Bomber Bites: Don’t Expect Any More Moves For The Yankees Before The 2015 Season
By Jason Evans
Open up a new tab in your browser and look up the current Yankees roster. Read it over. All done? Good.
Congratulations. you’ve seen the guys that will most likely be on the field coming Opening Day April 6 against the Toronto Blue Jays.
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Per Fangraphs, the team as presently constituted will be an 83-win team and tied for third with the Rays. The Yankees are at that point where one big move could put them over the top.
Max Scherzer is projected to be a four-win player. Add that to the Yankees and they are now tied with the Red Sox for the division with the loser going into the wild card game.
I’ve been as bullish as anyone on Scherzer coming to the Yankees, however, even I have to seen the writing on the wall that it won’t happen. Why?
First, I think they are rather gun shy on signing another big long-term deal for pitchers after seeing what’s happened to C.C. Sabathia. I don’t think they want to pay him a big amount of money when he’s 35-37 years old, when his contract could cost them $42 million because of how many times they’ve gone over the luxury tax.
On the flip side, you could make the argument that the Yankees could make that $42 million back and then some in merchandise, increase in ticket sales when he pitches, and, by the projections, playoff revenue. You make the playoffs, you make more money, it’s that simple.
But because of the albatross contracts of Alex Rodriguez, Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, you won’t be seeing an addition like Scherzer. You won’t be seeing any big moves before the season starts.
Take a look at the roster now. This is the roster you’re going to see in April and quite frankly, it’s probably not playoff-caliber.