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.