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Peter, great subject... I know I will catch flack with my opinion. but I will put it out.. Sign lackey...keep gaudin, offer, pettitte one year 5mil..nady, molina hairston, matsui, damon offer abreu money 5.6. mil.. if not we save 40 mil..trade for markakis, joba , kennedy, swisher,he hits great in balt..and if they push find another guy. we can play with damon, melky, gardner,jackson for left and center, with a guy who plays right field great 'canon arm'.bats behind arod, we also have montero who is maybe a year or less away either we find out what jackson has or move on..right now we have by far the worst outfield in baseball..hard to say after winning WS.but true. we will get two picks each for the guys let go , would i be right? would any one consider figgins as an fill in left an in field?just a thought with these moves , probably a 20 mil save besides

BWP-

I don't follow, sign Lackey and keep Gaudin and Pettitte while letting Nady, Matsui, Damon, Hairston and Molina go? Also, don't forget that Abreu just got two years and $19 million from the Angels.

Then send Joba, Kennedy and Swisher to Baltimore for Markakis?

Clarify those points and I can comment on them. As for the rest, I totally disagree on the worst outfield in baseball, it can be improved, but it is not the worst. You never liked Swisher so we probably won't find a way to agree on that.

We probably won't get two picks for most of the guys you mentioned because they aren't Type A free agents.

Figgins had a .393 slugging, do you really want to spend money for him and where would you play him considering he has been mostly a third baseman these past few years?

Hi Peter.. We also forgot about Wang,CC , AJ , Lackey, gives us the first 3,We have the other guys to fill the last 2 spots, Hughes stays as 8th inn. guy. Pen is great ,also have arms coming up.Damon has been fragile. he gets a bump ,and is hurt..also he stinks, out their, he is now a dh..if we get him cheap ,o.k.watch how that dog abreu plays now that he got 2 more years..they over paid.... the trade is probably a fantasy. but that kid is perfect for yankee stadium..canon arm, and a TEX, type approach to the game.behind arod, offers protection.Posada is going to protect, arod for the next 2 years, ? our out field play is brutal,I cringe when a ball is hit to RF. or Lf. And swisher i posted about a week ago ,that I didn't give him enough time, and was wrong.at the time he was hitting 220 ,230s my outfield would be Ajax, CF , Melky LF. Markakis RF..I feel Ajax is ready..give him april, may,, everyday, see how he does. now lets see how many guys run on us.. or trot home..we tried many guys. bubba crosby, et.al.Oh what teams are worse? Swisher also brought a loose feel to the club, which can,t be put on paper , it worked. I retreat on figgins, at a 6mil plus price. that was an option if no trade or damon..molina ,spells cervelli.gaudin is real cheap 2mil?wang is a disable list waiting to happen, andy as a # five, at a deal laden with incentives. i think bruney is up too. he would be a must have back. if we total., salaries, damon, pettitte matsui, ,nady molina, wang,hairston,hinskeswisher. thats 50mil to tinker with , either by letting go or scaling back and keeping, you take on lackeys salary, give him AJ dollars, he will come. also keeps lackey away from rivals..tough kid , big game guy.. great topic..

also NO holliday , we seen how he hits AL pitchers, And no bay. Let him stay in boston for 15mil a year..just pitch him up and in and slow away..

Matsui? Love the guy's bat, but his knees are a complete mess. Parting company makes sense, but we have to replace his production at the plate.
Keeping Damon for a year makes sense, if we can get past Boras' act.
Pena for Hairston? OK.
Cervelli for Molina? Sure.
One year deal to Andy? Yep.

If we bring Nady back, which I agree we should do, then you've got Gardner, Melky, Swisher, Hinske & Nady plus (sometimes) Damon in the OF - that last move (Damon actually taking the field) being a mistake. Seems more than a bit crowded. I view Melky, Gardner and Hinske as being expendable if someone better comes along - like Crawford, of course, if the Rays decline his big option to economize. Or Marlon Byrd, if no one snaps him up beforehand.

They don't "have to get younger"; they have to get better. That means pitching first and foremost; everything else is just the details.

I would definitely do everything to sign Lackey. He is mentally strong and has terrific stuff; though he was injured this past year, it looks like he is still physically strong.

I think you will have to assume that Pettite will agonize a bit and may not come back at all, though you obviously have to offer him a deal and have a Plan B in place. That makes it doubly necessary to sign Lackey.

If Pettite signs and they get Lackey, they have a championship team, with a bunch of options at the 5th starter position.

Signing Damon is a no-brainer, as is letting go Molina, Hairston, and Hinske. I also like signing Nady. He would be a lot less expensive that Jason Bay and I don't think that Bay is much better. The big issue is Matsui.

The only available DH better than Matsui is Guerrero, who also has bum knees. The guy is just too good. You have to sign him, hopefully to just a 2 year deal.

2 years from now is when you replace Damon and Matsui, hopefully with young players who have blossomed (Garder/Jackson) or else with free agents that become available. It's a pretty lean class of free agents right now.

If you have 5 outfielders -- Damon, Cabrera, Swisher, Nady, Gardner -- who sits? Gardner is on the bench a lot (and even some of the season in AAA). Damon takes a number of days off. Cabrera will sit more than this year, with Swisher or Nady playing center field sometimes. It's an awfully deep team and Girardi will be challenged to give everyone enough playing time.

The only reason to let Matsui go is salary concerns, which are, of course, quite real if you have to sign Lackey. But Damon and Matsui will have to take less than what they are making now. If they don't, one of them will have to go, and it would probably be Matsui.

crawford would be great, put him behind jeter. also Mitchell ,Ajax how long could we keep him in AAA. I would give him a real shot, he does everything well.. what about pitchers,

OK, so I know that it takes pitchers a good 15-18 months to recover strength AND control after TJ surgery - but what about outfielders who may throw 10 times a game? Will Nady be in decent shape at the plate and in the OF come April? Any one know what the real recovery projections are for OFers, esp. at the plate?

crawford stays a ray..

Ah well, Carl Crawford is off the market (sigh).

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091109&content_id=7642970&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Mitchell-

We can use Nady himself as an example, he had the same operation in 2001.

I don't know the date of the operation, but he played 137 games in 2001 meaning it could not have come before August. He then played 130 games in 2002, which means he must have started playing by May 1st.

One significant thing to note is he only played 55 games in the field, so he was DHing a lot, maybe they were being cautious, he was a prospect, but maybe he couldn't play the field.

I conclude that he would be a realistic option for April 1st (he had the surgery at least three weeks earlier in 2009 than he did in 2001) but he might not be able to play the field right away. Then again, putting him in left will cut down on the distance of his throws. I still say go for it.

And that makes Crawford and Mauer potential 2011 FA's. All the more reason to go easy on offense this offseason.

Yep, if Nady can be retained for incentives, yep. But the fact that this is his 2nd surgery for the same thing concerns me greatly. Incentives !