Tuesday, December 4, 2012
MLB Trade Rumors: Yankees Willing To Listen To Offers For Granderson
The Yankees are open to trade scenarios involving Curtis Granderson, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney (Twitter link). Olney notes that moving Granderson’s $15MM salary would give general manager Brian Cashman more flexibility this offseason.
I like Granderson and would have no problems with him being on the team in 2013, but this makes lots of sense. It makes so much sense that I’m shocked the Yankees are doing it.
I’m not sure what his value is right now as CAIRO projects him to be worth about 2.4 wins above a replacement level CF offensively and that probably comes down to about 2 wins once you factor in defense, so he’s actually probably making more than he’s worth in the abstract. Still, if a team is on the periphery of contention and has a gaping hole in the OF Granderson could be the piece that puts them right into the mix for contention.
I’m not sure what teams fit that description, and I’m not sure that they’d give up. They probably wouldn’t trade away pieces that would weaken them at the MLB level, so it may be a case of trading a prospect and taking on Granderson’s salary. That does give Cashman some flexibility to sign some players, but that flexibility is severely curtailed by their requirement that they will only sign players for one year. They can move Brett Gardner to CF, but then they’ll add a hole in LF to their holes at catcher and RF and 3B.
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