Earlier this week, Chad Jennings engaged in a little bit of idle Yankee chatter. Noting that it’s been 11 years since the last expansion draft — the second-longest such stretch during baseball’s Expansion Era — Jennings wondered who among the current Yankees would be protected in a theoretical expansion draft.

He based his lists upon the 1997 rules and writes:

Here are the rules as they were in 1997: Any player with major league experience is eligible. Minor leaguers are eligible if they’re Rule 5 eligible. I’m not sure if someone like Andrew Brackman would have been eligible — he’s on the 40-man but has no major league experience and has not passed the Rule 5 threshold — but I’m going to bet he would have been eligible. Seems to always work that way with the 40-man.

Each team starts by protecting 15 players. No team can lose more than one player per round, and after each round, each team can protect three more. Any 10-5 players (10 years experience, five consecutive with the same team) have to be protected. So do players with no trade clauses.

In the end, he came up with the following list. Keep in mind that the Rule 5 eligibility protects many of the Yanks’ top prospects including Austin Jackson and Jesus Montero:

Must be protected
10-5 players or no-trade clauses
1. Mariano Rivera
2. Jorge Posada
3. Derek Jeter
4. Alex Rodriguez
5. Hideki Matsui

Young and vital
Or maybe not vital, but too good to risk losing
6. Andrew Brackman
7. Joba Chamberlain
8. Phil Hughes
9. Ian Kennedy
10. Chien-Ming Wang
11. Robinson Cano
12. Brett Gardner

Veterans
Not 10-5 guys, but worth protecting
13. Johnny Damon
14. Xavier Nady
15. Nick Swisher

Following the first round and second round, teams can protect more players, and Jennings adds the following eight to his list:

1. David Robertson
2. Phil Coke
3. Alfredo Aceves
4. Chris Garcia
5. Alan Horne
6. Juan Miranda
7. Humberto Sanchez
8. Frank Cervelli

So here is what I pose to you for this open thread: Who would you protect in an expansion draft? In other words, who do you see are the 10-18 most important Yankees on the field right now outside of the guys with the 5-10/No-Trade protection?

Debate away, but play nice. I’m quite curious to see how fans assess the state of the franchise both for this season and in the future in light of this question.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

The action started this morning when Tony Massarotti reported that believes the Braves were preparing a five-year, $80-million offer for Burnett. At the same time, Ken Davidoff suggested that the Yanks may be willing to give Burnett a fifth year as a vesting option.

Since then, the news has picked up a bit. Via MLB Trade Rumors, David O’Brien at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on a definite offer forthcoming from Atlanta at four years with an option and $15 million per year. Thus, enter the Yankees. O’Brien’s sources are claiming that the Yankees will make an offer to Burnett today or tomorrow. I guess everyone is sick of waiting for CC.

I believe that Burnett remains a second choice for the Yanks, but the team can no longer afford to be held hostage by a stalling Sabathia. The Braves don’t want to see Burnett pulled out from under them if Sabathia heads elsewhere, and I don’t blame them. Atlanta would like to resolve the Burnett situation before Sabathia signs, but Burnett, who already left money on the table once this winter by opting out, would be better off waiting for Sabathia to sign. I’m lukewarm on Burnett and would prefer to see him signed to a four-year deal with that option. The wheels, it seems, are starting to turn.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

This caused a stir earlier in the week, with many chastising Cashman and Co. for not offering arbitration to Abreu, Pettitte, and Pudge. There were a couple of external factors playing into this as well. First, it had been over a week since we had something to argue about, so clearly people were ready to chime in. Second, we were basically expecting them to offer arb to at least Abreu, so when they announced they didn’t it came as a shock.

Reflecting on it, it’s not a black and white decision. Both sides have valid cases, I think, but ultimately the Yanks are going to make the move that best fits their overall strategy. It’ll be tough to tell whether this works out or not, but if the Yanks make a haul over the next few weeks I think everyone will be satisfied.

Then we’re onto the hot stove, where a few things have happened in the past day or so. Last night we discussed two shortstop transactions, Edgar Renteria signing with the Giants and the Padres dishing Khalil Greene to the Cardinals. Turns out Renteria’s getting $18.5 million over two years, which seems a bit steep for a guy as inconsistent as he’s been. The Giants could win out on this, though. Mike doesn’t think it has any bearing whatsoever on their ability/willingness to sign CC Sabathia.

Another shortstop appeared to be on the move, Jack Wilson to the Tigers, which we talked about a bit. Turns out that’s false. Oops. As I’ve mentioned before, reporters seem to be jumping the gun this off-season. The trade could certainly still go down, though. Not that Jack Wilson is much of a haul, especially with his contract.

We take some Q & A, though we didn’t get many questions. We did hit on a new Ken Rosenthal column, wherein he discusses a resurrection of the Cano for Matt Kemp trade, as well as the Yanks potential interest in Oliver Perez and Randy Wolf. I’m figuring that last part was just filler — not that I think the Cano rumor has any legs.

Oh yeah, and we’re going to the Winter Meetings. Should be a good time. Anyone who’s going to be out there for any reason should drop us a line. We like drinks, and we like our readers. Those two have to fit together somewhere. We’ll be podcasting all week.

The podcast is available in a number of formats. You can download it here by right clicking on that link and selecting Save As. If you want to play it in your browser, just left click the link. It’s a .m4a file this week, meaning it’s a bookmarkable file. If you hit stop, you can pick up where you left off (which is good for a podcast this length). You can also subscribe to the podcast feed, which will send it to you every Thursday. You can also subscribe in iTunes. Finally, we have the embedded audio player below.

We appreciate any feedback. You can leave it in the comments or email either of us.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

What Randy and Alan Hendricks, Pettitte’s agents, are trying to do is to make sure their client avoids a pay cut. Pettitte made $16 million last season, one of the highest salaries in the major leagues for a pitcher, and his agents have stressed that he wants the same salary. The Yankees have offered Pettitte $10 million, and they seemingly have no immediate plans to improve their offer.

“We’d like to have him back,” General Manager Brian Cashman said Wednesday. “It’s come to the arena of trying to achieve common ground on money, which is easier said than done.”

Pettitte battled shoulder problems last season and ended up 14-14 with a 4.54 earned run average, including a 2-7 mark to finish the year. The Yankees believe Pettitte, who pitched a team-high 204 innings, can still be an effective starter, but they consider a $16 million investment in him to be too expensive.

Curry’s article, coming out less than 24 hours after the Yanks declined to offer the lefty starter arbitration, clearly shows why the Yanks didn’t want to and shouldn’t have offered Pettitte arbitration. Of dual significance is Pettitte’s clear preference to stay in New York and the Yanks’ desire to reduce his salary by over 35 percent.

With this offer on the table, had the Yanks offered arbitration, the Hendricks brothers surely would have accepted. Pettitte wants to be a Yankee for one more year and would have gotten a lot more money under arbitration than he will when the two sides eventually agree on their $12 or $13 million deal. It all makes sense now.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Look at the guy’s baseball reference page. Is he someone you want holding down shortstop for your team? He looks pretty average to me. He’s basically had two standout years, a couple of solid years, and then mediocrity. Yet he was the first shortstop to find a home this off-season.

Then, not long before I wrote this, the Cardinals acquired Khalil Greene from the Padres. Ugh. Dude’s OBP’d over .300 twice in his career, which spans more or less five full seasons. To me, he looks like a former first-round pick who got a lot of hype coming off a damn fine debut in 2004 (.273/.349/.446). He’s been nothing but a disaster since. He did hit 27 homers in 2007, but given the rest of his career that appears an anomaly.

Both of these developments make me damn glad we have Derek Jeter locked in at shortstop. Yeah, sometimes we complain about his defense, but that’s mostly because we’re running out of things to talk about. You’d like to see some better range from short, but Derek makes up for it, and then some, with his offense. Plus, according to Dave Pinto’s PMR, Jeter fielded better than both Greene and Renteria — and Jose Reyes — in 2008.

The rest of the list doesn’t look much better than the above two. Raffy Furcal is clearly the best out there, though he comes along with the injury prone tag. Felipe Lopez isn’t terrible, but he’s another guy who’s living off the reputation of a couple solid years — though he did smoke the ball during his 169 trips to the plate in St. Louis. Orlando Cabrera? I’d say he’s overrated, but I don’t think many people hold him in that high a regard. He’s 34, never been very good, and is a Type A free agent with an arb offer. Cesar Izturis…nah, too easy.

The point is that despite the nitpicks we have with Jeter, we’re still damn glad to have him at shortstop. Can you imagine the Yankees starting the season with Felipe Lopez or Edgar Renteria — or worse, Khalil Greene — starting at short? It’s when we look at situations like this that we can appreciate The Captain even more.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

We all know the Winter Meetings begin on Monday in Las Vegas. We know that there will be tons and tons of rumors floating about, as nearly every baseball executive and member of the media will be in attendance. We know that at least a few free agents will sign. We know that a trade or two will go down. We know that there will be a veritable smokescreen of false info spread around.

You know what else I know about the Winter Meetings?

RAB will be there, live, to bring you updates on the action.

As in everything we do, we’re doing it for you guys, the readers who pay attention to the stuff we write and engage in the discussions on our threads. Without you guys, there’s far less motivation to do this.

Yes, this is an open thread, so all topics are safe. However, if you want some direction, why not make some suggestions as to what you want to see from us. Most of you have seen Winter Meetings coverage from the past. What can we do to make it better? How can we approach it that would provide a better overall experience?

So have at it. I’d say play nice, but sometimes it’s more fun when you don’t.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog