Bizarro World

Deadline trades in baseball tend to work in a predictable way; contending teams pick up players that will help them over the final few months of the season from non-contending teams, who get players that will help them become contenders in future seasons. There are exceptions, such as today's trade between the Yankees and the Tigers, where two contenders picked up players that will help over the final few months of the season, but those exceptions are usually variations on that central theme. Every once in a while, however, there's a deal which makes absolutely no sense, and the Yankees' second trade of the day fits that bill perfectly.

The Yankees, a contending team, sent LaTroy Hawkins to the Astros, who are 13.5 games behind the Cubs in the NL Central and 9.5 games behind Milwaukee for the wild card, and received Matt Cusick in return. Hawkins, as we all know, is a middle reliever who has followed a good year in Colorado with a bad one in New York, but could turn it around with a change of scenery. Cusick, meanwhile, is a second base prospect who doesn't have a lot of upside, but has a chance of becoming a pretty good player. In other words, this deal has a contender sending short term help to a non-contender in exchange for a prospect. To put it more succinctly, this deal is a complete inversion of reality as we know it.

Don't get me wrong, though, as I'm not knocking this trade. As a Yankee fan, I'm thrilled by it. Hawkins, after all, was designated for assignment following the acquisition of Damaso Marte, and I think it's something of a minor miracle that Brian Cashman was able to trade him for anything of value, let alone a prospect with even an outside chance of making the majors. Granted, the deal does include cash to pay Hawkins for the rest of the season, but that's money the Yankees were on the hook for anyway.

That said, it's a very strange deal, and I've got no idea what could possibly make Houston GM Ed Wade think that it was a good idea for him to make it. After all, the only reason he could have is that he thinks his team is one middle reliever away from getting to the playoffs. To me, that's a crazy notion, but if it is the case then I'd like to talk to him about a bridge I've got for sale.

Happy to Help

Just a few days after I suggest that Kyle Farnsworth is expendable, the Yankees send him off to Detroit for Ivan Rodriguez. Obviously, the Brian Cashman has been paying attention to my very sage advice. Except, of course, my suggestion about Farnsworth was preceded by my saying that there was no way to acquire a catcher better than Jose Molina. This, I suppose, is why Cashman makes several million more in salary than I do.

Anyway, this is a fantastic deal for the Yankees, who make a major upgrade at catcher without giving up anything that they'll miss, and not a bad one for the Tigers. In fact, the only people who come out badly in this deal are the cardiologists of the greater New York area, who will dearly miss Kyle Farnsworth and the coronaries he caused.

April is the Cruelest Month

The first month of the baseball season is over and the Yankees find themselves in third place with a losing record. While this is certainly an improvement over last season, I don't think it's what any of us expected. Baseball, however, is all about the unexpected and a lot of what has gone wrong for the Yankees are things that no one could have seen coming, let alone do anything about:

• A schedule which started by playing twenty games straight without an off day.


• Miserably cold and/or rainy conditions in the first thirteen of those games.


• A Papal visit to Yankee Stadium which created a schedule where the team would play a Major League record 18 road games in April, with only two days at home between 8 and 10 day trips.


• Injuries which caused Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez, three of the most valuable and durable players in the game, to miss significant time.


• Injuries to the backups for Jeter and Posada, with Jose Molina only able to catch sporadically as he worked through a hamstring strain and Wilson Betemit unable to play at all thanks to corneal ulcers.


• The freakish coincidence of A-Rod going pulling his quad the night before his wife gave birth. This kept him from getting an MRI, something which might have kept him from aggravating the injury.


• Pneumonia which hospitalized Joba Chamberlain's father and caused the pitcher to leave the team in order to be with his family.


• A torn Lisfranc ligament in Brian Bruney's foot which may cause him to miss the rest of the season

Looking at that list, I have to say that it's something of a minor miracle that the team is only one game under .500. This isn't to say that the team shouldn't be doing better. While you can't really blame anyone for the above mishaps, you can question how Brian Cashman, Joe Girardi and the rest of the Yankees' staff have reacted to them, and I'll be doing that tomorrow.

Everything Can Change

Johnny Carson once said that a New York Minute was the time between a traffic light turning greeen and the cabbie behind you honking his horn. Tonight, however, a New York Minute is the time it takes for Alex Rodriguez to negotiate a ten year, $275 million contract with the Yankees. This is a deal that's shocking on many levels.

Let's start with the fact that A-Rod and the Yankees were actually talking. A-Rod, after all, had rebuffed calls from Brian Cashman, the Steinbrenners three, and a number of his former teammates both before and after deciding to opt out of his contract. Meanwhile, the Yankees had repeatedly and emphatically stated that there would be absolutely no negotiations with Alex Rodriguez as a free agent.

Then there's the fact that the negotiations were made between the Yankees and A-Rod. For whatever reason, Rodriguez decided to bypass Scott Boras and sit down with the Yankees on his own (or, more accurately, with only his wife by his side).

Plus, let's not forget about the size of the contract. Reports have the total ranging from $275 to $290 million, but whatever it ends up being it won't be very different from what he makes now, and it's a lot less than the $350 million that Boras was looking for.

I'm honestly not sure whether or not I like this deal. This is partly because my head has been spinning too much for me to form a coherent opinion, but it's mostly because, since the deal isn't official yet, we don't know what the fine print says. A-Rod's last contract, after all, showed us that the devil's in the details.

Hip Hip!

Well, Brian Cashman can cross the first thing off his to-do list, as Jorge Posada signs a four-year, $52.4 million contract. While I'm happy that Cashman was able to get this done quickly, the deal shows exactly how big of a mistake he made when he declined to offer Posada an extension before the season started. By all accounts, Posada would have been willing to sign a three year extension for something around $30 million, which would be much better for the Yankees. Granted, there was no way to know that Posada would have a season like he did, but I still don't understand how Cashman could have looked at this offseason and thought there would be any better options.

Of course, just because Posada signed doesn't mean Cashman should stop looking for someone to replace him. This contract will last until Posada is 40 years old. Here is the list of players who have caught regularly and remained productive at that age:

1. Carlton Fisk

Fisk was a freak of nature, and while Posada is a better candidate than anyone to replicate that kind of success, the Yankees shouldn't count on that. Getting a capable backup for the short term is imperative, and in the long term the Yankees should be prepared to move Posada to the DH spot after Giambi's contract is up next season.

However, those are concerns for another day. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the fact that we'll get to see Jorge finish his great career while still wearing pinstripes.

The 2008 Replacement Level Yankees

In Sabermetrics, there's a concept called the Replacement Level. It's a way to look at a player's value to a team by comparing him to the player who would replace him if he wasn't there. Usually one would use a hypothetical replacement based on the kind of talent that's freely available. However, when you're looking at off-season moves for one team, you can move from the hypothetical to the real. So, I present to you the 2008 Replacement Level Yankees:

Position	Player	Salary
C	Omir Santos	$0.41
1b	Shelley Duncan	$0.41
2b	Robinson Cano	$32
3b	Wilson Betemit	$12
SS	Derek Jeter	$20
RF	Melky Cabrera	$0.41
CF	Johnny Damon	$13
LF	Hideki Matsui	$13
DH	Jason Giambi	$21
BN	Andy Philips	$0.41
BN	Alberto Gonzalez	$0.41
BN	Bronson Sardinha	$0.41
BN	Juan Miranda	$0.41
SP	Chien-Ming Wang	$32
SP	Mike Mussina	$11
SP	Phil Hughes	$0.41
SP	Joba Chamberlain	$0.41
SP	Ian Kennedy	$0.41
RP	Kyle Farnsworth	$5.5
RP	Kei Igawa	$4
RP	Chris Britton	$0.41
RP	Jose Veras	$0.41
RP	Ross Ohlendorf	$0.41
RP	Darrel Rasner	$0.41
RP	Jeff Karstens	$0.41

This is the team that the Yankees would field if they made absolutely no moves before opening day based, with one exception, on their 40 man roster. The exception is Omir Santos, who I put on the team because the Yankees have no catchers on their 40 man roster. Santos was the catcher for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, so I went with him. You could make an argument for their other catcher Raul Chavez, and you can argue with my bullpen choices considering how many pitchers are on the 40 man roster, but those are little details that miss the point of this exercise.

Obviously, I don't think this is the lineup that will take the field come spring training, let alone opening day. It's just a tool to help look at the team's needs, and to evaluate what they do to fill them. For example, it lets us see all the ramifications of the decision to exercise Bobby Abreu's option. Having Abreu on the team creates the same "problem," as last season; too many good players for too few positions. You can move Giambi to first and use Matsui to DH, but that's a huge defensive downgrade at first and Giambi is almost guaranteed to be injured in the process. You could bench Melky Cabrera and move Damon to center field, which would only be a small defensive downgrade, but you might overtax Damon's problematic back and legs. No matter how you slice it, the overall effect of this move is a small upgrade for a lot of money.

Of course, the Yankees have enough money to be able to afford these kind of moves, but I think there's a trade they can make that can make this move much better. All they need to do is make a trade with Rawlings for a couple of first baseman's gloves for Damon and Matsui. Ideally, the Yankees would just have to give them Carl Pavano, but cash would be fine. Both Damon and Matsui are athletes with good fundamental baseball skills, and it's reasonable to think that they could be better fielders than Jason Giambi by the end of spring training. It is, after all, a pretty low bar to clear. Additionally, taking time off from the outfield would help them avoid aggravating their chronic injuries. In other words, there'd be decent defense, better hitting and fewer injuries. That's a move worth $14 million³.

¹Estimated salary based on Major League minimum.
²These players are arbitration eligible, so I've just made educated guesses as to what their salary will end up being.
³The option was worth $16 million, but declining it would have required a $2 million buyout, so it effectively cost them $14 million to exercise it.

The Sun Never Rises on the Britton Empire

Peter Abraham is reporting that Brian Bruney will be recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, with Ron Villone likely being sent down. This is a pretty baffling move for me. I understand sending Villone down, as he seems to have lost the ability to throw a strike. What I don't understand is why Brian Cashman has again passed on calling up Chris Britton.

For those who don't know about Britton, he's the hard throwing righty obtained from Baltimore in the Jared Wright trade. When this trade happened, I assumed Britton would be in the major league pen from the get go, as he had pitched very effectively for the Orioles in 2006, posting a decent 4.36 RA (I prefer to use runs against rather than ERA, because, let's face it, official scorers are pretty lousy), and a strong 1.17 WHIP (that's walks and hits per inning pitched) in 53.2 innings. He's been dominant in Scranton with a 2.89 RA and a 1.13 WHIP, and allowed only one run in five innings in a short callup earlier this year. Considering the Yankees bullpen woes, I have to think that the Yankees have some sort of off the field reason for not bringing him up. So, I present to you my top 5 possible reasons that Chris Britton is still in the minors:

5. Mariano Rivera is afraid the 300 lb Britton will eat him if a game goes on too long. He also might use Edwar Ramirez as a toothpick.

4. He refuses to leave Scranton until Pam Beesly goes out with him.

3. Kicked Joe Torre's dog

2. He is the leader of a secret Scranton Army and is plotting to conquer neighbouring Wilkes-Barre

1. George Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman cannot bear to look upon him, for he is a reminder of their terrible shame for having signed Jaret Wright.