FISHIN’
pulling it off: just like Stanton, Ellsbury has a no-trade clause.
Why would he agree to go play for a team heading into a total rebuild?
So even as talks were said to be intensifying, major hurdles existed. However, a person on the Yankee side said there might be a way to get a deal done without including Ellsbury, if the Marlins were willing to take Chase Headley and Brett Gardner instead.
They will each earn $13 million next season, if you include the $2 million buyout for Gardner’s option year, and both contracts expire at the end of the 2018 season — shortening the commitment for the Marlins.
So basically the Yankees wanted to find out if Jeter would blink in negotiations by taking back bad contracts in any deal with Stanton.
As it was, Jeter’s inexperience in such matters had helped put him in this predicament. A few weeks ago at the GM Meetings he said he hadn’t spoken to Stanton, and downplayed any notion that it might be important to feel out his star player on the matter.
By Friday he must have wished he’d had that conversation, however, because Stanton had made the Marlins look silly in negotiating trades with the Giants and Cardinals without knowing if he’d approve them — only to find out he would not.
Which left Jeter needing to find a way to make a deal with the Yankees.
It surely made for compelling drama, particularly since Jeter and GM Brian Cashman haven’t exactly been pals since the Captain’s last big contract negotiation turned ugly, with the GM telling him to go test the freeagent market if he didn’t like the Yankees’ offer.
I@angelsteve89
Jeter, of course, was ultra-confident as a player, so it was going to be fascinating to see how he’d operate from a position of weakness on this Stanton trade.
After all, with all of their young talent, the Yankees don’t need Stanton to have a chance to win championships for years to come.
However, if they feel they have the leverage, they might just feel like it’s an opportunity they can’t let pass — adding the majorleague home run king to the team that led the majors in long balls last season.
The fireworks shows that he and Aaron Judge alone would put on would be beyond spectacular.
But just how far would the Yankees go if they get close to a deal?
They do have money to spend this winter, with some $70 million coming off the books in expired contracts, and on Wednesday at the Stadium, Hal Steinbrenner promised he’d do just that.
However, they’ll only have about $25 million to spend and be comfortable about staying under the $197 million number, and Cashman has indicated he’s going to add at least one significant salary, in the form of a starting pitcher after the Yankees lost out on Shohei Otani. t was only four years ago they were making the same claims about getting under the luxury-tax threshold, only to panic over the fan reaction to letting Robinson Cano walk as a free agent and go on to spend wildly on free agents.
But now I believe they’ll stick to the plan, and they’ll be justified this time around, as loaded as they are with young talent.
The bigger question, as of Friday night, seemed to be: at what point would Jeter blink?