Monday, December 15, 2014

Designated For Assignment - WHITE SOX GET MELK, HEADLEY RE-UPS WITH YANKEES



The latest free agents are comprised of a player moving on to his sixth team in seven years and one that is staying where he was two-month rental. The Chicago White Sox have been busy this offseason and they continued their re-tooling over the weekend with the free agent signing of outfielder Melky Cabrera. Meanwhile, the New York Yankees agreed, on Monday, with Chase Headley to keep the free agent third baseman for the next four years (at a cost of $52MM).

Cabrera, who played four full seasons with the Yankees, then spent one season in Atlanta, one in Kansas City, one in San Francisco, and two years in Toronto. He'll replace the lackluster bat of Dayan Viciedo in left field and join newcomers Jeff Samardzija and former Yankees teammate David Robertson on the list of big time acquisitions by GM Kenny Williams.

Read the rest of this column for free at Designated For Assignment

Yankees Continue to Spend Stupidly, Near 4-Year Deal With Headley

I got 52MM bucks

I've repeated it numerous times this offseason. The Yankees do not have a philosophy for building the 2015 team. They're avoiding giving big bucks to those who will help the team (i.e. David Robertson) one second, and in the next moment they are spending money in a ridiculous manner. It continued on Monday when media outlets reported that the Yankees and Chase Headley agreed to to a four-year, $52MM deal.

While $12MM a season is reasonable these days, giving Headley four years is not. This is a guy who has had ONE great season. It was a fabulous, MVP-type season. But he did nothing before it and he's done nothing since. Acquired at this past season's trade deadline, Headley had ONE good stretch as Yankee. He brings a great glove to the position, but having the left side of the infield as a complete good-glove, no-hit combo is not a good combo.

It is clear that Hal Steinbrenner does not want to spend money like his Dad. Which is fine, but spend it wisely. George made plenty of mistakes in that department too, but getting cheap on David Robertson isn't the way to do it. They should have used this money to lure back Brandon McCarthy. They overspent last year on Jacoby Ellsbury (by a lot) and Brian McCann.

This isn't the Kansas City Royals where it takes more than a decade to build a contender. This is New York and though the Yankees don't need to win the World Series every year, you at least want to be competetive.

The team still does not have a solid rotation due to injuries and uncertainities, and the lineup will have a hard time producing runs. Much of the issues comes down to Alex Rodriguez and, believe it or not, this is not his fault. The Yankees stupidly gave him a 10-year deal at an average of $27.5MM a year and it has completely hamstrung them.

This team is in disarray from top to bottom.