The Yankees have hired longtime big league third baseman Eric Chavez as a special assignment scout, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Chavez retired at midseason this year but has expressed a desire to remain within the game. He’s had a close relationship with Yankees GM Brian Cashman and assistant GM Billy Eppler since playing with the Yankees in 2011-12. Heyman adds that Chavez was eyed by some clubs as a potential hitting coach, though it’s uncertain whether or not he’s interested in coaching gigs at this time.
A few other items on the Yankees and the rest of the AL East …
- In a piece for Baseball America, George King examines changes to the Yankees’ player development structure and notes that the team is much happier with its current crop of minor league talent than it was two years ago. However, King also spoke to an NL scout who said the minor league system lacks depth beyond Luis Severino and Gary Sanchez, adding that he didn’t feel there was a true power-hitting bat that could play every day in the Majors. Baseball America’s Josh Norris released the Yankees’ list of Top 10 prospects today, which is headlined by Severino, outfielder Aaron Judge, shortstop Jorge Mateo, first baseman Greg Bird and Sanchez.
- The Red Sox declined reliever Craig Breslow’s $4MM option after a poor 2014 season, but they could aim to bring him back at a lower price, Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald writes. “He has a lot of good qualities and we have a great relationship with him, so we’ll see what happens,” says GM Ben Cherington.
- The Toronto Maple Leafs, which are owned in part by Rogers Communications, signed defenseman Dion Phaneuf to a seven-year contract. As the Canadian Baseball Network’s Bob Elliott reports, agent Scott Boras wonders why the Blue Jays, which are owned in full by Rogers Communications, don’t sign players to seven-year deals. “If they can give one of their hockey players a seven-year deal, why can’t they give a seven-year deal to a baseball player?” asks Boras. Of course, the last Blue Jay to receive a seven-year contract was outfielder Vernon Wells, which might provide a partial answer to that question. The Jays haven’t been very active in recent years in signing key free agents to shorter deals, either, although they’ve made some splashy moves via trade.
Because Hockey and Baseball are so alike Mr Boras, in fact they may as well play on the same surface…
You’d think they do play on the same surface if you’ve been to the Rogers Centre…
Wouldn’t that just be soccer if hockey was played on a baseball field?_:)
From this statement it would seem that Boras is not receiving the offers he thought he would for Max Scherzer.
Are the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers looking elsewhere? Did Boras turn down the extension offer from Det too quickly?
“If Stephen Drew can bat .300 in the minors, why can’t he bat .300 in the majors?”
Because the Blue Jays are not the Leafs, Mr Boras. Different teams in different sports, owned by different owners.
So fans AND media somehow think that the Blue Jays and Leafs are one in the same now?!
They have the same owners, just one team has less of a commanding interest than the other.
Unfortunately. I’ve accepted that the Blue Jays will never be as popular as the Leafs.
I will not accept, however, the fact that some think being interested in one implies interest in the other.
I meant ownership interest. Jays are 100% owned by Rogers and than they’re 37.5% owners of MLSE, which owns the Maple Leafs/Raptors/Insert Toronto Soccer Team Name.
Rogers Communications partially owns the NHL squad and fully owns the MLB squad, as stated in the article. I’d imagine this is largely AA’s philosophy, though. I don’t know if it’s a mandate to avoid 7-year deals or if AA just knows 7-year deals generally go south quickly.
I think he’s said on Fan590 a few years back that he could count on one hand the amount of deals over 7 years that have panned out. It’s 100% his philosophy although I’m not 100% sure that management isn’t restricting him.
But that is the fact of life. You are going into the deal knowing that the end years you are eating money. You are able to do that assuming that you are going to get excess value in the first several years.
Dave Winfield is the only 7+ year contract that I can remember that actually panned out and brought back value all the way through.
A-Rod’s first contract that he signed with Texas was great. Jeter’s 10 year contract was pretty good too, the few others that worked were Pujols deal (7yrs) with St. Louis and Manny Ramirez’s(8yrs).
That’s the only one’s I know of that have panned out.
He was 25 years old.
The pre arb extention is the new 7 year deal.
Could prove just as disastrous as free agent 7 year deals. But still a great direction to go in nonetheless.
Could. But I’ll generally take a players age 24-31 seasons over their 30-37 seasons.
We’ll see with Hosmer. There hasn’t been extension talks with Bora’s as the agent. Unless he turns the corner…it looks like he should have taken one if possible.
Yup, maybe Barry Bonds (Pittsburgh), Ken Griffey, Jr., Mike Piazza, the 1st Albert Pujols contract, could all arguably be said to have panned out for the signing team. But the odds are so much against the signing team as to make it seem foolish.
It’s common sense logic. Most players don’t hit free agency until their age_29-30 season. Not hard to project a slide in their post 30 seasons. Ironic that this is what Bora’s has to say…considering he’s a proponent of avoiding extentions and taking his clients into free agency
I think that NL Scout might be surprised at some of the players in the Yankees system: Bird, Refsnyder and Judge show a lot of promise and we will probably see Bird and Refsnyder with the Yankees at some point in 2015. Granted much of the depth in the system is at the lower levers but there are some nice surprises that should impact the team in 2015.
I agree. Sure you could argue that Judge/Severino aren’t better than Sanchez/Banuelos of a few years ago, but this system has gotten much deeper. Couple years ago it was Sanchez, a few interesting players and then filler. Now at least they are looking at the top 10 being full of really solid prospects.
Maybe they don’t have the huge power hitter, but I would rather have Judge, Bird, Ref, who I think all have really good approaches and a good chance to make it.
To add, Ref/Lindgren both have good chances to impact the team in the early going, and Flores/Austin both have good shots to make it midseason if needed.
That is something this system hasn’t seen a whole lot of in a while.
I watched Bird in the Arizona Fall Star game today. He looked pretty good. I hadn’t really heard much about him before today.
He’s going about it all wrong. But what Rogers did was ridiculous. You don’t allow for a huge influx of cash flow/ talent and then STRANGLE the team after and prevent it from papering over the wholes that are inevitable on any team re: injuries/ down years. You either give them the money that they had plus wiggle room after to tweak/ fix the mistakes/injuries, or you don’t give the money at all. It was the worst of both worlds.
They seemed to have acquired a ton of depth recently for when the inevitable 2-3 injuries occur for next season. Only took them a few years to figure out that their so called “depth” of journeymen AAAA players weren’t MLB replacement players.
They still a few 2-3WAR players in Cabrera + someone else that would immediately put this team into real contention. With the ownership being so cheap I can’t see them resigning Cabrera or getting any player of moderate value.
Would Scott Boras compare Alexander Ovechkin’s 15-year contract to anything in baseball? Hockey contracts basically are all 5- to 15-year pacts. It’s a hugely different market, with a salary cap.
It’s almost like the NHL and MLB are different leagues with different logistics (salary cap) and therefore are not treated the same (i.e. they may be giving out 7 years but the AAV is only seven mil where as if you are giving 7 years in the MLB the AAV for 7 yr contract is more likely around 15m)
How many 7 year deals have worked out well for the signing team? Less than 5, that I can think of, and that is it. So there’s your “why,” Mr. Boras. Because it almost never works out well for the signing team to give out 7 year deals.
Boras is asking why MLB players aren’t getting 7 year deals. I’m asking why Toronto would be so foolish as to hand out a 7 year deal to a lackluster guy like Dion Phaneuf.
I can’t wait until Scott Boras goes away. I don’t think any team, not just Toronto should be handing out 7 year deals to baseball free agents.
The leafs also signed David Clarkson to a 7 year contract, and Phil Kessel to i believe an 8 year deal for 64 millon….so I don’t understand it either. Just as many injuries in hockey as baseball, maybe even more….so why is it more of a risk to sign baseball players? maybe AA knew how hard it was to deal Vernon Wells, and doesn’t want to be stuck doing it again???…i dunno, they ARE willing to go 5 years plus options though. so realistically it’s not that bad. Players just want guaranteed years…..which makes no sense considering most long term deals have the option to be bought out at one point or another…5 years with a couple vesting options doesn’t seem too bad.