River Avenue Blues

River Ave. Blues ยป A little too crazy to be hot stove

Thinking Out Loud: The Tommy John Bullpen

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(Madson via The Cincinnati Enquirer; Soria via Getty)

It’s been a pretty rough month for big name relief pitchers. Not only did Joba Chamberlain suffer an open dislocation of his right ankle, but both Ryan Madson and Joakim Soria blew out their pitching elbows. Those two guys will have Tommy John surgery in the very near future. Forgive me while I indulge myself a bit, but wouldn’t it be something if the Yankees bought low on both Madson and Soria next offseason? We can all dream a little.

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Based on how he’s been talking in camp, Mariano Rivera is likely to call it a career after this season. It’ll be a very sad day whenever Mo hangs ’em up, but it is inevitable. The Yankees do have two ready-made closer replacements already in-house, specifically Rafael Soriano and David Robertson. Who knows what we’ll be saying ten months from now, but at the moment those two are more than qualified for ninth inning work. The Yankees will still have to replace a dominant reliever though, and both Madson and Soria qualify as dominant relievers when healthy.

Madson, 31, signed a one-year pillow contract with the Reds this offseason, so he’ll again be a free agent next offseason coming off elbow surgery. Needless to say, the big multi-year offers won’t be rolling in. Soria, 27, is at the whim of the Royals. They can either pick up his $8M option for 2013 or cut him loose and let him become a free agent for the first time in his career. Again, it’s safe to assume those big multi-year contract offers won’t be rolling in for the Mexecutioner. Sucks for them, but that’s how this baseballing thing works.

This is Soria’s second Tommy John procedure, and the two-timers don’t have a great track record of recovery. Chris Capuano and Hong-Chih Kuo are the two most notable success stories. For the sake of argument, let’s assume Kansas City decides not to sink 15-20% of its payroll into Soria and lets him walk. The Yankees could look at both guys on one-year contracts, allowing them to re-establish themselves as dominant late-game relievers before hitting the open market after the season in search of that big multi-year deal they won’t get next winter. One-year pacts would still allow the Yankees to get under the $189M luxury tax threshold in 2014.

Let’s say they could get both Madson and Soria on one-year, $3M contracts with incentives. Add in David Aardsma, who the Yankees can retain in 2013 for just $500k, and that’s three Tommy John guys in the bullpen. Joba could make it four depending on how the ankle injury impacts his elbow rehab schedule. Now, not all of those guys would work out. We may think it’s routine, but elbow ligament replacement surgery is a serious procedure. Two of those four guys may flame out and be completely ineffective, but if the other two guys get back to being their pre-Tommy John selves, the Yankees would still come out ahead in the whole production vs. cost thing.

Anyway, I’m just thinking out loud. Everyone loves the idea of landing a super-talented player on the cheap as they come off injury (hence all the Grady Sizemore-related mailbag questions this winter) but that’s because we’re not the ones assuming the risk. The team has to pay them real money to pitch real innings, and coming off serious surgery like that is no piece of cake. A bullpen staff of Madson, Soria, Joba, Robertson, Soriano, and Aardsma is drool-worthy regardless of who ends up closing, and there’s no harm dreaming about it. We are Yankees fans, after all.

A crazy idea to fill the 2010 outfield

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We’ve just finished two days without Yankee baseball and we still have two to go. Once the playoffs started, I hoped we’d be busy enough to avoid the hot stove talk. Alas, I underestimated the Yankees awesomeness. Their sweep gives us a big break in the action, and inevitably we’ll stray into non-playoff topics. I promise, this is crazy enough that it might not even qualify as a hot stove post.

The biggest issue the Yankees face this season is of their outfield. Nick Swisher will be back in right field, but beyond that everything is up in the air. Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner are still under team control, but they’re an average tandem. That’s not the worst thing in the world, but it could be a problem because of the imminent left field vacancy.

Johnny Damon is a free agent at the end of the season, and despite numerous reports of his desire to return, it’s no guarantee. He’ll be 36 last season and his defense has declined markedly. I’m guessing that the Yankees would sign him if the price were right, but if it’s not they’ll probably let him walk, leaving a left field vacancy. That will connect the team with Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, but there’s another possible solution.

This guy on MLBTR linked to a Mets.com mailbag regarding the Mets’ off-season. One of the letters mentioned trading Carlos Beltran. See? I told you it was crazy enough to not even qualify as a hot stove post. But that won’t stop me from elaborating a bit.

Beltran would replace Damon in every way. He could replace him in left field and at the two spot in the batting order. Beltran is a better hitter than Damon, getting on base at around the same clip but hitting for more power. He also plays better defense. Both hit for a good average, and both are excellent base stealers. In almost every way, Beltran would be a great addition for the Yankees.

The problem is that the Mets won’t give him away. If they can’t get something they can use to rebuild their team, they’ll just keep him. The Yankees are one of the few teams that can eat Beltran’s $37 million salary between 2010 and 2011, but I’m not sure the Yankees and the Mets match up well for a trade.

Then there’s the issue of the Yankees’ opportunity to sign Beltran after the 2004 season. The team had already signed Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright, and had traded for Randy Johnson, when Scott Boras laid it out for the Yankees: $100 million over six years. Had they signed him then, he’d have just one year and somewhere between $16 and $18 million remaining on his deal. It would hurt to trade for him under the terms the Mets negotiated.

If Carlos Beltran were a free agent, the Yankees might consider signing him. He’ll be 33 in the 2010 season and is coming off a pretty serious knee injury, so there are risks — risks that make trading for him a likely nonstarter. More than anything, it makes me wonder what the Yanks would be like if they had kept Vazquez and signed Beltran that winter. I think the team might be a little bit stronger.