Plea to the Yankees: Don’t Sign John Lackey

Many teams have been linked to top free-agent pitcher John Lackey. Among those are the Mets, Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, and, of course, the Yankees.

Last year I pleaded to the Yankees that they should NOT sign A.J. Burnett. I was wrong so far and I will admit that.

What Yankees fans should be afraid of is that the Yankees could be paying their third starter equally or more than their second starter. While the rotation would be great for the upcoming years and the Yankees do have the money, why not spend the money on various holes, rather than one?

John Lackey was 11-8 with a 3.83 ERA last year. His career ERA is 3.81. Those are some average numbers for someone commanding $82M or more. Meanwhile, Lackey is also an injury risk having pitched in less than 30 games each of the last two seasons.

The Yankees can use that $82M over the next five seasons ($16.4M per year) and sign either a top outfielder (Jason Bay or Matt Holliday) OR one pitcher (Rich Harden, Jason Marquis, Erik Bedard, Justin Duchscherer) AND one outfielder (Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Marlon Byrd, Jermaine Dye)

Don’t you think you would rather have the latter of the two? Thoughts? Send em’ along in the comments.

Trade Deadline Deals, Roster Moves

Here are the biggest trades that occurred today on trade deadline day:

-Tigers acquired Jarrod Washburn for Luke French and a minor-league pitcher

-Redsox acquired Victor Martinez for Justin Masterson, and two minor-league pitchers

-Redsox acquired Casey Kotchman for Adam LaRoche

-Twins acquired Orlando Cabrera for a minor-leaguer

-Reds acquired Scott Rolen for Edwin Encarnacion and a few minor-leaguers.

-Brewers acquired Claudio Vargas for Vinny Rotino

-Rockies acquired Joe Beimel for two minor-leaguers

-Marlins acquired Nick Johnson for a minor-leaguer

FROM YESTERDAY:

Late last night, the Dodgers acquired George Sherrill for two minor-leaguers.

YANKEES MOVES:

Saved this for last, but the Yankees made a few moves today, only one trade.

-Yankees acquired Jerry Hairston Jr. for minor-league catcher Chase Weems

-Yankees called up Shelley Duncan.

-Yankees will have two more moves to make to free up room for Duncan and Hairston Jr.

The Yankees did add to their infield/outfield depth with Hairston and the call-up of Duncan, which is always good. Duncan plays 1b/lf/rf, while Hairston plays 2b/3b/ss/lf/cf/rf.

I would expect the Yankees to DFA Cody Ransom and option out one of Mark Melancon or Jon Albaladejo. Also, they will probably transfer Xavier Nady to the 60 day DL.

ONE LAST PIECE OF NEWS:

Shocking news out of Chicago. The Whitesox have traded for Jake Peavy….again….pending his approval. The trade has Clayton Richard, Adam Russell, Aaron Poreda, and Dexter Carter for Peavy. Richard is scheduled to start tonight against the Yankees. I’d expect Peavy to approve it if they made the deal again. When the original deal was made, the Padres had a better record than the Whitesox.

MY ANALYSIS

My immediate analysis is that the Redsox came away as the big winners of the trade deadline. The Yankees also did well, filling a utility need, but they did not acquire the starting pitcher they needed.