FanPost

Adopting Jeff Samardjiza

Considering the goals the Yankees are determined to have for 2018 of staying under the luxury tax and winning a World Series. Adopting of a player contract must be done with the reality that you should not be taking in players who would raise our current salary total and knowing that there will be multiple players acquired later down the season through trade, which will restrict our current adopting even more. Maybe some exceptions to raising our salary can be made since there is still a sizeable gap between the current and actual salary cap, Roster Resource is showing our current active roster total at 166.5 million when the cap for this year will be 197 million. We must also consider where our team has holes that need to be covered and where we have enough depth. It isn’t hard to determine just by looking at our current roster or the trade rumors floating around that our outfield has the most depth, and our starting pitching has maybe just about the least depth. Some can say the infield has second and third base that both need be addressed making that the priority, but currently the players lined up to cover those positions are Ronald Torreyes, Tyler Wade, Gleyber Torres, Miguel Andujar, and Jace Peterson. Three of which have very little to no Major League experience while Ronald Torreyes and Jace Peterson are both currently looked at as utility players by most teams, but still enough depth to cover those positions in an already killer offense.

The reason why I am focusing more on adopting a starting pitcher rather than an infielder is based on a couple of reasons starting with injury history and major league experience. Tanaka, Sabathia, and Gray all have injury history of recent. Tanaka made a big decision this offseason deciding to stay with the Yankees and not opting to become a free agent, a decision that seemed to be driven by the fact that the market might not be as high now on a pitcher with continued elbow issues compared to the price already set by the Yankees for the remainder of the contract. Sabathia with his brace, has become a reborn pitcher but every start I always hope he doesn’t get bunted on too much so he doesn’t have to over work himself on a close play while Sonny Gray has numerous injuries himself. When thinking about major league experience, it has been amazing seeing how great Luis and Jordan were for us last year but can they pitch 180 innings this year without any issues? With All five pitchers having some type of question or worry on top of them, I believe one more major league pitcher could be added. Of course, we also have Luis Cessa, Chance Adam, and Justus Sheffield waiting for their consistent opportunities. While Chad Green and Adam Warren seem to be pieces the Yankees can consider again to be starters from our elite bullpen.

Now with the offense becoming the last priority and a defense that currently has little liabilities, Gary Sanchez and Miguel Andujar being those liabilities. We can say that our everyday players will everyday give us enough of a chance to win. Can that also be said for our starting pitching if just one thing goes wrong? With a 162-game season, something for sure will go wrong as we have seen recently, not only did Michael Pineda have to miss the rest of the season, you might also remember a guy by the name of Nathan Eovaldi who got released by the Yankees before the 2017 season even started because he would have to go through surgery. Pitching injuries seem to happen very often because they carry so much weight with them, and by weight, I mean exactly 20% of the starting rotation. When you put it all together if a starting pitcher goes down and we are not able to find a complete major league ready pitcher to take over for them, that means every fifth day we are starting with a higher chance of losing. If a position player were to go down we have enough depth in the outfield, catchers, middle and corner infield spots. Think about how if one pitcher goes down for a month and we can’t cover that leak within that time, that’s essentially 6 games we put ourselves at a greater risk of losing. Just looking back at last year when Cleveland beat Houston in the standings by one game and Boston beat us by just two games. Six games are just too much to let go when we can add another pitcher to help us out. That’s an example of just six games and we very well know there will be a greater total than one month’s time for pitchers on the disabled list this year.

Taking in my belief for the need of starting pitcher and our salary goals, one thought comes to mind and it’s the obvious one being rumored around for a while. Jacoby Ellsbury can’t be a 21-million-dollar bench player on a team that’s currently trying to stretch every bit of talent from its payroll. Secondly if Jacoby Ellsbury is being traded with his heavy contract, another should come our way. Of course, making it what seems to be an even exchange of talent is the hardest part about all this.

I started to jot down a few pitchers whose contracts were either more than Jacoby Ellsbury or a little bit less, while currently on teams that can consider sending these pitchers away. The list of pitchers came out to be Felix Hernandez, Jordan Zimmerman, Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardjiza, Mike Leake. I quickly took off the Seattle pitchers, Hernandez and Leake, since Dee Gordon is set to be their center fielder giving them no need for Ellsbury and his huge contract. Both Homer Bailey and Jordan Zimmerman have similar contracts to Jacoby but are coming off a bad couple of years. This leaves us with the last two candidates Cueto and Samardzija. Samarjiza seems like the most likely fit for us because it’s a contract one year shorter than Cueto’s and their third starter compared to Cueto being their second. The Giants are not a rebuilding team as they showed when acquiring Evan Longoria, instead they showed how hungry they are currently to find more offense, which we have plenty of. A team still looking to contend will not want to send their second-best pitcher away knowing that with Bumgarner back, last year can be forget overnight.

Jeff Samardjiza and Jacoby Ellsbury will not be an even swap by any means for the Giants. The Yankees will have to put a few pieces in for a team wanting to compete in the National League West with their new power bat and returning ace. My Proposal for Jeff Samardjiza would begin with Jacoby Ellsbury and Tyler Wade to cover their outfield with Hunter pence, Wade carrying the ability to play the infield as well. Secondly also sending Chance Adams to cover a rotation spot opened by the departure of Jeff Samardjiza and Luis Cessa as a less appealing prospect with already some major league experience. I know most people would say Clint Frazier would have to be in this deal to make it happen, but Clint is just to talented to be traded away especially with Gardner only having one year left on his contract. I do believe if the Giants were offered Jacoby Ellsbury, Clint Frazier and Chance Adams with 6 million dollars to even out the contracts they would be foolish not to take it. The original Ellsbury, Wade, Adams and Cessa, proposal would give the Giants an experienced lead-off hitter, a prospect in Wade who will bring speed and defensive versatility. Chance Adams and Luis Cessa, two young controllable and talented pitchers for the future who have to perform around a 4.00 era to compare to Jeff Samardjiza’s last two years of work there.

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