Results tagged ‘ Xavier Nady ’
Yankees sticking to tight left field budget
Reposting this from the MLB.com Hot Stove Blog:
Despite heavy fan speculation to the contrary, the Yankees are
stressing the point that they will not get involved with a bid for a
big ticket left fielder.
“No chance on Matt Holliday, no chance
on Jason Bay,” a Yankees official told the New York Daily News on
Monday. “Zero. None. Underline it.”
To take the point further,
the Yankees’ budget for left field is so tight, the newspaper reports
that they would not have matched the offer the Giants made for Mark
DeRosa – $12 million over two years. Yankees general manager Brian
Cashman told MLB.com on Monday that even Xavier Nady, coming off Tommy
John surgery, is asking too much for New York’s budget.
The
same appears true for veteran Jermaine Dye, and Johnny Damon has
already acknowledged that he does not fit into the Yankees’ payroll
planning.
If the season started today, the Yankees would be
preparing to go with Brett Gardner and Jamie Hoffmann in left field.
The Daily News suggests that the Yankees are also considering cheaper
free agent options like Reed Johnson or Jerry Hairston, Jr. to add to
the mix.
“There’s plenty of time,” the official told the
newspaper. “There’s no hurry. And there are a ton of outfielders out
there. We are just tweaking at this point. We’ll sign an outfielder
between now and spring training.”
Bits and pieces about left field
I answered a question about Xavier Nady in today’s Inbox as follows:
Why wouldn’t the Yankees look at Xavier Nady for left field? They
would get a right-handed bat with good power who can handle New York.
Is his injury still a factor or is he looking for more than the Yankees
want to pay?
– Pete N., Syracuse N.Y.
Right now, it appears the hold-up would be more financial than
physical. General manager Brian Cashman said on Monday that Nady’s
price is above the Yankees’ current budget, which explains why they
have not been seriously linked to him while some other clubs have.
Remembering that Scott Boras is Nady’s agent and we all know where that’s taking them in the Johnny Damon situation, it makes sense that the Yankees are playing the ‘not interested’ card. After all, you’re looking at a position player who is coming off his second Tommy John surgery. That’s a big question mark and if the dollar signs are large as well, it might not be a match.
So where are the Yankees going to head from here? It’s looking more and more like Mark DeRosa is off the table, taking a physical with the Giants, and I just don’t know if all that Jermaine Dye talk was serious.
So… Brett Gardner and Jamie Hoffman, eh? As of Dec. 28, that’s where it is. Stay tuned.
Breaking up the Yankees
One of the realities of that great parade down the Canyon of Heroes was that it was probably going to be the last time these 2009 Yankees were together as a group. That was confirmed yesterday when Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon, two of the biggest keys to the World Series title, officially filed for free agency.
Jose Molina, Xavier Nady and Eric Hinske also officially filed on Monday, one weekend of celebration after rolling down Broadway on a float.
Brian Cashman said yesterday that he does not expect to lock up any of his seven free agents before they splash onto the open market, which means that none of those five are likely to get a quickie deal, along with Andy Pettitte and Jerry Hairston, Jr.
What I keep telling people who ask is this: If you’d asked me at the All-Star Break who the Yankees would be more likely to keep, Damon or Matsui, I would have said Damon. But then Damon tailed off in the second half and Matsui was a monster, and now I really can’t be so sure.
The fact that the Yankees don’t see Matsui as anything but a DH hurts his chances, because the idea of a revolving-door DH between guys like A-Rod, Jorge Posada, Mark Teixeira and company is appealing and makes sense.
As for Damon, he was a great Yankee, which I wasn’t sure he’d be when he was shaving off his Red Sox scruff. But the moment I truly believed the Yankees were going to win the World Series was his dash in Game 4. People don’t understand how incredibly smart of a play that was.
So Cashman vows he does not do things for sentimental reasons, and I believe him on that topic. Just because a guy was the World Series MVP doesn’t mean you have to bring him back. Heck, the Yankees did it in ’96 with John Wetteland.
As for the other three guys in that group, Molina brings a lot to the clubhouse in terms of relationships and wisdom. If the cost isn’t crazy, a return isn’t out of the question, and if not they can entrust the backup catcher job to Francisco Cervelli – who really did seem ready for it.
Hinske never really got as many at-bats as I thought Joe Girardi would give him down the stretch — it almost seemed at times that they forgot he was on the team — and Nady will be permitted to leave as a free agent, since it’s difficult to
count on a guy who is coming off his second serious surgery.
Should be a good Hot Stove. Who said baseball has an offseason?
Bad news for Xavier Nady
Xavier Nady suffered what appears to be a significant setback on Thursday playing for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at Syracuse, pulling himself out of the game after making the second of his two throws in the field.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman did not paint a rosy picture, saying that Nady is headed for tests on Friday and this could be “the worst-case scenario” — a reprise of his Sept. 2001 Tommy John right elbow surgery.
“We got close and optimistic,” Cashman said. “This — without talking to him — just doesn’t look good. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Earlier in the day, manager Joe Girardi had said that Nady could rejoin the Yankees as soon as the club’s June 30 homestand. He has been attempting to come back from a partially torn ligament in his elbow that he suffered April 14 at Tropicana Field.
Rumor: Nady won’t need surgery
Jon Heyman is reporting on WFAN that Xavier Nady has a ligament strain in his right elbow that can be rehabbed, thus allowing him to avoid surgery. We’ll find out more when the Yankees clubhouse opens in about 15 minutes but this is obviously good news for the team.
Joe Girardi was saying yesterday that Nady can still be useful to the Yankees even if he is only a DH for the rest of the season – no word on if that’s the case though.
Talkin’ a little baseball
And let’s do it today, because tomorrow is going to be all Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez, all the time …
– Francisco Cervelli was sent out of camp today with an upper respiratory ailment, the same one that bothered Christian Garcia and Brian Bruney earlier. Joe Girardi is trying to quarantine his clubhouse, sending him home after a doctor’s appointment today. Jason Johnson was excused from camp today with a personal issue.
– The Yankees are not expecting anyone to be late this spring with visa problems.
– Girardi said he is OK with keeping both Xavier Nady and Nick Swisher around: “I don’t think you can have too many players. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the next seven weeks, if we come out of Spring Training completely healthy. You can never have too many players.”
X marks the spot
Bumped into Xavier Nady in the clubhouse downstairs, a sure sign that the position players are trickling in. Derek Jeter and friends are working out for one more day across the street at the Himes Avenue complex before the Alex Rodriguez three-ring circus takes center stage.
If Nady seemed a bit lost, you can excuse him. Remember, this is the X-man’s first spring in camp with the Yankees, having come over in that July trade last year with the Pirates.
Remember how Phil Coke was among the players originally included in that deal, before Pittsburgh decided there was something they didn’t like in his medical reports? It translated to a 0.61 ERA in September with the Yankees.
Whatever was wrong, Coke said, he’s hoping it never gets fixed.
Update 10:36 a.m.: Yankees PR head Jason Zillo just announced A-Rod’s press conference will be at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, in the Andy Pettitte left-field tent here at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
Joba says it again: Start me up
In the argument that never dies, Joba Chamberlain once drew his line in the sand down in Tampa, telling the New York Daily News that he wants to start and not be in the bullpen. That pretty much goes along with everything he’s said all along, though he’d agreed to relieve because it was best for the team.
Just by chance (and maybe because I’ve been listening to a little too much sports talk radio lately), I made a similar point in a Yankees Inbox column today, answering a question about why Phil Hughes isn’t being considered for relief work. It’s unorthodox, but I’ll quote myself, I guess:
“Really, [the Yankees are] trying to wean everyone off the idea of Chamberlain
as a reliever as well. That was a move made because New York
desperately needed some bullpen help during the 2007 playoff push.
Chamberlain just happened to be available for a conversion, but
even then, the Yankees said they envisioned Chamberlain as a starter
going forward. It just so happens that we’ve seen more of Chamberlain
as a reliever — and he’s pretty good at it — but it makes sense that
you’d want your best pitchers throwing more innings.”
Other points in that article — the Yankees are in trouble if Jorge Posada can’t catch, the Xavier Nady-Nick Swisher situation, the Yankees’ 2008 Draft and Bernie Williams.
Fire your thoughts back at me if you’d like. MLB.com is allowing us to do fan mail articles more than once a week now – you’ll remember Mailbag used to run on Mondays only – so I’m going to try to get two or three up a week, depending on how busy the Yankees are. Just in the first week of this alone, I have more than 500 e-mails to sort through.
Yankees sign Nady, Cabrera
Talking dollars and cents: the Yankees avoided salary arbitration with Xavier Nady and Melky Cabrera on Tuesday, coming to terms on new one-year contracts for both.
Nady signed for $6.65 million after earning $3.59 million last season. Cabrera inked a $1.4 million pact after requesting $1.7 million; the Yankees had offered $1.2 million.
Brian Bruney remains out there in the arbitration process. Bruney earned $725,000 last year and has asked for $1.55 million; the Yankees countered with $1.1 million.
This raises the Yankees’ projected Opening Day payroll to the area of $191 million for 16 players.
Mr. Cashman, you have calls on lines 1, 2, 3…
For some reason, I just pictured Brian Doyle Murray in Groundhog Day, trying to unload Bill Murray at the bachelor auction: “What am I bid for this fine spec-i-mine?”
That aside, the Yankees are still taking calls on Xavier Nady and Nick Swisher, as the The New York Times reports today. But don’t keep hitting refresh looking for the trade to go down. There’s little reason to believe anything will change in the very near future.
Drawing out the lineup on paper here on January 17, the pieces don’t fit, and one of those players could be extraneous. But unless a club – the Reds, Giants, Braves and Nationals have been reported to have interest – comes calling with something that the Yankees absolutely must jump at, there isn’t really an urgent need to deal either Nady or Swisher.
They could just as easily bring both players down to Tampa for Spring Training, when inevitably some team will suffer a crippling outfield injury and all of a sudden need to make a quick move to field a decent lineup for Opening Day.
Of course, then there’s the other scenario that the Yankees wouldn’t want to see happen — it could be the Yankees themselves who suffer an injury, which would open up a way that both Nady and Swisher would be in the Opening Day lineup.
Either way, time is on Brian Cashman’s side with this one. Though it seems they’d prefer to deal Nady over Swisher, it behooves Cashman to make the best possible deal he can regardless of who gets dealt, and not rush into a hair-trigger transaction.
Bryan Hoch
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