The 2010 New York Yankees

[poopydude]

while the world series is not over yet (yanks tied the seires BABY) its never to early to discuss next years plans as the yankees have a few holes to fill.

1. Get rid of the expiring contracts of Johnny Damon and Hedeki Matsui. As much as i love both guys they can't do much of anything anymore with the exception of DH. Damon is not the fielder he was a few years ago and his arm is worse than ever ( i think i have a better arm than Johnny Damon but then again so does a little girl). As for Hedeki yes your bat is valuable but your knees are shot and you struggle playing the outfield now a days. And plus i don't know how many games posada has left to catch so the DH role would work nicely for him.

2. Rebuild the outfield. With Damon and Matsui gone you can focus on the outfield which really has never been an issue for the bombers. Multiple sources say that Carl Crawford is not resigning with the Rays and he is a perfect fit for left field. also makes a great lead off hitter and with the protection of jeter we would see crawford get on base plenty of times (possibly 200 hits). Another thing is that crawford is a gold glove caliber fielder and has a cannon arm. Another man to look at is top prospect austin jackson. He has been very productive in the Farm and has shown great baseball mentality plus he plays center field a position we hae lacked since the prime of bernie williams.

3. Focus on getting another starting pitcher. This is yet another big issue for the yankees. while they do have some good pitching prospects such as Dellin Betances, we need another starter. there are a few options one which includes John lackey who will most likely not get resigned by the angels (why do you think they got Kazmir) because of the angels expiring contracts, Aroldis Chapman the cuban phenom, or even Brandon webb who is a free agent. We don't know what will happen with Chin Ming Wang so if we could at least get a very good starting 4 the yanks would be fine for next season as i don't see Chad Gaudin or Sergio Mitre being effective.

4. Keep Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes into the bullpen to create a dominate 7-8-9 combo. I can not stress this point enough Joba and Hughes if trained will make the yankees bullpen it's best since the john wetland days. When chamberlain came out of the bullpen early on in his career he was a freak. The fastball constantly hitting the high 90's and a sharp breaking ball to boot.Phil hughes is another guy with great stuff who has a low to mid 90's fastball and some other great pitches that set him up for strike outs. if these two are trained to be setup men then the yanks bullpen will be the best in the bigs next to the Red Sox next year.

discuss away please

[twiztiddarkangelman]

Joba I agree is best in the pen. Hughes on the other hand is a starter.

[YankeePride]

This is bad luck or something.

[Sandman42]

1. I would resign one of Damon/Matsui. Either of them can fill as the DH and right now I'm leaning towards Matsui.

2. Crawford has a club option and either the Rays will pick up the option or they will trade him. I doubt they will just straight let him go. Jackson probably needs another year in AAA, he isn't ready after what he did this past season. He needs to make some more contact and develop some more power.

3. I don't want to go anywhere near Lackey. He's on the wrong side of 30 and has had recent arm injuries. Betances isn't anywhere close to major league ready, he's still really raw and just had TJ-like surgery this year. He's still another 3 years away at least. Webb would be a nice buy low option, but he isn't healthy and is a gamble.

4. Start both Hughes and Joba in the rotation. There's enough arms in the bullpen (K-Rob, Aceves, Marte, Coke, Melancon) that can get the job done. Even if Joba was in the pen this year it wouldn't have done him any good, his command was shot.

Also I agree with YP. You couldn't wait until after the WS to make this thread?

[SpacemanSpiff]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sandman42

1. I would resign one of Damon/Matsui. Either of them can fill as the DH and right now I'm leaning towards Matsui. 2. Crawford has a club option and either the Rays will pick up the option or they will trade him. I doubt they will just straight let him go. Jackson probably needs another year in AAA, he isn't ready after what he did this past season. He needs to make some more contact and develop some more power. 3. I don't want to go anywhere near Lackey. He's on the wrong side of 30 and has had recent arm injuries. Betances isn't anywhere close to major league ready, he's still really raw and just had TJ-like surgery this year. He's still another 3 years away at least. Webb would be a nice buy low option, but he isn't healthy and is a gamble. 4. Start both Hughes and Joba in the rotation. There's enough arms in the bullpen (K-Rob, Aceves, Marte, Coke, Melancon) that can get the job done. Even if Joba was in the pen this year it wouldn't have done him any good, his command was shot. Also I agree with YP. You couldn't wait until after the WS to make this thread?

Agree on most of your points.

1. I would resign either Damon or Matsui as well depending on their prices. But I would rather lean towards Damon because although he throws like a girl and isn't the outfielder he once was at least he can play the outfield and has a better chance of staying healthy (I don't trust those knees on Matsui). Also, Matsui would give us no flexibility with the DH position especially important considering Posada and A-Rod (depending on if he has the surgery in the offseason) are gonna need the rest more than ever. It'll be easier to replace the DH position than the LF position and we can shift Damon to DH if Austin shows he's ready.

2. Carl Crawford has a less than 2% chance of hitting the open market as a free agent this year. The Rays are gonna pick up his option and either trade him outside the division or keep him. Even if he's too pricey for them, by picking up the option they can control where he goes and pick up a prospect or two.

3. I agree, Lackey is not young enough to be giving a big contract. Whatever he goes for, he's gonna be getting paid for what he has done and therefore in his decline end up being horribly overpaid. I would focus on bringing Pettitte back and take a flier on a guy like Webb or Duchscherer and go into next year with CC, AJ, Pettitte, Joba, Hughes, Wang and trust that guys step up. If not, we can look for arms at the deadline but no sense in getting locked up in a bad contract with Lackey.

4. It's way too early to give up on Joba and Hughes in the rotation. Yankees fans are so impatient with their guys but a lot of stud pitchers have had similar early careers to Joba and Hughes. A decent starter is way more valuable and rarer commodity than a good reliever. The big thing is that reliever performance (outside of Mo) is so volatile. Hughes has been stellar for the most part in the bullpen but can we rely on him with confidence right now in the WS? The key to having a good bullpen is having a large stable of capable arms and just finding the guys who are having the most success at the moment, not wasting guys who have 4 pitches in a setup role. (BTW, I love K-Rob's potential to be a good setup man and Melancon has the potential too)

[poopydude]

Quote: Originally Posted by SpacemanSpiff

Agree on most of your points. 4. It's way too early to give up on Joba and Hughes in the rotation. Yankees fans are so impatient with their guys but a lot of stud pitchers have had similar early careers to Joba and Hughes. A decent starter is way more valuable and rarer commodity than a good reliever. The big thing is that reliever performance (outside of Mo) is so volatile. Hughes has been stellar for the most part in the bullpen but can we rely on him with confidence right now in the WS? The key to having a good bullpen is having a large stable of capable arms and just finding the guys who are having the most success at the moment, not wasting guys who have 4 pitches in a setup role. (BTW, I love K-Rob's potential to be a good setup man and Melancon has the potential too)

im not giving up on joba and hughes but as for joba's case when he is in the bullpen he throws better and here is a prime example. when joba was in the bullpen originally his fastball was a very high 90's fastball which was very effective to get batters out. this year when he was starting his fastball was hitting the 91-93 range. im not saying he can't be effective as a starter but the guy should be able to throw 96 mph weather it is the first inning or the 6th. yes he has the stuff but does he have the starter mentality?? as of right now that is a no. if they want him to be a starter hes gonna have to work pretty damn hard. and the main reason why i suggested john lackey was because of the fact that he is a great post season and regular season pitcher. he was pretty impressive in the ALCS this year

[Mr. Franchise]

1. RESIGN DAMON! He needs to get his 3000 hit as a Yankee and is still a good stop-gap type of player until the farm comes up.

2. Crawford has an option and Webb would NOT sign with the Yankees. Webb is a small-market type of player and would FALL APART under the New York pressure. Sign a value player in the off season and hope they have a good year.

3. Keep Joba in the pen. Many, if not most great closers were former starters (Mariano, Papelbon.) so he should stay there and try to get his velocity back.

[SpacemanSpiff]

Quote: Originally Posted by poopydude

im not giving up on joba and hughes but as for joba's case when he is in the bullpen he throws better and here is a prime example. when joba was in the bullpen originally his fastball was a very high 90's fastball which was very effective to get batters out. this year when he was starting his fastball was hitting the 91-93 range. im not saying he can't be effective as a starter but the guy should be able to throw 96 mph weather it is the first inning or the 6th. yes he has the stuff but does he have the starter mentality?? as of right now that is a no. if they want him to be a starter hes gonna have to work pretty damn hard. and the main reason why i suggested john lackey was because of the fact that he is a great post season and regular season pitcher. he was pretty impressive in the ALCS this year

Yes he will have to work pretty damn hard. But by that logic, the Twins would have kept Johan Santana in the pen when he wasn't doing well in his first two years. Give Joba a couple more years and if it looks like he'll never figure out how to be a starter, you can always make him a reliever then.

John Lackey is gonna be asking for more money than Burnett for sure and a long term deal too and I don't think that's too smart considering he's on the wrong side of 30 and has battled nagging injuries the last year. We'd be paying for his decline if we give him the kind of contract it would take to get him.

[NYJets]

Quote: Originally Posted by poopydude

im not giving up on joba and hughes but as for joba's case when he is in the bullpen he throws better and here is a prime example. when joba was in the bullpen originally his fastball was a very high 90's fastball which was very effective to get batters out. this year when he was starting his fastball was hitting the 91-93 range. im not saying he can't be effective as a starter but the guy should be able to throw 96 mph weather it is the first inning or the 6th. yes he has the stuff but does he have the starter mentality?? as of right now that is a no. if they want him to be a starter hes gonna have to work pretty damn hard. and the main reason why i suggested john lackey was because of the fact that he is a great post season and regular season pitcher. he was pretty impressive in the ALCS this year

Last year he still threw high 90's when he started. This year in the pen he hasn't hit the high 90's.

Not sure why his velocity has dropped, but it doesn't seem like it's because he's a starter.

[YankeePride]

I hope now that Joba is pitching out of the pen in the playoffs and looking rather shaky, people will start to realize Joba wasn't struggling this year because he was a starter; he struggled because his control was all over the place and it's obvious that the bullpen didn't solve that issue.