BALTIMORE — The outlook is hazy. The landscape is bleak.
The Yankees are currently focused on their miracle playoff run, but this winter they’ll have to solve the left side of the infield that had served as a longtime symbol of stability prior to 2013.
They’ll still have their two all-time greats, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, under contract, presuming Jeter exercises his $9.5 million player option for 2014. Yet significant questions loom about the health of Jeter, whose lingering left ankle problems caused the Yankees to shut him down on Wednesday, and about the availability of A-Rod, whose appeal of Major League Baseball’s 211-game suspension will be resolved over the offseason. And even if A-Rod wins outright or convinces arbitrator Fredric Horowitz to diminish the sentence to fewer than 162 games, his physical condition limits his reliability.
The Yankees’ mission: Find quality players willing to enter an uncertain situation while keeping the team’s ’14 payroll under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold, knowing that both the internal options (the clock has about run out on Eduardo Nunez’s window of opportunity) and the trade chips are underwhelming.
Piece of cake, right?
Here are some candidates and names you’ll hear who could fit into this jigsaw puzzle:
Yankees free agents
1. Mark Reynolds, 3B. He sure has been a nice, low-risk pickup for the Yankees, providing some right-handed pop on top of A-Rod’s and Alfonso Soriano’s. Remember, though, that the Indians released him during a pennant race.
2. Brendan Ryan, SS. I’m sure the Yankees and their fans are much more relaxed when a ball goes to shortstop and Ryan is there instead of Nunez. Still, though, the reason the Yankees were able to acquire Ryan is because his offense is brutal. His defense has slipped some, too.
3. Kevin Youkilis, 3B. Yeesh. This year was a fiasco thanks to his back injury. He obviously would have to accept a huge pay cut from this season’s $12 million, and it’s hard to see the Yankees wanting to float this trial balloon again at any price.
Other teams’ free agents
1. Clint Barmes, SS. A nice defender who has contributed to the Pirates’ success this season. Like Ryan, though, he is just an awful hitter.
2. Wilson Betemit, 3B. The former Yankee will be low-cost, that’s for sure, after missing most of this season with a right knee injury.
3. Eric Chavez, 3B. He’ll be on the market after a nice season with the Diamondbacks. The Yankees know him and like him, and he still can hit. His defensive metrics are gradually getting worse, though, and durability is forever a concern for the injury-prone 35-year-old.
4. Stephen Drew, SS. He’s putting up a solid season for the Red Sox and is set to re-enter the free-agent market this winter. He can probably get a job as a starter somewhere, so would he be willing to join such a cloudy situation with the Yankees?
5. Jhonny Peralta, SS-3B. Peralta, 31, will be a very interesting test case in the new illegal performance-enhancing drugs frontier. Melky Cabrera’s value plummeted last winter because he failed a drug test. Teams wondered what kind of player he would be without the stuff (or, more cynically, having to look elsewhere for it). Peralta didn’t fail a drug test; he just got caught in the Biogenesis snare. So we don’t know when he started and stopped, and he played well in 2013 even though Biogenesis had been shut down. If teams are wary of signing him, the Yankees should pounce.
6. Nick Punto, SS-3B. A solid defender with a reputation as a good clubhouse guy.
7. Juan Uribe, 3B. He’s enjoying a nice walk year with the Dodgers, after putting up terrible numbers his first two seasons of a three-year contract. He could make sense on a one-year deal.
8. Michael Young, 3B. He doesn’t seem to have much left.
Trade candidates
1. Elvis Andrus, SS. His name is here solely to reflect the fact the Rangers have excess shortstop talent with both Andrus, who agreed to an extension this season, and Jurickson Profar. I can’t see a match between the Rangers and Yankees. Not one for Profar, either.
2. Jeff Keppinger, 3B. The White Sox surely would be open to trading Keppinger, whom the Yankees pursued a little last winter, after his awful 2013. He has two years left on his contract at a total of $8.5 million.
3. Jimmy Rollins, SS. Another name we’ll probably hear on the rumor mill and who makes little sense. He controls his destiny with no-trade protection, and it’s hard to see him wanting to enter any sort of drama with Jeter. Also, he isn’t good anymore.
4. Ruben Tejada, SS. We know the Mets are down on him. Nevertheless, they have little financial motivation to give up on him.