Yankees decline options for Wood, Berkman, and Johnson
ByThe Yankees have declined their 2011 options for Kerry Wood ($11M), Lance Berkman ($15M), and Nick Johnson ($5.5M), the club announced today. Puma gets a $2 million buyout, Johnson $250,000. As far as I can tell, Wood gets nothing. None of these should come as surprises, and in fact one of the conditions of Berkman’s accepting the trade to New York was that the team had to decline his option. I guess he really didn’t want to stick around. The Yanks could try to bring Wood back, but that salary is far too rich for a setup man.
The Yanks did pick one option today: Andrew Brackman‘s. I have no idea what the money is on that, but it’s not substantial. Even if they would have declined it, he’s still under team control for five more years. They also hold options for 2012 and 2013 as part of the big league deal Brackman signed out of the draft in 2007.
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The Mason Williams Watch
What are we going to do without our Wang, Johnson, and Wood? The Yankees are a bunch of girls now!
Except Mariano. He’s a god
HEY! Nothing wrong with being a girl!
Word on the street is you had a .400 OBP in softball this year, perhaps you could DH for the Yankees!
HEY! Nothing wrong with being a girl!
Sure there is, when you are supposed to be a pro baseball player.
I’m really going to miss Nick Johnson
Who?
Nice knowing you, Lance and Kerry. It was fun while it lasted. I will miss people complaining about Berkman being fat, slow and a base-clogger. “Miss”, in the hilarious sense.
I’m gonna miss you, Wood.
TWSS
literally, she just said that.
Still no chance the offer Berkman arbitration, right?
I’m not going to hold my breath.
Yeah, didn’t think so.
That would only PO the Astros. Surely he will rejoin them (or) maybe Rockies in the Giambi role.
Question: when the Yankees signed Brackman, what would have been the benefit to them of building options into his contract? Is this something that would have been beneficial purely if he were playing at the major league level, or does it make better/easier for the team in some other, more practical way?
They don’t do much of anything. The Yanks would have saved a ton of money if he was in the big leagues dominating, but that’s really it. Otherwise they put a few extra bucks in the kid’s pocket. N big deal.
I’m still confused on Brackman’s situation: as long as he’s not on the 25-man roster, he’s not accumulating major-league service time. To reach free agency, you need 6 full years of major league service time, or a team has to release you.
Here’s the way I see it:
As long as the Yankees don’t release Brackman, they control him for 6 years, beginning in the season he makes the major league roster.
I think I understand the options – those were for Brackman’s benefit and also the protection of the Yankees. Had Brackman completely crapped out, the Yankees would simply release him by declining the option, and thus wouldn’t owe him that money. But since he’s still worth something, he gets some extra dough.
Brackman picked up a full year of service time in 2007 because he was on the ML 60-day DL all season. They traded an option for a year of service time, basically.
The options don’t do much of anything. If Brackman would have debuted like Lincecum, they would have saved the Yanks a ton of money. If not, no big deal. Kid gets a little more money in his pocket, no harm.
Oh, that makes sense. But couldn’t they have gotten that extra option that you get for when a minor league pitcher is out for the whole year?
So how many (waiver) options do they have left on him? One? They used one at the beginning of ’09 and another this year. Does he need to stick after ’11?
They still get that option. They have options for 2011, and then the fourth one kicks in for 2012.
When will Brackman be eligible for the Rule 5 draft, or does the ML contract negate that?
Because he’s on the 40-man roster, he’s not eligible for the Rule 5 draft.
Injury is Nick’s, bless his heart, middle name.
Need to keep the Woodster, he has the heart of a lion.
I’d love to keep Wood around as well. Are we passing the collection plate to give the Yankees an extra 5-8M to pay Wood?
I have $5.
I have a shiny penny
I think most of us already donated to that when we drank 5 or 6 $10 beers and ate $8 hot dogs.
Not to mention the hundreds and thousands spent on tickets, apparel, and running up their TV ratings.
LEE! WOOD! BENCH BATS! ARB RAISES! DEADLINE DEALS!
I’m thinking the 2011 payroll could climb near $240 when all is said and done. Igawa & Marte are making 8M along over in useless lefty heaven.
Igawa needs to be the blowout longman.
Do whatever you want with that sentence, but that dude needs to be in New York carrying bags for Jeter and Arod.
The problem is, if he’s on the 40 man, his salary is subject to the luxury tax. Right now, it isn’t.
isn’t Igawa off the books this year?
2011 is his last year.
Chances that he pitches as well next year as he did in the second half are remote at best. The guy has a ton of guts, but he’s an injury waiting to happen. He has a Kevin Brown kind of future.
Wait, the Yankees declined the opt-outs on the day of a World Series Game, thus undermining and upstaging the entire glorious Fall Classic?
THOSE @#$HOLES!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOO THIS TEAM!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The Yankees have murdered baseball history.
Right now the Mets plan to announcer their new GM during game 3 of the World Series. I guess that Selig edict about no proclamations during the World Series was just another one of those things that only apply to A-rod!
Quit being a hater you Mets Fan.
You’re new here, aren’t you?
I got here last week
I’m not a Mets fan.
Welcome aboard.
Just making sure. And thanks!
What’s the most you guys would go in for Wood? I’d say 2/10 at the absolute most, but would prefer a one year over pay of 1/7 or so.
His injury history and wildness scare me. Guy like that could implode at any point. It’s a moot point anyway, some team is going to pay him to close.
didnt marte get more than that? he needs at least marte money right?
sigh…this is too hard.
Too much.
People are ignoring his 6.23 BB9, .235 BABIP, 33.9 GB%, and 98.1 LOB% for some reason. The results looked good, but he had luck.
The Yankees need to sign Pedro Feliciano to replace wood and Adam Dunn to replace Johnson.
He of a 1.53 WHIP last year? No thank you.
Really? I obviously don’t know anything about Feliciano then.
The Yankees need to sign Pedro Feliciano to replace wood and Adam Dunn to replace Johnson.
Feliciano might be doable. Adam Dunn we don’t have room in the budget for, at all.
I should of thought of that. Having him as a full DH would be great though.
You: preaching
Me: the choir
can’t we do a sign and trade to free up the salary cap money for dunn? they can have marte and igawa.
Isn’t Feliciano supposed to be a Type A? I have no interest in surrendering a draft pick for a LOOGY, thank you.
Do we have a guess at what type fa’s Wood and Berkman might be? If Lance were a type b, offering arb might not be out of the question b/c we know he hates the AL. Wood is also risky, but if he were a B, maybe they would risk it. Prob not though.
Berkman’s a weird one. He still wants to play first every day, which obviously won’t happen on the Yankees. With that in mind, he’d definitely turn down arbitration.
The wild card of course is if there’s a team out there that wants him to play first for them. If he finds out early in the season that there isn’t – or at least not a team he’d be willing to play for – then maybe he does accept to get a bigger payday.
I’m mostly sad that now that Wood’s no longer ours, he’s going to grow that hideous beard again.
Berkman has said he wants to play first, right? Why don’t the Yankees just say “There’s no way in hell you’ll play first base regularly for the Yanks,” and then offer him arbitration.
Cold. Blooded.
He’ll get $16M or so through arbitration and nothing close to that on the open market. If the Yanks say that, he’ll say “fine, I accept, give me my money and good luck trading me.”
Because now that Houston has Brett Wallace and doesn’t want Berkman back, there’s no natural landing spot for him, so he’d probably just take the arb offer and sit on the cool 13M+ and let the Yankees try to trade him somewhere if we really don’t have room for him.
It’s called “pulling a Rafael Soriano”.
when did soriano do that?
this past offseason….
Last year, when the Braves signed Billy Wagner and offered Soriano and Mike Gonzalez arb, thinking they’d both decline and they’d get a closer upgrade while gaining free draft picks… only Soriano shocked them and accepted, and they were forced to foist his 8M salary off on the Tampa Bay Rays.
the difference is that soriano was type a
if berkman is a type b, this plan could conceivably work, even if unethical
Their Type A/B rankings are irrelevant. It’ll be considerably harder to trade old, broken down Lance Berkman for 13-16M when he accepts than it would be to trade healthy, effective Rafael Soriano for 8M when he accepted.
right, but thats not really the point. the point is that if berkman isnt a type a, he’d be infinitely more likely to decline arb simply cuz he wants to play 1b and wants to be in the NL
if he was type a, he knows that would hurt his chances of getting signed, so he’d be more likely to accept
except for the $13MM, which is like, Kristen Lee money.
If a player accepts arbitration, the absolute minimum they can make is 80% of the previous year’s salary. For a player like Berkman, Damon, or Matsui, that is much more than they are worth, so the chances of them accepting arbitration are extremely high. Offering arb is too risky for players like that since they would accept if they have any business sense.
lol thats a pretty hilarious thing to consider…
they could go up to javy (if hes a type B anyway) and be like “you wont step on a mound all season, and you’ll be forced to sit in the bullpen and watch others pitch in both set up and mop up duty… AND we will ask the fans to boo you every inning via the jumbotron….. so here’s your arb offer”
NEVER.GONNA.HAPPEN.
can you imagine yankee fans booing their own players?
please.
that may hurt the yankee brand
Good riddance to all.
Yeah, because Wood was atrocious.
rolls eyes
We got lucky with Wood’s health, let’s not tempt that fate again.
Qn regarding Marte: Do the Yanks 60 day DL him or just release him. // What a contract that was.
Berkman: The only role I see for him is the role Giambi had for Rockies
Next year’s draft is supposed to be special, but will we miss out on anything significant when our pick is 31. Doubt it.
can we make up for it via IFA’s? like yesterday’s signing, maybe we get a bit more aggressive in the IFA market.
The Yankees will (gladly) be giving Texas their #31 pick as compensation for signing Cliff Lee.
I knew it was inevitable but I’m still kinda bummeed about Kerry leaving.
*bummed
From Cot’s Baseball contracts:
Andrew Brackman rhp
4 years/$4.55M (2007-10), plus club options through 2013
* 4 years/$4.55M (2007-10), plus club options through 2013
o signed Major League contract 8/15/07
o $3.35M signing bonus (paid over 6 years)
o options and escalators may increase value to $13M
* drafted 2007 (1-30) (NC State)
* agent: Scott Boras
What are the “options and escalators that may increase the value to $13M”?
Sounds REALLY expensive.
Those escalators are usually ML service time, super 2 status, etc.
Lee has been believed a pitching monster by Yankees. So what? He was smashed
by Giants on Game 1. What will Yankees think about? The point is not how bad he was smashed, the point is you need to compare the games between Giants
against Cliff Lee and Yankees against Cliff Lee. If you are reasonable, you will agree the fact this yankees team is sinking from the managers to the players. This Yankees team has lost its spirit, the only thing left is $M.
I am a yankees fan, I certainly hope yankees the best. But you need to face the problems first, rather than talk about how well Joe Girardi managed.
anyway, hope I am wrong.