Is it bad that this is what I think of when I think of the typical Yankees fan?  27 rangz yo.  I don’t even dislike the Yankees.  This is just what happens when your the team everybody loves to hate and even file and win a lawsuit claiming that only your team can be called the evil empire.  For years the Yankees rode a huge TV contract to massive free agent signings, although many of the key players during their late 90′s World Series runs were home grown, and drew the ire of many sports fans that felt like they bought wins and rings.  I never really thought you can blame them for playing the pocket aces they were dealt.  These are the new Yankees though.  they haven’t really had a recent huge signing after Mark Texiera and CC Sabathia, their best current player, Robinson Cano, is home grown, and they’ve even vowed to get below the $189M luxury tax cap.  If anything, the Dodgers, are the new Yankees.  As the try to pare payroll back, they face the reality that their high priced veterans are getting old – they still owe Alex Rodriguez over $100M dollars – and they don’t have a excess of young talent to fill those voids.  I don’t know if they’ll get back to their spendy ways to fill those spots or if they’ll suffer a few worse years in order to restock for another 5-6 year run of dominance.  Those are long term questions, and we can only talk semi-intelligently about this year.

So what does a “light” offseason for the Yankees look like?

Major Off-Season Moves:

• Signed 3B Kevin Youkilis
• Signed DH Travis Hafner
• Resigned SP Hiroki Kuroda
• Resigned SP Andy Pettitte

The Youkilis signing turned a few heads since all fans think a long time Red Sox player would hate the Yankees and never sign – right Johnny Damon?  Youk still swings a nice bat will be serviceable at 3B.  This is a good 1 yr signing.  I think taking a chance on Hafner is good idea.  The Yankees lost some nice production from Nick Swisher and Hafner will fill that power gap some.  (You know, as long as e can play more than 20 games)  the Kuroda and Pettitte signings were absolutely necessary to fill out the rotation with some quality arms.  If they hadn’t. they would be looking at signing a free agent and potentially giving up a draft pick – hello Kyle Lohse.  Some of the bigger off season moves were the ones the Yankees didn’t make.  They let Nick Swisher and Rafael Soriano – players that had very good years – walk because they both wanted bigger money long term deals.  The Yankees were not going to make that commitment.

Now onto the lineup after the jump. [Read more...]