With Derek Jeter seeking substantially more money than the Yankees have offered, the gulf between the team and its captain is wide.
Jeter’s camp hasn’t made an official counter to the Yankees’ three-year, $45 million offer, but when it does come, a person with knowledge of the situation expects it to be four or five years at $23 million per.
Three years for $45 million is quite different from four for $92 million or five for $115 million.
After being very vocal Monday and Tuesday when he suggested Jeter go shop to see if he could find something better than the Yankees offer, general manager Brian Cashman isn’t talking. Nor is Casey Close, Jeter’s agent.
Even with the distance between the parties, nobody believes Jeter will play for any other team but the Yankees next season.
At the outset of the process, owner Hal Steinbrenner admitted it could get messy, and to a degree it has. Now with the Winter Meetings opening a week from tomorrow, it’s up to the Yankees and Jeter, whose 10-year, $189 million contract expired this year, to make a deal.
Though it takes just one team to top the Yankees offer, does Jeter really want to play for the Cardinals, Giants, Orioles or Nationals? Even for more money? And do the Yankees believe Eduardo Nunez is ready to play shortstop every day for a team that will be expected to win the World Series in 2011?
A byproduct of this process is the perception that Jeter has gotten greedy. That bothers Tino Martinez, a close friend of Jeter and a special assistant to Cashman.
“It’s making it seem like he is greedy,” Martinez said of the public opinion. “He is not being greedy. He is going through a baseball negotiation like everybody else. It’s made him look like he doesn’t know what’s happening in the real world, and he is not like that.
“This guy gives millions to charity. He is only going through a baseball negotiation and for people to think he is greedy, that bothers me. Derek is my friend, and I would say the same thing about Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera. They all are quality people.
Johnny Damon knows about the business side of baseball. He left the Red Sox for the Yankees as a free agent and went through a testy free agent dance with the Yankees last offseason that landed him in Detroit. He is a free agent again.
“There is no way around it, older players are being looked at differently,” Damon said. “But what a lot of people forget is that guys like me and Jeter, we came out at the same time and we are special players. If things need to get done on a baseball field, we get it done.”
Damon doesn’t put much stock in Jeter, who will be 37 in August, hitting a career-low .270 last year.
“He is still a guy who puts fear into other pitchers,” Damon said. “You may get him out, but it’s a grind because he keeps competing, and you can’t say that about everybody.”
The fan in Damon wants Jeter to remain a Yankee.
“It’s one of those unfortunate things. As a fan and as a player you hope it gets done soon,” Damon said. “There is definitely good arguments on both sides. I hope it works out. If not, its going to be tough for Yankee fans to see him playing elsewhere.”
That vision is hard to imagine. Nevertheless, the gulf is wide and needs to grow considerably smaller before a deal can get done.
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Cashman refused to comment on a report that he visited with A.J. Burnett this week.
According to the ESPN item, Cashman met with Burnett the day before Thanksgiving.
Cashman meeting with players in the offseason isn’t new, but because Burnett is coming off a nightmare of a season the sit down could have been more than normal.
Toward the end of last year the Yankees discussed with the pitcher an offseason plan to overhaul Burnett’s pitching mechanics to eliminate too much side-to-side movement in the delivery.
Nevertheless, that was before Dave Eiland wasn’t retained as pitching coach.
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The Yankees received $1.2 million from the Yomiuri Giants for pitcher Jonathan Albaladejo.