Spending spree from past haunting Yankees now

The farce that has been unfolding around A-Rod in the last couple of weeks makes me really think that the Yankees want to get rid of Alex Rodriguez. First of all, they still owe him another $61 million and they have a separate deal with him that will pay him a couple of millions more, every time he catches one of the players in front of him on the all time homerun list.

I think it is understandable that they want to get rid of him. I don’t agree with the way they are treating him, but it is understandable. They must regret the $250 million contract that they signed him for after the 2007 season. If he had not been around anymore, they would have had quite some money to acquire a high profile player.

In fact they are punished for the spending that they have done in the past: Sabathia ($75 million remaining), Mark Teixeira ($45 million remaining) and Carlos Beltran ($30 million remaining). So another whopping total of $150 million stuck in a bunch of aging players forced them to put their spending on hold.

They did little to improve their offense. They got back Stephen Drew who hit a lowly .162. What can you expect from a .256 career hitter? They traded for Didi Gregorius, a fine defensive shortstop who struggled at the plate most of the season but who saw the ball well in the final weeks. According to the new hitting coach Jeff Pentland, Didi has a bright future ahead of him. I hope that he is right. They resigned Chase Headly to play third base. He can flash the leather but he hit a below average .243 over 2014, but .262 with the Yankees.
If the oldies A-Rod, Teixeira and Beltran can get some pop back the season may not be as bad as I fear it will be. But it also depends on the rotation and for them the magic word will be health. And not only the rotation will need health, the biggest part of the lineup needs to stay away from the injury bug.