Hey everyone, last fall I was asked by Max Reiper at SB Nation's Royals Review to play the part of Yankees GM during his annual Winter Meetings Simulation. Being the baseball nerd I am, I though this would be a fun thing to participate in. I was given a hard salary cap of $178 million - this was back when Plan $189 was still a thing. Had I been given a more unlimited budget, I would've made some different decisions. With that said, I think I did a pretty good job, and put together a team that is cheaper, and has performed better this year.
Here are the players I signed, with their contracts:
- Juan Uribe - 2 years, $10 million, with $4 million in incentives in year two.
- Brendan Ryan - 1 year, $2 million
- Scott Feldman - 3 years, $24 million
- Bartolo Colon - 2 years, $16 million
- Masahiro Tanaka - $72 million posting fee, 6 year $90 million deal with $10 million in incentives and two $21 million vesting options with a player opt-out after year four. If the player opt-out is exercised, the remaining years turn into $20 million club options.
- Robinson Cano - 10 years, $230 million
- Minor league deals: Kyle Farnsworth, Ted Lilly, Rich Hill, Joe Saunders, Jayson Nix (non-tendered at beginning of meeting) and Placido Polanco
I also made some trades:
- Traded Ichiro Suzuki for Mike Adams. This was a trade from a position of depth (OF) for a position of weakness (bullpen) at the time of the winter meetings. Figured OF was covered between Gardner, Soriano, Wells, Almonte, and another guy I picked up.
- Traded David Phelps and Dan Burawa to the Athletics for Dan Otero, Seth Smith, and $300,000. Again, build up bullpen, and get a good bat to help in the outfield. After signing three starters, Phelps is expendable.
- Traded Ivan Nova, Eduardo Nunez, and Francisco Cervelli to the Angels for Chris Iannetta, Robert Coello, Zach Borenstein, and Andrew Romine. Again, Nova was expendable (rotation of Sabathia, Tanaka, Colon, Feldman, Pineda), Nunez and Cervelli were salary dumps, all to get a young, cheap, good catcher, and add some minor league and bullpen depth.
With these players added to existing contracts, and major league minimums filling out the rest of the roster, I came out to $177,150,000, just under the $178 million budget. Another bonus, I kept three first round draft picks. At the end of the mock winter meetings, here was my projected 2014 opening day roster:
C: Iannetta, Murphy
1B: Teixeira
2B: Cano, Nix
3B: Uribe
SS: Jeter, Ryan
OF: Gardner, Smith, Soriano, Wells, Almonte
SP: Sabathia, Tanaka, Feldman, Colon, Pineda
RP: Robertson, Otero, Adams, Kelly, Betances, Coello/Claiborne/Cabral, Warren
Players the real Yankees added that I didn't: Ellsbury, McCann, Beltran, Kuroda, Roberts, Johnson, Thorton. Here's how the additions I made have done compared to the addition of the real Yankees:
Mock Yankees | Average WAR | Real Yankees | Average WAR | |
Robinson Cano | 3.6 | Jacoby Ellsbury | 1.85 | |
Seth Smith | 2.75 | Hiroki Kuroda | 1.45 | |
Chris Iannetta | 1.75 | Brian Roberts | 0.9 | |
Juan Uribe | 1.7 | David Phelps | 0.8 | |
Dan Otero | 1 | Brian McCann | 0.75 | |
Bartolo Colon | 0.95 | Ichiro Suzuki | 0.55 | |
Scott Feldman | 0.4 | Kelly Johnson | 0.4 | |
Mike Adams | 0.35 | Matt Thorton | 0.3 | |
Francisco Cervelli | 0.15 | |||
Ivan Nova | -0.45 | |||
Carlos Beltran | -0.75 | |||
Total WAR | 12.5 | 5.95 |
That is an additional 6.55 WAR, or about 5 wins. So, just curious, what do people think of this team. Do you like it better than what the real Yankees did?
Also, here are a list of links if you want to peruse the discussions during the process:
www.royalsreview.com/2013/11/11/5087240/sb-nation-winter-meetings-simulation-debriefing
www.royalsreview.com/2013/11/6/5071812/sb-nation-winter-meeting-simulation-thread-part-ii
www.royalsreview.com/2013/11/4/5061824/sb-nation-winter-meetings-simulation-open-thread