely be one of those teams also in the hunt for a postseason run, I see no way that they'd want to give up an MVP-caliber player. Especially since teams that trade for rentals would likely only give up prospects (whether marginal or great ones) who wouldn't help their receiving team in 2013. That type of team is not the Yankees.

So if you just want to have some fun playing the "what if" game in regards to trading Cano... fine. But if you're serious about trading Cano and want to talk about it... I'm not the guy to do it with.