The Yankees have invested nearly a quarter of a billion dollars so far this offseason, the most expensive squeeze play in major league history.
The squeeze is supposed to be on Robinson Cano. The Yankees plan here — beyond the obvious, to get better — is to signal to Cano with their finalized signing of Brian McCann for $85 million and their agreement pending a physical with Jacoby Ellsbury for nearly double that ($152 million; $169 million if his eighth-year option vests) that they are spending big this offseason. With or without him.
They want to include Cano. But they are more fervid than a Black Friday consumer and are going to keep buying, even if it means spending money earmarked for Cano and, thus, squeezing him out.
Will the Cano/Jay Z/Brodie Van Wagnenen faction blink? It is one of the big mysteries and storylines of this offseason.
The way the Yankees want this to play out is for Cano to understand they are not going beyond a $189 million payroll for next season. By their calculations, they can fit McCann, Ellsbury, Cano and Hiroki Kuroda into that budget. But they have offers for more than that group out there. So, for example, if they could get Shin-Soo Choo to agree in the near future, they would play Brett Gardner in left, Ellsbury in center, Choo in right, make Alfonso Soriano the DH and get out on Cano.
Just an aside for the conspiratorial among you: Scott Boras represents both Ellsbury and Choo. He tends to wait until later in the winter to sign his best clients, at least until the Winter Meetings. But Ellsbury is all but a Yankee a week before the meetings, and Choo is in play. And, oh yeah, Cano left Boras for Jay Z, who filleted Boras in a rap song.
So if Boras could help himself and his client while potentially evaporating the market for Cano/Jay Z, well … and, by the way, with Ellsbury in, the Yankees are now out on Carlos Beltran, who left Boras for Dan Lozano, another agent who will not be getting a Christmas card from Boras.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program in which the Yankees are hoping to exert pressure on Cano to act swiftly and at their price, which they are willing to take to the seven-year, $170 million range. For this to work, the Yankees need for a market at a higher price not to have formed for Cano and/or for Cano to be too antsy to wait for one to possibly form.
It is a game of chicken, and we are still waiting for the final cluck.
However, you do have to wonder if the Yankees have moved too boldly here, that they have been overpowered by their never-rebuild, win-at-all cost DNA. They didn’t make the playoffs in 2008 and reacted by spending more than $400 million on Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, who helped win a championship the following year, but became problematic long-term.
They missed the playoffs for just the second time in two decades last season and now they have a bad-body catcher — albeit one whose power will play great in Yankee Stadium. And then there is Ellsbury, who the Yankees for a long time felt they had an inexpensive facsimile of with Gardner. Now both are in the same outfield, and as we saw last year with Gardner/Ichiro, the speed does not compensate for the lost power.
Ellsbury hit 32 homers in 2011, but has 33 in his other six seasons combined. Maybe like another Scott Boras-repped Red Sox lefty-hitting center field import, Johnny Damon, his power will grow in the Stadium. But the Yankees paid $52 million for Damon or $101 million less than Ellsbury.
His $21.86 million annual average would be the third highest ever for an outfielder (behind Josh Hamilton and Manny Ramirez) for a player who either is injury prone or been involved in a couple of freak mishaps, is either a big-time defender or not (depending on whom you ask). He is a speed player already beyond his 30th birthday, and you wonder if he or, say, Cano will age worse as we ebb toward 2020 — the year, not hindsight.
Positively, Ellsbury not only is a high-percentage base stealer, but a fearless one who already has proven himself in the Northeast baseball crucible. He was a key performer in the Red Sox’s last two titles.
But he has had one elite season — ONE — or at least five fewer than Cano. Maybe the Yankees can have both — Ellsbury getting on base for Cano to knock in. But if the squeeze-play zeal to land Ellsbury costs Cano, then the Yanks just might end up regretting the strategy.