Friday, September 20, 2013

Imagining The Worst Case Scenario For 2014: Part 1


As many of our readers and our followers on twitter (@GreedyStripes) know I am very active and talkative on twitter but when I was asked this question I did not even attempt to answer it using 140 characters. This tweet gave me the uh oh feeling big time because I never really gave it any thought as to what we would do if this were to happen... Could we survive it?


What would the Yankees do if the worst case scenario comes true this off season with Derek Jeter joining Mariano Rivera to retire, Robinson Cano decides to take his talents to South Beach, or Los Angeles, or anywhere besides Yankees Stadium, and what if Alex Rodriguez is suspended for the entire 2014 season as we are expecting and maybe even hoping? To add to that what if the oldest starting pitcher in all of baseball, Andy Pettitte, decided to hang it up thus ending the core four all together? That would make the 2014 season a complete and utter disaster, or would it?

The Yankees would be left with absolutely huge and obviously glaring holes at second base, short stop, third base, in the back end of the bullpen, and the starting rotation heading into November and the Winter Meetings. Granted the Yankees would have somewhere around $100,000,000 to spend this off season while still toying with the idea of keeping the payroll under the $189,000,000 luxury tax thresh hold. This would probably be the closest thing to a Boston Red Sox circa 2012 reset that we are going to get but we have to navigate this smart and not just throw money at aging veterans just because we can. We have proven that time and time again simply being the biggest bidder for the best players available just does not work anymore. The Yankees are getting burned by players who would rather stay away from New York at all costs, see Cliff Lee, not getting anywhere near the production we are paying for after being acquired in free agency, see AJ Burnett, or we are missing out all together on free agents specifically in the international market, see Yu Darvish, Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Cespedes, yada yada yada. The Yankees "we can retool via free agency and build up our prospects hype to make big time trades in July" has been exposed and it is just not working anymore, bottom line, so how do we fix this?


Let's start by looking at the roster penciled in using only 40 man roster players as of November 1st:

C: Francisco Cervelli
1B: Mark Teixeira
2B: Jayson Nix
SS: Eduardo Nunez
3B: David Adams
LF: Alfonso Soriano
CF: Brett Gardner
RF: Ichiro Suzuki
DH: Zoilo Almonte

BN: Austin Romine
BN: Vernon Wells
BN: Corban Joseph
BN: Ramon Flores

SP: CC Sabathia
SP: Ivan Nova
SP: Michael Pineda
SP: David Phelps
SP: Vidal Nuno

CP: David Robertson
SU: Shawn Kelley
RP: Cesar Cabral
RP: Preston Claiborne
RP: Dellin Betances
RP: Adam Warren
LR: David Huff


Will David Robertson stop trying to make the "perfect pitch" thus bringing him into more full counts than any pitcher in the history of the world, mild exaggeration, and succeed as the heir to Mariano Rivera? Can the Yankees rebuild 3/4 of their infield on the fly and replace the best offensive second basemen in baseball in Robinson Cano? Can the Yankees get just one more ride out of aging veterans Alfonso Soriano, Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia (wow I really just said that), Mark Teixeira (see CC Sabathia), etc? All these questions to answer and not enough time and space today to do so in one post so check back tomorrow to see part two to see if I can really "put the best team on the field one dollar at a time."

8 comments:

  1. Wouldn't A-Rod getting suspended be better for the team. He's not that good anymore and they could use his money to sign some free agents. If they don't do that, they could still re-sign Reynolds, who's been pretty good this year. But to me, they'll be opening up their wallets big time this offseason if this worse case scenario does happen.

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  2. Even with him "not that good anymore" he was easily the best 3B we had this season and there is even less available next season via free agency... it would hurt to lose him all season.

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  3. one worst case scenario is if the Yankee brass continue to see Ichy as the .330 hitter he once was. what good is he if he has an obp less than .300? he doesnt hit for power and has a scary OPS+ of 76.....24% worse than the average hitter. yeah once in a while he has a four hit game and everyone pees in their pants talking about 4000 hits.....who cares?

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    1. I totally agree. I touch on that in the next couple parts of this post how we eventually have to bench or sit Ichiro more and more often. 3000 hits is probably out of the question in the majors so we have to cut our losses and move on

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  4. i hope Aroid comes back......he still can hit and still has a great eye at the plate for walks. funny how he is in the 2 spot and Soriano is the power guy in the 4th spot. if he beatsbthe rap i see his numbers at

    .285/.385/.500 25 hrs 85 rbis

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  5. I cannot see him completely beating the rap. BEST CASE SCENARIO is a 65 game suspension to match Ryan Braun's suspension. Worst case though, in my opinion, is 162 games. Cannot see 211 sticking whatsoever.

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  6. next 162 games .....compare your guess to mine.....are you better or worse on Arod stats?

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  7. I dont see A Rod as a 25 home run guy anymore over the course of a season. I see him more in the 18 home run range over a full "healthy" season. He will get plenty of RBI opportunities in the middle of that lineup so I think 85 seems about spot on.

    I realize I am just nit picking but I think the triple slash is close that you posted but I was thinking more along the lines of .270/.380/.460. Not a huge difference but thats what i got.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)