Earlier today, we learned that Jorge Posada will announce his retirement in the next couple of weeks. The catcher spent his entire career with the Yankees and earned five All-Star nominations across his 17-year career. In his final year in the Bronx, Posada hit .235/.315/.398 with 14 homers in 387 plate appearances..
- Posada instructed his agents, Seth and Sam Levinson of ACES, not to make calls on his behalf this offseason, a source told Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. However, the agents fielded calls and accepted offers as Posada waited until after the holidays to make his final determination.
- Speaking of members of the Core Four, closer Mariano Rivera has said he might know by Spring Training whether he intends to keep pitching when his contract expires after this year, but won't say which way he's leaning, writes Marc Carig of The Star-Ledger. The 42-year-old posted a 1.91 ERA with 8.8 K/9 and 1.2 BB/9 last season.
- General Manager Brian Cashman isn't sure if the club will have interest in Hiroyuki Nakajima when he'll be an unrestricted free agent after the 2012 season, writes Anthony McCarron of the New York Daily News. As expected, the Yankees are now in on Eric Chavez after being unable to come to terms on a deal with Nakajima.
- McCarron also writes that Cashman & Co. believe that other teams are seeking too much on the trade market in return for pitching.
- Nakajima is a classic example of the flaws in the posting process, writes Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. While waiting one more year isn't a terrible outcome for the shortstop, it had serious consequences for another Japanese player, right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma. Iwakuma nearly had a four-year, $36MM deal with the A's last offseason but wound up inking a one-year, $1.5MM deal with the Mariners this week.
- Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (via Twitter) hears that Nakajima was offered about $1MM by the Yankees, but the bigger issue for him was the role he would have had with the Bombers. The infielder was a starter and a star player for the Saitama Seibu Lions.
Funny thing? Nakajima actually might have have done better than the starting SS, yet they wanted him for 1m and the guy they are now targeting (Chavez) they paid 1.5m last season.. Makes sense to someone i guess.
There’s also the possibility that the Yankees believed Nakajima was going to be a Nishioka-like player and decided they are not going to sign up for that.
He’s potentially a huge bargain though, and if he’s willing to accept 1 year deals then he’s hardly any risk either… obviously the Jeter factor confuses the issue as far as the Yankees are concerned though.
It’s a sad day when one of the games greats walks away, then again, it was just Posada.
But he wasn’t willing to accept a 1 year deal because….
“….the bigger issue for him was the role he would have had with the Bombers. The infielder was a starter and a star player for the Saitama Seibu Lions”.
Right. I rad hat also,as well as the later follow up story here that the main issue broke down to be Yankees still basically waning 6 year of control.
That tells me they see him as the starter in a couple of years and right now were wanting him as the backup for basically nothing.
This was not meant as a “slam the NYY” post, but how he (Nakajima) probably did not want to sit on the NYY bench for 1-2 years for almost nothing (1-2years) and then the Yankees then having signed/won posting rights with him in their minds as Jeter’s replacement anyway
It would have been a smart move on Cashman’s part had it worked, no doubt and he signed, but he didn’t. IMO just giving the guy maybe 15m or so spread over 6 years could have done the same thing if they see/saw him as the replacement in a couple years?
Nishioka was injured from April to June, and, on top of that, he had to get used to MLB. With that said, though, I hope he is sent to AAA to work on his defense and hitting.Â
Add 2m in posting fees to anything Yankees would have pay for Nakajima when comparing to Chavez or any mlb player.
Makes perfect sense. Nakajima wasn’t going to be a starter for us so why pay him more than another utility guy who can do the job (of a utility guy) adequately enough and for the cheep (Nunez/Chavez)?Â
Why would Rivera retire? Isnt he entering his prime?
Robots don’t have primes.
I can see it now:
“Here we are at Yankee Stadium, it’s a beautiful June day here in the middle of the 2023 season. And here comes Mariano out of the pen trying to get his 1,000th save. Just imagine, the man won his third consecutive Cy Young award last season and here we are, about to watch the first reliever ever to record 1,000 saves. I never thought I’d see this day.”
What an utterly unbelievable statement.
He’ll have 2,000 saves by the 2023 season.
The crazy thing is, no one would really be surprised.
David Robertson might be a little ticked off though
Robertson isn’t a 10th of the pitcher Rivera is. Then again not a lot of pitchers are.
That’s funny, but it also shows that he has never suffered a major injury since he arrived in the majors.
In all seriousness though, I think that next season is his last and David Robertson may be the closer-in-waiting (Robertson was a closer in college).
Soriano and his 2/$25 might have something to say about that.
The fact that Soriano is not that good of a pitcher says something else.
By the way guys, Chad Durbin signed a minor league deal with the Marlins.
Just retire mo