Hal Steinbrenner Speaks About the 2015 Season

New York Yankees’ Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner gave an interview on Wednesday at the quarterly owners’ meetings. It is a breath of fresh air to hear the front office speak out on the series of moves that have been made this offseason. His comments gave a little insight to the direction and purpose behind the acquisitions. As former relief pitcher Shawn Kelley was sent off to the San Diego Padres in one of those deals he commented that General Manager Brian Cashman told him it was part of a “new plan”. So what exactly did Steinbrenner tell us about this new plan?

"“We had numerous goals. Two of the goals were to get younger and get better defensively. I think we’ve done that. I think our bullpen’s better. I think it’s one of the best in baseball, quite frankly. My opinion.So there have been some improvements. We started out with a payroll that was already high before we did anything. We knew we had a certain amount of dollars to work with, and I think Cash did a great job.”(h/t, Ken Davidoff, NY Post)"

They certainly did address age and defense, but I think more importantly depth was added. I mentioned it previously in my other articles and I will reiterate the importance of depth. A major problem in 2014 were injuries and the majority of the injuries were results of age. The problem that supplemented the initial injury bug was the lack of depth to replace these injured players. Steinbrenner and Cashman certainly addressed their goal to prevent this chain-of-events from happening again in 2015. The seven pitchers they traded for (Justin Wilson, Chris Martin, Johnny Barbato, Nathan Eovaldi, Chasen Shreve, David Carpenter, and Domingo German) have an average age of 24.7. That isn’t even counting the addition of 29 year-old Andrew Miller and 24 year-old Didi Gregorius. 

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The partner made it clear that he is excited to return to the farms and bring forward the youth. “I think it’s going to be a better year,” Steinbrenner said. “I think we’re going to have some young players, which is going to be exciting for the fans. And I think we’re going to have a healthy year. I’m going to hope for that. Because it’s important.”

These trades also helped eliminate the bigger contracts of older players such as Shawn Kelley and Martin Prado. Furthermore, they strengthened the bullpen which can take a load off of the starters and potentially help keep them healthy throughout the season. Steinbrenner said, “I think if there’s one concern, it’s our starting rotation – not because of their ability, but because of their health. Now, everybody’s going to come healthy. It’s just a question of not having what we had last year, which is not having four guys out by the All-Star break. That’s going to pose a problem to any team.”

It wouldn’t be an interview and conversation if the big named Max Scherzer wasn’t brought up at least once. When asked about potentially signing Scherzer Steinbrenner responded, “Our payroll, at the very beginning, even once we lost Robertson, was high. There’s just a certain amount I’m going to go. You all know my opinions about payroll, where you should be and where you really don’t need to be to win championships.” It wasn’t exactly a yes or a no but I think he alluded to not wanting to spend the amount of money it would take to bring Scherzer in. As much as he would help the team and rotation, it would be a contradiction to the saving money philosophy behind this offseason.