The Yankees just won a World Series but that doesn’t mean they don’t have any holes. There are no teams in Major League Baseball without holes, or room for improvement after all. But the Yankees thankfully don’t have a lot because the current free agent market doesn’t have much to offer this year.
With all that out of the way, let’s take a look at each area of the team and see what exactly they have as of right now.
And also celebrate that we are not a team like the Mets who want to compete but have a large number of holes in their lineup and not really a lot of resources at their disposal.
Starting Pitchers
Right now the Yankees rotation for 2010 looks like this:
SP1 – CC Sabathia
SP2 – AJ Burnett
SP3 – Joba Chamberlain
SP4 – Andy Pettitte
SP5 – Phil Hughes
That’s a pretty good rotation, even if 3-5 are only league average. AJ Burnett is who he is, there’s nothing that you can do about that except hope beyond hope that he has a third injury-free season in a row. Hughes and Chamberlain both have innings limits, of course, but neither of them are dangerously low.
There’s a feeling that the innings limit this year for Joba royally screwed up his progress as a pitcher, but that’s pretty stupid. Here’s why, in brief:
- He didn’t bounce between the bullpen and rotation.
- The Yankees listened to him when he said he preferred to pitch once every 5 days instead of getting extra rest and that’s why he had the abbreviated outings.
- The only other thing they could have done was send him to AAA, which may not have been a bad idea but I’m sure the same people would have been crying about it.
A young pitcher who has never been healthy for a full year before showing some unevenness in performance is not unexpected and it does not mean that he’s been ruined. I too wanted to punch myself watching him pitch sometimes but it doesn’t take a genius to realize his problems were not rooted in having a few three inning starts.
Infield
1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Robinson Cano
3B – Alex Rodriguez
SS – Derek Jeter
C – Jorge Posada
C – Francisco Cervelli (backup)
UTIL – Ramiro Pena(?)
The infield, other than backups, is pretty much defined for the next bazillion years. Not really much to say other than “hey it’s pretty good.” I wouldn’t be surprised if they re-signed Jerry Hairtson Jr since he’s very versatile and has a decent bat.
Outfield
RF – Nick Swisher
CF – Melky Cabrera/Brett Gardner (super tandem)
LF – Mystery person
The need here and DH is clear. I don’t think the Yankees are going to break the bank on Matt Holliday after the spending spree last December, and I’m not sure if they’re really interested in bringing back either Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui nevermind both. However they have to do something because the rotating DH idea is horrible and you can’t have both Cabrera and Gardner starting. The free agent market isn’t very appealing if Holliday isn’t actually in the picture so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a trade.
They’ll also need a backup OF for the corners.
Relief Pitchers
CL – Mariano Rivera
LRP1 – Damaso Marte
LRP2 – Phil Coke
RP1 – David Robertson
RP2 – Alfredo Aceves
RP3 – Brian Bruney
RP4 – Chad Gaudin
RP5 – Sergio Mitre
Mitre is included because the word is the Yankees want him back, he clearly is not going to be in the rotation from the getgo and I don’t think he as any options left (though that would be pretty cool).
Similarly Bruney is coming back because the team apparently wants to burn 1.5 million dollars for the Hell of it.
Other than those two, the bullpen is pretty solid and I don’t think we’ll see any tinkering there.
