Friday, December 12, 2008

Apple Juice Goes Well With Candy Corn

The Post is reporting that none other than Apple Juice Burnett really wants to be a Yankee. He recently spoke to a Yankee and told them that soon they would be teammates. This was odd, because that Yankee was Carl Pavano. Zing! See, I insinuated that Burnett is going to be hurt the whole time he's under contract. In all seriousness, I'm sure more than a few Yankee fans would be relieved to know that at least one of our free agent acquisitions actually wants to be a Yankee.

I continue to think that the Yankees are likely to make a move for Manny Ramirez. They've given no indication that they want to do this but the math makes sense. The Yanks have $88M coming off their payroll, Sabbathia's annual salary will be $23M, and assuming they sign Burnett for $80M over five years, that's only an additional annual salary of $16M (somewhere, Andy Pettitte just $#!* himself). This would leave $49M untouched with no glaring free agent needs except for the addition of a primetime bat. The Yanks could easily sign Manny at this point for a couple years at a high annual salary, say $25M. That still leaves the Yankees $24M under last year's payroll and they quickly become the most formidable line up in baseball because of the pressure Manny will take off of A-Rod and Cano. Expect to see Manny in pinstripes, I'm calling it.

Another intriguing option is Teixeira. Consider that Marky T is looking for 10 years, $200M. That's $20M a year. That would leave the Yankees nearly $30M under last year's payroll. For everyone says that the Yankees will never sign Sabbathia and Marky T in the same year, think again. It's not that outlandish.

Correction:

The likely acquisition of Mike Cameron means $10M more on the payroll. So signing Manny would likely result in a payroll approximately $14M less than last year, while signing Marky T would result in a $19M payroll reduction from last season.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was Pavano really the "Yankee" who talked to Burnett? I figured it was, like, a Yankee who actually played for the team. As for Manny, the Boston media is reporting that he'll retire if he doesn't get the right deal. Fat chance.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

The Pavano thing I made up. There's no way Manny retires. He could make $50M in two years if he wants. So either he hates money and baseball or he's not going to retire.