The Yankees just spent $51 million on Derek Jeter. Yankee fans seem pretty happy that our Captain is back and a PR disaster was averted. I’m fairly pleased myself…I guess.
The Yankees are now trying to sign Cliff Lee whose contract is expected to be in the $150-175 million range.
What bothers me is we don’t hedge our bets. Pettitte is going to retire and Vazquez signed with the Marlins so we’ll only have 3 starters back from last year plus Ivan Nova. We’ll be desperate for starting pitching and be in a position where we have to over pay for Cliff Lee. Lee will be 32 when next season begins. If expectations are correct and he gets 6 or 7 years at about $25 million per year, we’ll be paying a 38 or 39 year old Cliff Lee $25 million. Does that sound appealing?
Meanwhile, the Dodgers signed a much less glamorous pitcher to a cheap 1 year $5 million contract. Jon Garland certainly isn’t the pitcher Cliff Lee is, but he would have been a great addition to our rotation and at that cost we’d be able to sign Cliff Lee too…and we wouldn’t be so desperate. I’m frustrated with the Yankees’ focus on giant free agent purchases when sometimes signing guys like Marcus Thames can make a difference too.
RyanKantor.com 
Who says they aren’t going to sign other, less glamorous players? Right now the focus is Lee. I’m sure he isn’t the only option they’re thinking about though.
Maybe so, but if we had a reliable SP aside from CC and Hughes (I’m intentionally excluding Burnett) then we’d be in better bargaining position.