Can I Exhale Yet?
If this proves out to be true, I'm a happy guy.
The Yankees jolted Major League Baseball on Wednesday as they neared completion of a record seven-year, $161 million deal with the ace left-hander C. C. Sabathia. They have also told A. J. Burnett that they would offer him a guaranteed five-year contract, perhaps for $16 million a season. As some teams scale back, fearing a sharp drop in revenue from sponsorships and ticket sales, the Yankees are the most aggressive shoppers at baseball’s winter meetings.
It's not that I'm happy for the Yankees, as I'm no fan of theirs. Throwing money at big name players is what that franchise is all about, and that's fine. (And there's no doubt they want to open the new ballpark with a bang.
I'm just happy the Giants didn't win here. Sure, it's a sign that all the talk that Sabathia wanted to play in the Bay Area (his hometown) and was willing to take a lot less turned out to either not be true, or he just never got a real competitive offer from Los Gigantos. That's fine - while the Giants have money to spend as well, they need to be throwing it at their OFFENSE, not their pitching staff.
While it's true that with Sabathia, the Giants would have one of, if not THE, best rotation in the NL and probably baseball in general. (It would move Barry Zito, a terrible signing in historical terms, to the #4 slot. Even with Zito's epic fails recently, that's a strong rotation.)
It would have been nice to see if they could get Mark Teixeira, but if its true that the Nationals just offered him $160 million, then they're out of that too (and rumor is he's not interested in playing here, so F him). I've heard some chatter about Paul Konerko, but the name I'd love to see - however unlikely - is Adam Dunn. Dunn has a crap reputation because he doesn't have a high batting average but he gets on base well above the league average and he flat out rakes. He's hit 40 or more HR for five seasons in a row. The Giants need a BASHER. He's still only 29 years old. (Which is sort of shocking.)
Is it going to happen? I don't think so - there's no whispers of it at all, so far as I can tell. In fact, I'm not sure there is a good fit right now out there, though I hope Sabean actually looks for some. But I'd rather not spend and make a trade if needs be.
(One example of why Sabean sucks so much? They talked about trading Sanchez to the Marlins for Jorge Cantu, though that doesn't seem to be happening. Why would the Marlins trade Cantu, who had a nice rebound year last season? Because they also have Dallas MacPherson who flat out tore up the minors. MacPherson was available for nickels and a bag of peanuts, and the Giants paid him no interest.
Brian Sabean is a horrible, horrible general manager.)