Will they sit on their hands — and their wallet? Yankees seemingly sitting out on Max Scherzer. Can that hold? By Barry Svrluga 11 December 2014 Washington Post Copyright 2014, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. SAN DIEGO — The natural instinct, in the wake of Jon Lesters signing with the Chicago Cubs, is to look at the list of remaining free agent pitchers and free-spending clubs with holes in their rotation, and draw lines matching one column to the next. The New York Yankees have a history of spending more lavishly than any franchise in the game, and they currently have more questions than answers among their starting five. Right-hander Max #Scherzer remains on the market, destined to get more money (and perhaps more years) than Lesters six-for-$155-million deal agreed upon late Tuesday. In the not-so-distant past, this would have been an easy solution. And yet, a person with knowledge of the Yankees thinking said here, emphatically, that the Yankees arent in it, and arent going to be in it for Scherzer. What kind of world are we living in? Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman has long argued that the expectations in the Bronx are different than everywhere else, that championships are expected every year, even as they come off back-to-back seasons in which they missed the postseason. In an email Wednesday, Yankees President Randy Levine said, Our goal never changes. But is that reasonable in 2015 given the current state of the rotation (not to mention the lineup)? Listen, for a minute, to Manager Joe Girardi. In the back of your mind, theres some questions marks, Girardi said. Michael #Pineda has not thrown 200 innings in a while, which is true only if a while is the same as never. CC [#Sabathia] is coming off his injury, a chronic knee problem that may never go away. Yeah, we feel good about it, but until you get into the rigors of the season youre not really sure exactly whats going to happen. And [Masahiro] Tanaka is coming off an [elbow] injury, and we feel good about that. But like I said about CC, you have to go through it. The Yankees appear to be going through it at the lower levels right now. And meanwhile, Scherzer lurks. Wednesday, Scott Boras, Scherzers agent, stood on some steps off the lobby of the Manchester Grand Hyatt and laid out pieces of the information that is in the binder — some 45-50 pages thick — that he has prepared for teams on his client. Max is kind of a Peyton Manning, No. 1 kind of pick guy, #Boras said by way of introduction, and then he reminded the media throng what the stakes might be. Last year, he really turned down a deal that was seven years and $160 million. And he looked at the markets and the revenue structure in the game, this year well over $9 billion, and really wanted to have the opportunity for choice. It seemed like teams were interested in him. Going into this we knew there really was not going to be any other pitcher that would impact his free agent pursuit. So Lester and his deal? Yawn. How about Clayton #Kershaws seven-year, $215-million contract with the Dodgers, the highest average annual value ever granted a pitcher. Irrelevant, Boras said. The vast majority of major pitching contracts have been granted to players who hadnt yet reached free agency — Justin #Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Kershaw. Certainly if you put a performance like Kershaws into the free agent market youre going to get a much, much different calibration of value than you would when he signed outside of it, Boras said. … Im not sure Kershaws relevant, because hes not a free agent. So who, if not the Yankees, could afford such a contract — if, indeed, Boras and Scherzer get their landmarks? The Red Sox were the biggest losers for Lester, and they have said they will acquire two more starting pitchers. But they were only willing to go to $135 million over six years for a player who had helped deliver two World Series titles to Fenway Park. Would they outlay that kind of money for Scherzer? Or might they prefer to send some young players to Philadelphia in exchange for Cole Hamels, who has four years and $94 million remaining on his deal, plus a $20 million team option for 2019 — lots of money, but a truckloads less than it might take to sign Scherzer. The San Francisco Giants also lost out on #Lester, and still have money to spend after failing to re-sign third baseman Pablo Sandoval. The Los Angeles Dodgers appear to be ready to add another member to their rotation because they were trying to ship Dan Haren to the Miami Marlins on Wednesday, opening up a spot, and theres no telling how much more the team with 2014s highest payroll will end up spending in 2015. The Washington Nationals? Its amazing the consensus here, among agents and executives, that the 96-win Nationals cant afford to break things up, because they could win the World Series with their current roster. Yet it is becoming clear that they wont be able to extend both shortstop Ian Desmond and right-hander Jordan Zimmermann. There are easy dots to connect here — Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo, when he was the scouting director in Arizona, drafted Scherzer, and Boras has done plenty of business with Nationals owner Ted Lerner. But that seems like a stretch. Thered have to be a lot of moving parts for us to have an interest in the free agent pitching market, Rizzo said. And there sit the Yankees. Boras argued any team that intends to win the World Series needs to get 45-50 wins and 600 innings pitched from its top three starters. The Yankees top three starters came up 152 innings short of that in 2014. You need depth in your rotation, Girardi said. You have to. I dont know how many starters we used last year, but I know we lost four. So we used a lot, and thats something thats a concern. The number is 13. Thirteen different starting pitchers, and the only one who made more than 20 starts, Hiroki #Kuroda, may well retire. Ivan Nova is expected to come back from elbow surgery, but he wont be ready for Opening Day. Brandon #McCarthy, a trade deadline acquisition who pitched well in his 14 starts for the #Yankees (2.89 ERA), was a candidate to come back as a free agent but was close to signing a four-year deal with the #Dodgers late Wednesday night. James Shields, the next-best pitcher on the market after Scherzer and Lester, remains out there, too. The Scherzer watch could go deep into the winter. Boras said Wednesday that he thought the trade market would have to filter through before clubs knew exactly what they had. And all that time, the Yankees will be sitting there, staring at their first summer without Derek #Jeter at short in two decades, patching together a rotation with the unchanged goal to win the World Series. Will they sit on their hands — and their wallet?
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:49:16 +0000
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