The Yankees’ lack of a major signing this winter won’t give them any leverage in the YES Network dispute with Comcast, Bob Raissman of the Daily News writes. Â That may come as a surprising take given their recent acquisition of Starlin Castro, but Raissman feels that the shortstop still isn’t enough to move the needle significantly for the Bombers. Â In fact, Raissman wonders if the Yankees’ relative inaction could lead fair weather fans to switch over to the Mets.
Here’s today’s glance at the AL East:
- The Orioles offered Chris Davis precisely $154MM over seven years, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets.  Now, GM Dan Duquette says the team is looking at other options.  Talks have not been terminated, but Duquette implied it would be up to Davis’ agent Scott Boras to revisit negotiations.  The 29-year-old Davis is the top power bat on the open market, as he leads the Majors in homers over the past three seasons.
- The Rays are suddenly holding a hot commodity thanks to their pitching depth, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. Â Earlier today, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported that of the three teams that are willing to move good, young starting pitching, the Rays might be the most likely to do it.
- It’s not a big surprise, but the Rays found at the Winter Meetings that “everyone” has interest in Gold Glove-winning center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, Topkin writes. Â This past season, Kiermaier led the majors with 42 Defensive Runs Saved.
- The Rays wanted to bring Daniel Nava back on a minor league deal, but it appears that he’s going to sign a similar deal elsewhere, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Â The Angels and Padres are believed to be in the mix to sign the outfielder, according to a source who spoke with SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo. Â Nava, 32, is a free agent for the first time in his career.
“The Orioles offered Chris Davis precisely $154MM over seven years,’
That’s $22m annually for 7 years. This is just my opinion, but I would rather offer that type of money to Justin Upton.
Davis is a better asset than Upton, IMO. You do have to avert your eyes to the disaster that was 2014, but guys who can put up 146 OPS+ years don’t come along very often. And playing 1B he should age reasonably well. Upton might not.
say hello , ryan howard
Was just about to say the same thing.
Exception to every rule, of course.
The disaster that was 2014 was the TRUE Davis….he only hits good when he gets the BS exception to use Adderall…
Why has everyone forgotten about Cespedes? We could offer him that money, I think that’d be a great deal for him and it would solve part of the Orioles OF issue. Then just stick Trumbo at 1b.
Injuries, age.
Yeah, isn’t that mental illness of his so convenient?You know what I also hate? When those depressed people are on all those anti-depressants. Such BS, right friend?
I don’t know him but I also don’t believe he’s taking them for depression…
And btw Adderall is used for ADHD and narcolepsy not depression….its kinda like speed…
Chris Davis was diagnosed with ADHD in 2008 and has been in treatment for it ever since. He has been taking ADHD medications since then. He was suspended due to a paperwork issue regarding reupping his medical exemption which he had held for several years prior, and is currently using. It was a secretary issue that got him suspended. He has been in treatment for ADHD since his rookie season.
“I think it kind of says something about where he was” with ADHD, Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. “When you have something [and] you’ve been diagnosed with it, they have a lot of things in place they have to follow to get approved. I think, as an industry, we were concerned that people were getting not legitimately approved. So we have a system in place that really looks at it closely. If Chris had followed the right procedure, he would have been approved for it.”
Davis hasn’t disclosed why he wasn’t granted an exemption in 2013, and since the suspension was handed down Sept. 12, he has taken responsibility for the mistake.
“I think Chris had been very up front about, ‘There were rules, and I didn’t follow them the way they were supposed to be followed.’ But the legitimacy of the diagnosis has always been the same,” Showalter said. “It’s not like he was taking steroids. He just didn’t follow the proper procedure for something he was diagnosed with and was legitimate. That’s unfortunate.
“I don’t want guys like him to start apologizing for being extremely hard workers and strong. “I think sometime we make the mistake that every time a guy hits a ball a long way or throws the ball 98 miles an hour, [they’re scrutinized.] But the players will tell you, that was created by the people who didn’t do it the right way. Chris does it the right way.”
I was wrong as to when he was diagnosed(I thought it was in 2011)…he also isn’t cleared to take adderall anymore….they approved a different med…
I would rather have Davis. He puts up about 47 or more home runs a year.
What happens if MLB decides to take a hard line and ban stimulants? We saw the player he was in 2014 when he could not take his Adderall
The Yankees are still a contender as-is. They really don’t have many needs other than maybe another SP to cover a potential loss of CC.
Yes, I don’t what he wants Cashman to do, Fangraphs has them as one of the top teams on paper. It was the same thing last year, most of these guys picked them for last and the Sox for first and what happened.
They’d love to lose CC Sabathia and his ERA of 4.73 or more each of the last 3 years.
Raissman thinks Yankee’s fans will morph into Met’s fans? How long has he been writing? As to the lack of big bucks signings, I would say, dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. The Yankees spent a lot of money over the last two years–Elsbury, McCann, Beltran, Headley, Miller…The best thing they can do for maximum leverage is win.
Maybe because many modern day fans care about only “me”, “”I” and “what can you do for me now”? Teams realize this, as does the league. It’s why they have all of these new playoff teams post 1980’s and really.. Divisions themselves when only the leader of the AL and NL skipped everything and went straight to the WS.
Fans used to cram parks and be diehard for teams. HUGE rivalries, then snakes came in, some of these same people who ask these same questions squeaked into the game.. 1st tearing up the salary structure to where it currently is, calling it “parity” and sharing the wealth, but all it did was tear up an existing rabid base and hand it off to other sports.. Namely basketball and football, which were far less popular then.
Sometimes a certain range of fans should actually think before they act.
I don’t quite agree, baseball revenues are continuing to go up. I don’t like their playoff system because the best teams have a harder chance of winning. That being said, I don’t know what would be the best way to change it.
I havent seen a post on here I thoroughly disagree with more than this. Every single point is wrong. But do you!
You must not be from NY. If theres one thing thats for certain in NY sports its the fact that when the Yanks start losing their fair weather fans always switch up teams, and its always been that way.
Your presumption that every yankee fan must be fair weather is false. i speak from 50+ years of Yankee rooting. Been some lousy teams during that time, and I’m not alone. Are there some who switch sides–sure,
Where did I say every yankee fan is a fair weather fan? Nothing I said was false, I live and work in NY and see it all the time, the same can be said about the football teams too.
You say “fair weather fans” but you mean “local media coverage changes”.
We use the word idiot casually on the internet, but raisman is and always has been a NY troll. He spends most his column commenting on wfan and its host. He really isnt taken seriously.
I PRAY the Angels don’t sign Nava to anymore then a minor league contract w/ invite to ST….
What reason would there be to pray? Nava won’t sign for a huge amount regardless. He probably top out at t two year contract for less than 10 million. It’s not like that would cash strap the Angels. The guy is a 4th outfielder. He’s not looking at 7 years 150.
IMO he’s not even a 4th OF and I do not want to see another year w/ a “platoon” LF….not asking them to sign a billion dollar LF….just a solid hitter/defender that isn’t rotated based on preceived match ups…
Red Sox platooned Nava and Gomes and won a World Series. Most teams have a platoon position. Not sure why it would be such a big deal to have a position where you could play the percentages.
Betts or Kiermaier for the next 4 years.
Glad you like Nava soo much….
Angels had a platoon last season and had the lowest LF performance in MLB….
Nava has ZERO power/low bave and IMO isn’t more a minor league caliber player now….
I would say that the Yanks have a better chance of getting back to the playoffs than the Mets next year. At least you know they will do whatever than can to make that happen unlike the Mets front office.
No way yanks don’t have half the arms mets got and your right about yanks doing whatever compared to the mets!
I’m a Yanks fan and even I will admit that the Mets are a better lock to make the playoffs next year. Yes, they still have to address a lack of offense now that they are w/o Cespedes and Murphy but they had an incredibly productive pitching staff which should only get better with a healthy Zack Wheeler for an entire season.The Mets also have the benefit of playing in what should be, a week division with the Phillies and Braves basically in rebuild mode. Just about every team in the AL East, with maybe the exception of the Rays, expects to compete for the playoffs this season.
As of now the O’s and Jays don’t look like they have the pitching to be viewed as contenders. I could see the Rays finishing higher than them. The East yet again looks like Yanks and Boston duking it out.
The Jays have 3 guys that can easily give you 40 hrs each and 2 decent starters. That alone can get you 85 wins even if there’s a lot of 10 to 8 boxscores.
Orioles have a little bit more of an uphill battle, especially if they lose Davis. They can still be a tough team to beat.
No other teams are beating down the doors to get Davis. Maybe Boras is overplaying his hand.
That you know of. I’ll bet there are a few hanging around. I can imagine several good fits.
Seems like Kiermaier can bring back more value then Mcgee / Boxberger lol.
Of course he would. He’s not arb. eligible til 2018, and not a free agent till 2021. And he just had a historic defensive season. But the likelihood of them trading him is excruciatingly small.