From ESPN’s Jayson Stark:
22.05 million in 3 years isn’t much, and becomes even less when you look at the breakdown of his salary (taken from Cot’s Baseball Contracts):
07:$0.7M, 08:$3.5M, 09:$5.3M, 10:$6.75M, 11:$9M,
12:$10.25M club option ($1M buyout)
It’s pretty ridiculous of the Braves to want the Yankees to pay the 1/3 of the contract that it’s being reported they asked to have eaten. That’s a very cheap contract except for 2011, and even then unless he doesn’t rebound 2011 isn’t ridiculous when you consider the salaries flying around baseball.
Additionally, it’s pretty clear that the Yankees don’t want to part with Swisher so asking them to take on part of his salary to faciliate a trade is not something Frank Wren could reasonably expect to happen unless he was ridiculously overpaying for him in trade value. Wren has made a few dumb trades, but I really doubt that he would do that. Though if he wants to do that I’m okay with it of course, it’s just a very unlikely scenario. Additionally Swisher is the only MLB proven outfielder the Yankees have a contract with for after 2009, making him someone Cashman very likely won’t part with.
The Yankees currently have “too many outfielders” but I’m not sure if that’s true. Sure, they gave Xavier Nady too much money to sit on the bench in theory but on the other hand when is the last time the Yankees had a bench worth anything? Keeping both Nady and Swisher gives the team way more flexibility, allowing them to let Damon and whoever else rest when necessary.
In my perfect world, Swisher gets most of the plate appearances as the Yankees right fielder because of his exceptional onbase skills and good fielding at the position which would give the Yankees a bench of:
- Jose Molina (C)
- Xavier Nady (R/LF, 1b, CF in an absolute pinch)
- Melky Cabrera (OF, out of options)
- Cody Ransom (IF, hopefully they can find a better defensive utility guy to sit in)
This is actually not a terrible bench (at least compared to benches of the recent past). I know there are some concerns about Catcher–and for good reasons–but Cashman can’t just go out and acquire a third one and just have him linger on the bench. Carrying three catchers on the 25 man roster eats a valuable spot, as we learned in 2008. And honestly, unless some GM was overcome with a case of the unbelievably stupids there is no way to truly replace Posada’s offense there if he goes down again. How it really shapes out will depend on whether Melky is a starter, and how many relief pitchers the team decides to carry but I’m assuming they’ll give Brett Gardner a shot first since he can just be sent down.
There have been some people campaigning for Jeter to move to CF, which honestly I would be 100% okay with if they could upgrade Shortstop defensively. His offense should still carry well there and even if he sucks, it’s better than sucking at SS and causing fans to wince everytime a ball goes towards his left side. Unfortunately it’s pretty clear he’s not moving anywhere in 2009, so it’s not worth considering when piecing together lineups for the upcoming season.
