A Skewed View - 2010 Offseason

A recent topic of conversation amongst fans has been this past offseason. As fans we tend to stray away from looking into the future, wanting to deal with the more 'now' approach with the deals we as fans would prefer. There are some of us who would like to sell the farm in order to get that big name piece that will surely be the big puzzle piece to help us get to the next World Series, but most of us know it rarely takes just one piece. It takes a team. Since you can't just pump out a team, you need to build one, and to do that you sometimes need to do things that might blow up in your face if all doesn't go according to plan. 

This offseason started as soon as the final out was recorded and the Phillies packed their bags. First topic of the Hot Stove was 'which are we going to keep? Damon or Matsui?' Because we can't keep both. Damon would be too expensive and we couldn't risk having Matsui taking up a DH spot (not to mention having bad crockery for knees). We eventually found out that we couldn't keep either. Damon went to Detroit and Matsui to Cali.

The Damon saga will be talked about even after he eventually retires. We know the convoluded reasoning behind both sides, one wanting a new, long term deal and the other wanting to both fill a need and keep options open for a possible Crawford deal in future. So with the departure of Damon, there was a decent sized hole left in our offense.

To fill the gap we turned to the free agent market to help fill it. Instead of grabbing up one player to fill the hole, it was decided to use a variety of talents to platoon and share duties. Nick Johnson was brought in for his high OBS. Thames for his numbers against lefty pitchers and Winn as a platoon LF. The money we would 'save' on not signing Damon or Matsui we would use to pay the team of replacements.

We made other deals, like signing Curtis Granderson to play as our starting CF, sending a much loved Melky Cabrera to Atlanta. Javier Vazquez was signed as a definitive fourth/ fifth starter to help eat up innings and raise the Yankees strikeout numbers to help keep bullpen usage down.  And so we had our team. Then the season started.

31 games in we now know that Javy, NJ, Thames and Winn are not living up to their potential. And Damon and Matsui are off to respectable starts. Now the seeds of doubt start to sink in. Did we do the right thing? No one can predict the future. No one could see Granderson getting hurt, thus leaving our outfield in a bit of a bind (especially with the departure of Melky and Austin Jackson). Thames and Winn are doing next to nothing with the bats, and i swear every time i see Thames in the field i see Luis Castillo dropping that pop up at Citi Field. Johnson is also on the DL (though some of us half-expected that) but HIS offense was lacking also. So again i ask, did we make the right choices?

Good thing it's still early and Boston is doing so lousy, because if this was truly a 3 team race between Tampa, New York and Boston, we might be in trouble.