Yesterday Jon Heyman reported that the Yankees are considering going after Stephen Drew. Ken Rosenthal hears differently:
Drew would fit well with #Yankees, but sources say team essentially has reached spending limit. That could change, but more likely move…
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 24, 2014
…would be an exchange of salaries in a trade – say, Ichiro ($6.5M) for a comparably priced reliever. Drew remains logical target for #Mets.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 24, 2014
Ooohkay. It’s one thing to set $189 million as a possible spending limit because there’s at least a logical reason related to the luxury tax for that. But now that that’s gone — and now that the Yankees have shown, by going after Beltran, McCann, Ellsbury and Tanaka, that they’re going all out to win now — I don’t see how some arbitrary spending limit is more important than filling a pretty massive infield hole with the best infielder on the market. It’s Hal’s money and he can do what he wants with it, but it seems to me that filling a hole with such a good-fitting piece like Drew would make a massive amount of sense.
Of course, the Yankees also tend to strike fast and don’t telegraph their moves all that much. And their past claims of payroll limits and how satisfied they are with so-and-so at thus-and-such a position have been laughably inaccurate. So who knows if they’re really out on Drew. I still think they sign him.
