The Boston Red Sox pulled a George Steinbrenner’s New York
Yankees move when the team bought up the top hitting free agents on the market
in Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez. Looking at the market now, especially for
the left side of the infield, New York may be almost forced to make a trade to
compete. If Chase Headley decides to sign somewhere other than New York then
the Yankees would truly be in trouble and may be forced to either gut the farm
or miss the postseason for a third straight season.
After Headley the most enticing third base options are Mark
Reynolds, Alberto Callaspo and Kelly Johnson. I would take a flyer on Reynolds
but for the others I would give a very emphatic “no thank you.” Shortstop is
not much better as the best available right now are Jed Lowrie, Stephen Drew
and Asdrubal Cabrera. Lowrie is going to take advantage of a weak market to get
way too much money for way too many years while Drew takes a pillow contract
for one season. Cabrera is basically a second baseman at this point in his
career although I’m sure Yankees fans wouldn’t notice his lack of range after
watching Derek Jeter run around at age 40 last season.
Enter the Chicago Cubs who have Starlin Castro, Addison
Russell, Javier Baez and others along with the Arizona Diamondbacks who have
Didi Gregorious, Jake Lamb, Brandon Drury, Chris Owings and others. You can
always throw in the Philadelphia Phillies willingness to trade Jimmy Rollins
and Chicago’s willingness to move Alexei Ramirez into the fold for the Yankees
as well. The problem for New York? Boston has a huge stable of major league
ready prospects and established major league players, Yoenis Cespedes for
example, that could be had without mortgaging the future prospects wise or
money wise. Boston can have any player that they want, and that is available
obviously, and could swoop in and steal any potential player in a trade that
the Yankees could be targeting. Could you imagine Troy Tulowitzki in Fenway
Park in 2015?
Boston has made things extremely difficult for the Yankees
and this is going to be the first offseason in a long time that Yankees GM
Brian Cashman is going to have to use his brain and not his checkbook to make
the team better. Stay tuned and damn you Boston!
