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Yankees’ News: Definitely Out On James Shields

By Tyler Angelo

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In Brendan Kuty’s article for NJ.com he discusses Brian Cashman’s eluding to being out in the chase for big name free agent James Shields. Kuty quoted Cashman’s interview with WFAN on Friday in which he hinted that the overhaul of the roster is almost over and “the heavy lifting, for right now, is over”.

This wasn’t much of a secret as we saw the youth movement philosophy begin in this offseason. Cashman wheeled-and-dealed age and big contracts for cheap youth with high upside. In doing so, he also addressed the needs of depth and pitching concerns.

Accoring to MLBtraderumors.com talks between Shields and the San Diego Padres have heated up. He is expected to be signed for a little less then $20-million a year on a five year deal. It seemed that his asking price pushed away teams in the beginning of the offseason but the high demand for pitching made him a high commodity.

The Chicago Cubs, who have seriously revamped their roster, landed big name pitcher Jon Lester and are considered an outside threat to land Shields as well. A talented young roster consisting of numerous top ranked prospects that could possibly be led by the reliable veteran pitching staff of Shields and Lester is a scary thought.

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Kuty quoted Cashman’s stand on free agency further:

"“And so we’re anxious to get to spring training to see what we’ve got,” he said. “I know we’ve tackled a lot of areas of need … and we wanted to get younger, but we had a lot of areas to fill. We are pleased with how the winter has gone. We have guys with some risk and some upside and youth. So that creates a potpourri of things that could happen.”"

I discussed in my article regarding the big name free agents still out there the reasons the New York Yankees weren’t considered contenders for Shields. I said:

"“So even though his value has dropped because of supply-and-demand, the Yankees still don’t want him because he is getting up there in age (33) and has logged 1910.1 innings already. They spent the off-season moving big contracts and aging players for cheap youth. If they brought in another player in such a deal, it would contradict all of their moves and saving.”"

It would be an ideal scenario to land another ace to help our struggling pitching rotation; however, it would be a major step backwards on the path we embarked on at the start of the 2015 off-season. Shields has a lot to offer for a team but not a team who wants to get rid of age, money, and wear-and-tear.

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