(1) Pineda threw the hell outta the ball that last game. Cranked it up to 96 MPH and the slider was the best we've seen all year from him. If we could get this guy back to where he's throwing 95+ consistently, watch out. Major weapon.

(2) This Jose Pirela looks like a player. AAA all-star this year before the callup. Plays all over (looked real good at 2B), he's got speed and he can hit. Shows nice enthusiasm and spunk.. Real nice revelation at the end of a disappointing year. Maybe this kid's our 2nd basemen...If that's the case we might be able to conserve some money -- pencil this kid Pirela in at 2nd, Prado plays 3rd instead of 2nd (A-Rod DHes and is hopefully productive) and we let Chase Headley walk. More money should then be available for other things: D-Rob, maybe even another top bullpen arm (Andrew Miller?), McCarthy, an everyday SS, a RF upgrade, etc..

Anyone else feel like the Yanks should pursue this guy? Just defected from Cuba, I believe he's established residency and is currently a FA. I personally think he fits like a glove -- this lineup needs a legit power threat and an everyday RFer. I don't see how we just pencil in a 38-year-old Carlos Beltran coming off the elbow injury and a completely unproductive year in RF and anywhere from 3-5 in the order and think that's good enough. Last year proved--it's not good enough. Either trade Beltran or slide him into the Ichiro 4th OFer role. We need to strengthen our attack big-time. Hopefully A-Rod can come back and give us something -- say 20-something HRs in the DH spot (even if he can't play 3rd anymore, we can slide Prado in over there)..I was thinking Colby Rasmus as a RF upgrade but this guy might be the better choice. So far I haven't seen the Yankees as one of the teams that's in on this guy. Mistake. I think they need to get involved. They're saying it could take a 10 year/$100mm contract to get it done. I think he's 23 years old -- if he pans out, $10mm a season could be a bargain. What if we could get a player somewhere along the lines of Puig/Cespedes/Jose Abreu? Boston traded for Cespedes and they just gave another Cuban OF prospect, Rusney Castillo, a 7 year/$72.5mm deal. I think the Yanks should go all in on this kid Tomas. What was the point in getting Tanaka if we're not prepared to go the extra nine & spend some more money to round out the team properly?

• Bring David Robertson back.

• Sign Andrew Miller -- we need a solid lefty reliever anyway. Go get the best available. Betances/Miller leading up to D-Rob closing is a great 3-man back end to the bullpen. Those 3 would ensure we win a lot of games.

• Sign Yasmany Tomas. 25-30+ HRs year after year during his prime years of 23-33 would definitely be worth $10mm a pop.

• Bring Brandon McCarthy back -- he was good for the Yanks after coming over in the trade.

• Pencil in Shane Greene for the rotation.

• Give RH reliever Danny Burawa a long look this spring. Could be another dominant power arm we could add to the pen for 5th-6th inning duty. Minor league stats aren't that impressive but neither were Shane Greene's before his callup. Burawa's got a big-time arm & passes the eye test. Better stuff than Shane Greene imo.

• Re-establish CC Sabathia as part of the rotation. Hopefully the knee's OK now and the year off helped his arm. A bounce-back year (say 15 wins) would be awesome. Would love to see him back pitching with confidence. No longer throws 97 mph but neither does Madison Bumgarner. That guy's mowing down hitters throwing 91-92. Gives me some hope that CC can make it back and still contribute.

• Don't overspend on a SS. I'd rather see money allocated elsewhere (see above). Just get a steady, reliable guy to pencil in that'll field the position. Any offense would be gravy if we succeed in upgrading other areas. Pay accordingly. A guy like Stephen Drew might be our best bet. I think he'd come cheap off the terrible year, he can field the position, nobody would expect a thing from him--as such there's no real drama with Drew taking over SS from Derek Jeter like there would be with a guy like Hanley Ramirez coming over. Drew will come cheap, he'll field well and odds are he'll hit well over the .167 or whatever he batted last year. Don't over-think this. Just listened to Harold Reynolds on the MLB network say the Yanks should throw $200mm total at Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval for 3B (2 guys coming over from a completely different league mind you, Ramirez has trouble staying healthy--they're talking about how he probably won't play out his entire next contract at SS, that he might have about a year or 2 left at short before he'll have to be moved, and Sandoval was great in the postseason but really isn't a great regular season performer). I disagree. I'd rather see that money used for D-Rob & Miller (keep bullpen strength intact--further enhance it with Miller), Tomas (youth, legit power, $10mm a season will eventually look like a bargain) & Brandon McCarthy.

• Infuse with some youth from within, something Hal Steinbrenner seems very much in favor of. Give this kid Jose Pirela a long look at 2B during the spring. This Korean kid Rob Refsnyder's another possibility for 2B. I like the look of that kid too A LOT. Looks like he can really hit -- real quick, compact swing with some nice gap power -- reminds me of Gregg Jefferies/Ian Kinsler at the plate. Kid split time in Trenton and Scranton in 2014 and hit a combined .318 with 38 2Bs and 14 HRs. A converted OFer now playing 2B, he cut his errors in half last year (2013: 25 errors in 108 games; 2014: 12 in 112 games)...Also monitor the progress of youngsters like 1B Greg Bird (ripping up the Arizona Fall League right now), LH reliever Jacob Lindgren (95 mph with great breaking stuff) and SP Luis Severino (front end of the rotation potential). I'd also think long and hard about finally establishing LHSP Manny Banuelos with the big club. TJ surgery in 2012, missed the entire 2013 season, and had an uneven performance last year in limited action working with pitch count limits all year. Most important thing is he looked healthy. Looks like he's added a hard cutter to his fastball/change up/slow curveball arsenal. If he's healthy, if the stuff's there and if we need to fill a rotation spot, why the hell not? Better than have him floundering around in the minors. I don't want to see any pitch restriction with him anymore. Take the shackles off and let this kid go to work. Hoping for a big bounce-back year out of Banuelos. If he's productive and healthy, I'd like to see him fast-tracked. If he's right, I think Banuelos compares favorably to Francisco Liriano stuff-wise. I think all of these guys have the potential to move up quickly in the organization and become contributors sooner than later. We need to start augmenting from within a little bit. Looking forward to seeing these youngsters in spring training this year. Just read a quote direct from Hal Steinbrenner, saying that he expects to see Refsnyder, Lindgren and Severino all crack the Yanks' 25-man roster at some point in 2015.

• It'd be nice to bring back Chase Headley -- read we're negotiating his return. Good guy, not the hitter he was that 1 year in SD but he's a very good fielder. Can't overpay for this guy though. Again, if it came down to it, I'd rather see our FA money allocated elsewhere. I'd like to see a combination of Pirela/Refsnyder take over 2B and that'll leave Martin Pardo to play 3B (3rd might be Pardo's best position anyway). I think we'd be good there. And this is assuming A-Rod can no longer play in the field -- maybe he still can play some 3B...Maybe sign a guy like Jorge Vazquez out of the Mexican League to be a corner infield backup and to supply some added pop off the bench. We had Vazquez a couple of years ago in AAA Scranton and he hit 32 HRs. He strikes out a lot but can play 1st & 3rd, has legit pop and would come cheaper than Headley.

This move almost certainly means no Andrew Miller now -- I wonder where the focus is gonna be the rest of this off-season. Can't possibly come back with the same team. I think it's reasonable to expect a little bit better year from McCann and maybe Ellsbury too, but I think this offense still needs a jolt. The offense was a major reason why we weren't a playoff team...I'd like to see us retain Robertson (I have a feeling he'll be back--Cash likes him and is supposedly trying to hammer out a multi-year deal to bring him back) but if they wanted to, they easily could go with Betances at closer, freeing up a lot of money going that route. We could conserve some more money going with Prado/Zelous Wheeler at 3rd along with whatever A-Rod has left (we let Headley walk), Rob Refsnyder at 2nd (asking a lot, I know, but he looks like the real deal, at least with the bat) and if we can't bring Stephen Drew back at our price (just remembered he's a Boras guy--Boras already talking as if he's prepared to play hardball with Drew---he can go scratch then, no way I'd overpay off the year Drew just had), maybe we look at a cheaper alternative like Jed Lowrie or we just stick with what we have: Brendan Ryan backed up by Jose Pirela (a youngster I really like--Pirela can back up SS, 3rd and 2nd for us--could probably even start at 2B if Ref's not ready--and he can handle the bat). So we go cheap with the lefty upgrades in the pen, maybe play it cheap at 3rd (no Headley), cheap at SS, cheap at 2nd (I'm praying this kid Refsnyder's ready and the real deal), we could also go with Betances at closer and let D-Rob walk, go cheap with some other internal bullpen (Danny Burawa) and rotation upgrades (Luis Severino, Manny Banuelos, Bryan Mitchell, even a guy like Nik Turley looks pretty good from the left side. Ian Clarkin too--he could move up quickly...maybe we go with these guys and let Kuroda and McCarthy both walk) ---> point is, if we really wanted to conserve like this, I see no reason why the money shouldn't be there for an impact bat. I really like Yasmani Tomas. He's the guy I really want. I'd take a chance here. I understand we still have Beltran for $15mm but it's only for one more year and we just resigned Chris Young on a real club-friendly contract -- with Beltran a year older and coming off the elbow problems, I have a real problem just penciling him in in RF and thinking we're OK. I'd like to see us get in on this kid Tomas. The only reason I can think of passing on Tomas is Aaron Judge's emergence. Judge had a real good 1st yr in A ball. 6'7" 230 lb. RFer with excellent power and good overall tools... Great first yr -- let's see what he does for an encore now. Judge looks legit, I just wish he was ready to help right now. Looks like he might be a year or two away..

I think Tomas would be a good investment. Why not move forward with Tomas and Judge? It would ensure we move forward with two young power bats for the middle of the order. Tomas could play every OF spot + 3B; Judge can play RF and could probably learn to play left. Both could also serve as DH. So there's versatility/interchangeability here with these two. A-Rod and Teixeira are clearly on the decline. So is Beltran who won't even be here after next season. If we went out and grabbed this kid Tomas (again, if he's as good as advertised, say a 25+ HR guy every year, $100mm over 10 years seems very reasonable to me, and it might not even take that much -- it might only take an 8 or 9 year deal. His agent's been talking him up a lot lately, saying he's got more power than Jose Abreu: http://nesn.com/2014/11/agent-yasmany-tomas-has-a-lot-more-power-than-white-soxs-jose-abreu/). Put Tomas together with Aaron Judge, Pirela, Refsnyder, Greg Bird within the next yr or two (MVP of the Arizona Fall League--shaping up to be a major 1B prospect)...that's a nice core of youngsters we can feature for years to come and eventually replace our older guys with.

• What's everyone's take on Yoan Moncada? 19-year-old Cuban defector that's supposedly a 5-tool player and has versatility to play all over the infield. Natural position is SS...I don't know too much about him -- Can he play SS full-time or will he need some seasoning in AA or AAA right away (which would be OK with me)... He looks like the real deal. People are saying he's a can't miss...What's the price tag though? Do we go after this kid even if he's beyond our budget? Yeah, maybe. It's not my money and easy for me to say, but provided Moncada's the real deal (the Yankees have scouted him extensively), I think maybe we pull the trigger and take a shot here. We certainly have the need. Maybe we grab him, allow him some time to adjust in AAA, and lock it down with Ryan/Pirela in the meantime until he's ready.

• Resign D-Rob. I think keeping the bullpen a major strength is very important. With the lefty enhancements we've made (Wilson/De Paula and let's not forget Lindgren and Tyler Webb knocking on the door --- I feel strong enough about these lefties collectively all of a sudden to switch focus off signing Andrew Miller), some surprises along the way (Burawa, Pinder, Jose Ramirez?), to go together with whatever holdovers we still have on the roster (Warren, Rogers, Kelley)---with D-Rob and Betances anchoring the back end---that's an AWESOME bullpen, one of baseball's best. Better than last year's and last year's was pretty damn good.

• Sign Yasmani Tomas AND Yoan Moncada each to long-term deals. Take the shot...Believe Tomas might be a 25 HR guy year after year give or take, a guy that's being mentioned in the same breath as Abreu, Cespedes & Puig (Tomas' agent is saying he has more power than Abreu), and that this kid Moncada will be the real deal after some initial seasoning. Moncada makes even more sense when you start hearing Scott Boras popping off about how Stephen Drew just had an off-year and deserves to get paid. I like Drew and would welcome him back but definitely not at Boras money, not off the year he just had. That'd be crazy. At that point, why not just invest in this kid Moncada?

• I suppose we get involved for Headley here but at what cost? The Giants, now that they lost Sandoval, are said to be big players for Headley's services. Last thing I wanted to do was get involved in a bidding war for this guy...I'm tellin' ya---too bad we didn't keep Zelous Wheeler. I would've been OK with Prado/Wheeler at 3rd and letting Headley walk...Does anyone really wanna give Headley 4 years/$48mm, 5 years/$60mm, maybe even more than that? I don't. Not with the other things I feel we need to do. Might have to now...Maybe we come up with a 3rd basemen in the Rule 5 draft, someone better than Wheeler. We'll see..

After that, infuse with more of our own youth whenever these young men are ready: Refsnyder, Judge, Bird, Severino, Mitchell, Banuelos, Turley, Clarkin, etc., and give it time to gel. That's what I'd do.

Not sure what to make of the Didi Gregorius move. The jury's obviously still out. I don't know too much about him other than few video clips I've seen and what I read. He's young which is nice & he's supposedly a real good defender at short--a young player with some good overall upside. They're saying the bat isn't anywhere near as good as his glove yet but he's still developing. From what I can tell, it looks like he's got a real lively left-handed swing with a little pop. I betcha they think that with the short porch in RF at the Stadium, he could develop into a 10-15 HR guy. That very well could be. Although he wasn't a big stolen base guy in the minors he looks very quick and agile to me -- maybe stealing bases is something that he can add to his game eventually. I'll have to watch him over a few week stretch everyday to get a feel for what type of player he is. I know I really liked Shane Greene, esp. as part of a rotation with so many question marks. I guess they felt they had a shot to get a young everyday SS with good promise where they could easily turn around and fill Greene's rotation spot, either internally with a guy like Adam Warren or Bryan Mitchell, maybe with a youngster like Luis Severino or Nik Turley or maybe we do bring back a Brandon MacCarty if the price is right. A Max Scherzer signing would surely clear up a lot of concerns about the rotation. Interesting bit of info I saw the other day on Yankees Hot Stove -- between Scherzer, Lester and Shields, the 3 big starters on the market, Scherzer's thrown something like 9000 less pitches than either of those guys. Scherzer and Lester are both 30 I believe; Shields might be 32-33 years old. Trying to say that there's a lot less wear on Scherzer's tires so to speak compared to the other two. I thought that was interesting, definitely something to consider when making a decision who to give big money to. Based on that, I'd definitely feel more comfortable breaking the bank for Scherzer over Lester. 9000 pitches could be something close to 3 full seasons less on a starting pitcher's arm. See what happens..

I still feel the same way about 3rd base. Not that high on bringing Headley back, esp. if it's for something like $65mm. That's crazy. Let the Giants have him for that type of money. A-Rod's an enigma that can't be counted on or penciled in for anything other than the DH spot (maybe) but we have Martin Prado who can play 3rd. I'd rather see Prado at 3rd and Refsnyder and Pirela at 2B -- if we overpay for Headley, Prado will wind up playing 2B and Refsnyder and Pirela will be held back. I don't wanna see that -- I want Ref and Pirela in there contributing. Too bad again about letting Zelous Wheeler go -- I still don't understand that move for the life of me. I know most people weren't that high on him but I really liked him. Strong/stocky hardnosed player, played a nice 3B & he was a good hitter in the minors (which I believe would've translated over to the majors eventually -- you can't go by the 57 ABs he had with the Yanks last year. That's not a big enough sample size to determine anything. Even still, I liked how he played when we called him up. Looked like he belonged to me). Played quite a few positions actually -- 3B, SS, 2B, OF -- it would've been good to have that type of versatility. With the lack of depth at 3B (and all around the infield basically), I think he was worth keeping around, esp. for the amount of money he was making. I think you can make a case that Wheeler may even have been a better infield prospect over this kid Gregorius...Small miscalculation on Cash's part imho but we'll have to move on and keep forging ahead.

Hector wrote:I see you called that miller option above in a post at he top of the page - good job!

Pleasantly surprised. You know, I didn't think they'd go after Miller after they traded for Justin Wilson & acquired Jose De Paula. Plus a lot of people feel Jacob Lindgren and Tyler Webb are 2 top minor league lefty relievers that are ready for the big time. That's 4 legit lefty arms for the pen. Much improved from where we've been in the pen from the left side with crap like Matt Thornton/Cesar Cabral then guys like Rich Hill, David Huff, Josh Outman, Wade LeBlanc, a washed up Jeff Francis, etc...But we just got even better, deeper and more versatile with Miller. It'd be great to have both but we're no worse for the wear with Miller over Robertson. It might even be an upgrade. Great pickup.

Another guy I might look to get on the cheap right now -- Alexi Ogando. Non-tendered by the Rangers about a week ago. He's always had plus stuff and big-time versatility to either start or pitch in relief. If he's healthy (big "if" -- just reading about all his arm troubles the past couple of years including elbow problems last year), I might take a shot here on a 1-yr deal. Maybe even a minor league make-good deal. With Greene gone, Nova out until mid summer, Kuroda and McCarthy are FAs and may not be back, he could fill an immediate spot in our rotation --OR-- he could prove to be a better option from the right side in the bullpen over guys like Preston Claiborne, Esmil Rogers, etc...I probably like him best as a starter for us. We probably have more of a need for a rotation arm at this point. Dude would come a hell of a lot cheaper than McCarthy, Kuroda or whatever other 2nd tier starter that might be out there. Even if we got Ogando and had to rehab him if he isn't ready to start the season, I think he makes some sense.

Manny Banuelos is a guy I forgot to mention before regarding the rotation -- if he's healthy, ready to be stretched out & throw more innings than last year and the velocity's back up in the 93-95 range, I think he's a legit candidate to start for us. Can't wait for spring training. So many youngsters of ours I wanna see play.

Something interesting that's developed over the past few years is team building strategies.

Oakland A's - Look for market inefficiencies but don't over value prospects. It almost operates as a "Let's see what that backup QB can give us" Guys like Vogt, Donaldson, Moss, etc, they were fringe guys on other teams.

SF Giants - Deeply invest your whole organization in pitching, and piecemeal your hitting.

Chicago Cubs - Build offense through the draft, as hitting is such a desirable commodity in the non Juice ball era, and import in pitchers from other organizations.

St Louis Cardinals - Emphasize stability across the organization above all else. Build internally first and foremost. Don't be married to one philosophy ( almost Belichick like)

The problem I see with the Yankees is that they pay for past performance and have to eat, and eat badly, a lot of player's decline phases. One thing I remember from seeing a George Lucas interview is something he said, that if he built his own studio essentially because when he was making Jedi, that there was the "regular price" and then the "Star Wars price" meaning everyone tried to gouge him because they felt he had unlimited coffers from Star Wars.

A lot of the mechanisms where the Yankees has past advantages are gone (there are changes in bidding for international players, how signing bonuses work, competitive balancing picks, compensation picks, revenue sharing issues, it takes a lot of the bite that NY used to have)

Losing Peter O'Brien IMHO was just brutal. There is such a premium on young power these days. I almost wish the Yankees would follow the Cubs model. Premium pitching will always cost, no matter the league structure (even the cheap skate A's had to fork over a bit , well for them, to sign Kazmir) but it's time for the Yanks to invest more in internally develop their own hitting. Overpaying free agents for their decline phases, it just kills the team for the short and long haul.

EnySpree wrote:I enjoy reading everyone's in depth analysis on baseball. I'm not as crazy as some of you but I do follow the sport.

as far as the Yankees....I personally like everything they are doing. They are trying to get back in the playoff mix. I think they will be back next year. The team should be healthy and young enough to mix in with the vets we have. Chemistry need to come together and I think it will next season.

You know you might be right. It has come together nicely. I tend to overreact if my teams don't do exactly what I'm calling for, if they pass on certain things that could help, etc., but all in all, we've made some improvements, there's no doubt. I couldn't really see overspending on Headley when we had Prado under contract who could man 3rd, but now that we flipped Prado for other pieces, the Headley signing makes much more sense to me. And even though I would've preferred to take a gamble on some pitchers with more high-end stuff even if there are injury concerns (Brandon Morrow, Alexi Ogando -- the Padres got Morrow and Ogando's still out there I believe), bringing Capuano back wasn't terrible. At least we're staying away from Scherzer at this point which is 100% the right move -- that price tag's way too high, absurdly so. My biggest thing has been a reluctance to beef up the middle of the order and we had opportunities to do so -- imagine if we signed Yasmany Tomas and Jung-Ho Kang? Two signings that could've improved this lineup up to elite status imo -- we wouldn't have had to trade anyone, not even give up any picks, and we would've added the SS that we needed & kept Shane Greene. Oh well...We didn't do it like that so it's time to move on.

This latest trade was on point though and I gotta give Cash credit. It's exactly what I wanted to see -- I was calling for them to trade for a young power pitcher with promise much like they did with Pineda--someone like a Danny Salazar (was thinking about maybe taking back Nick Swisher's salary to make that happen), a Chris Archer, etc.--and he did just that and then some. This dude Eovaldi is exactly what we needed. A young power starter who still has upside. Dude hits upper 90s routinely and he takes the ball. I don't wanna hear how he doesn't strike out a ton of guys and gave up a ton of hits. So did Andy Pettitte, right? On both counts.. Let's see what we can do with this guy. Maybe the Yankees see an opportunity to tweak his delivery and/or add to/alter his arsenal. How'd that work out with Brandon McCarty?? We did wonders straightening that guy out and now he got himself almost $50mm from the Dodgers...Eovaldi looks like a real work horse, a 200-innings guy that definitely passes the eye test, just looking over some video. And then we get back a very decent first baseman with pop and a solid glove (good move--we all know Tex ain't holding up over a full season--if Tex gives us 400 ABs, I'll be shocked--this guy Jones is a legit everyday first baseman who could fill in nicely -- Jones could also provide some ABs at DH) and then we get a promising young A ball pitcher who supposedly throws smoke. All for Prado who quickly became expendable (Prado grew on me, he was versatile and a gamer, but essentially a veteran guy with nowhere to play -- Headley's gonna lock down 3rd and I want the kids Refsnyder and Pirela playing 2nd. Apparently the Yankees do too. Pirela's mainly a 2nd baseman but he might wind up being our super sub who can hit and play all over), and Phelps who, let's face it, is nothing more than a long man/fill in starter. Vey good trade imo. Bravo!