Roster Changes Bring New Predictions & Lineups

The New York Yankees acquired two players this week at the initial GM Meetings down in Florida. Brian Cashman did his best to essentially corner the trade market when he sent John Ryan Murphy to the Minnesota Twins for outfielder Aaron Hicks and in a separate deal sent utility player Jose Pirela to the San Diego Padres for 20-year old right-handed Double-A pitcher Ronald Herrera. The Yankees have had their fair share of roster changes already this winter and that change brings new lineups to salivate over and predictions to make. We make some here today, starting with the 25 man roster.

Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira, Didi Gregorius, Chase Headley and a combination of Dustin Ackley and Robert Refsnyder will likely fill out your infield while Alex Rodriguez spends another season at the DH position. In the outfield, as it stands today anyway, Brett Gardner is your left fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury is your center fielder and Carlos Beltran will man right field one last time before setting off into the sunset and calling it a career.

On the bench it looks like the newly acquired Aaron Hicks will occupy the fourth outfielder spot while Gary Sanchez (the team will sell the whole spring training competition with Austin Romine thing but it’s going to be Gary Sanchez), Dustin Ackley/Robert Refsnyder and Brendan Ryan ride the bench for New York.

That’s the hard part, the pitching should be easy. For the starting rotation five of Masahiro Tanaka, Luis Severino, Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia, Nathan Eovaldi and Ivan Nova will throw every 5^th day while one man, likely Nova or Sabathia, will join Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, Justin Wilson, Chasen Shreve, Adam Warren and one of Bryan Mitchell, Caleb Cotham, Branden Pinder, James Pazos, Jacob Lindgren and a slew of other candidates from the minor leagues.

That’s as it stands today, ask me again tomorrow and I may give you an entirely different answer. That’s what makes the offseason and the hot stove season so great.