Yankees Rumors: According to Astros leak, New York was willing to eat a substantial amount of Ichiro's contract

According to Deadspin, someone leaked internal information from the Astros' front office, making 10 months worth of communications public on the anonymous sharing website Anonbin. According to the article, the Astros have a ground breaking internal communications system called Ground Control that gives executives access to player stats, video, and allows them to communicate directly with other front offices. As Deadspin reports, the system underwent major improvements around the time when the leaked transcripts were first dated, so you can see when and how this information likely got out.

It turns out that the Yankees were mentioned in the conversation log that got out and it had to do with assistant general manager Billy Eppler trying to pawn Ichiro Suzuki off on the Astros in the offseason:

"03/18/14","Billy Eppler reached out to DS to say that they are still looking to move Ichiro. They would be willing to pay Ichiro down to 2M"

Ichiro is currently making $6.5 million in 2014, and while we knew the Yankees were willing to eat money to trade him to another team, $4.5 million is a lot more than it was expected they would be looking to go. Clearly the Astros said no, feeling that either $2 million was still too much to pay for a 40-year-old Ichiro, or they didn't want to take on that money while also giving up something of value to the Yankees.

Among other interesting tidbits that were uncovered are that the Marlins were willing to trade Giancarlo Stanton for prospects George Springer and Carlos Correa, as well as some insight into the Astros' shopping of Bud Norris at the 2013 trade deadline. It's pretty interesting stuff.