Monday, November 21, 2016

Cespedes and Encarnacion? No and No! Please?


Jim Bowden is talking and apparently all of the New York Yankees fan base is listening. According to Bowden he predicts that the New York Yankees will sign one or both of free agents Edwin Encarnacion and Yoenis Cespedes. Why and why? And no and no. No, this does not fit into the Yankees current plans nor do they fit into the future plans as well. No and no and here's why.

Sure, Encarnacion can play first base and he can also fill the now vacant DH spot for the Yankees but what Encarnacion cannot do is continue to make the Yankees younger, more versatile and cheaper. Encarnacion is now 33-years old and will be 34-years old by the time the 2017 season begins. Encarnacion is attached to a qualifying offer which means the Yankees would have to surrender a mid-first round draft pick to sign the former Toronto Blue Jays slugger and likely much more in terms of cash than the $10 million he made in 2016. You might have to double that or go even higher with this weak free agent market. How many years is Encarnacion going to sign for? Four? Five? No thank you. The last thing the Yankees need is a four-or-five year deal for a player leaving his prime at or around $100 million. No thank you.

You can basically say the exact same thing about Cespedes, the former New York Mets and Boston Red Sox (among others) product. Cespedes is just 31-years old and will be until he turns 32-years old in the 2017 playoffs but he made $27.5 million in guaranteed salary in 2016 and walked away from that. You really think he is going to take much less to sign a deal this offseason? Even if it does guarantee more years I can't see him going much less than that, and that is too expensive for the Yankees. Again, no thank you.

The Yankees need to see this plan all the way to the end. If you're going young, more versatile and cheap then do it. If you want to blow prospects and cash to compete in 2017 and get into another pickle here in a few years, then do it. There can't be any sort of indecision and there is no in-between.

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