In a wild spending spree, the Yankees are reported to have landed Mark Teixeira.
The Yankees have reached an agreement with Mark Teixeira, a free-agent first baseman, on a long-term contract, according to a person in baseball familiar with the matter. The move would represent the third major off-season move by the team and deal a blow to the Boston Red Sox, who had made signing Teixeira the main objective of their off-season.
Late last week Red Sox executives traveled to Texas to meet with Teixeira, 28, and his agent, Scott Boras, and were clearly hoping to emerge from that meeting with a deal. Instead it ended with Boston’s owner, John Henry, stating that the Red Sox were no longer in the bidding, although that was widely interpreted as a negotiating ploy.
As has happened with other standoffs between the Red Sox and the agent, most notably with Johnny Damon, Boras then turned to the Yankees, who until the last 24 hours had not aggressively pursued Teixeira.
In Teixeira, the Yankees get a powerful switch-hitter who is also a standout fielder. He will join Alex Rodriguez to give the team a strong 3-4 presence in the lineup for years to come.
That's just wild. Adding Teixeira into the Yankee lineup looks like this according to the RLYW.
The first and obvious move that a lot of us have been harping on is signing Mark Teixeira. If the Yankees did that (which they won’t) and moved Swisher to CF, here’s how that would look.
http://www.replacementlevel.com/images/blog_images/2009Lineups/2.jpg
A 36 run offensive upgrade, although replacing Melky in CF nullifies the defensive upgrade Teixeira adds. Still, it’s around a 3-4 win upgrade overall and probably makes them the AL East favorite.
So the Yankees on paper at least are back to being a 98win team.
UPDATE:
Now this, I like.
Before we go any further, let us state the obvious truth that the Red Sox are not going to collapse. They have a good team with good management and good farm system, and they have the money to compete for any free agent in the business. The Yankees entered this season far more desperate than the Red Sox did, which is why New York now has spent in excess of $420 million on Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.
Still, exactly what happened here? Did the Sox get used or did they just completely whiff? In the coming hours and days, Sox officials (who thus far have generally declined to discuss any all things Teixeira) will put out their spin on how they got their pockets picked by the Yankees. None of it will be worth a darn. Baseball is a results-oriented business, and the Red Sox seemingly had all of the necessary elements to make this work.
Instead, they got burned.
Hard to say. Tex is a very, very good player on both sides of the ball without being truly exceptional with the bat. I can see why some teams might balk at handing out a dirty big contract to him. Just off the top of my head, his numbers remind me of Todd Helton numbers, but not quite. A quick Fangraphs comparison of the wOBA gives us this graph. He was sort of Helton-like in the first 3 years and last year, but in his 26-27y.o. seasons, he dipped where Helton peaked.
Helton's been in decline since his 31y.o season because of back problems, which doesn't bode well for a 8year contract. Baseball Reference threw up 2 interesting names worth comparing, and they were Carlos Delgado and Willie McCovey.
Delgado has higher peaks and lower troughs through his 28y.o. season. McCovey is closer in alignment, down to the dip at Age 26. McCovery of course stayed reasonably productive until his Age 37 season. Delgado had a slight recovery in his general delcine in his Age 36 season, but in most part he's been a very productive hitter between 28 and 36.
This contract might not be such a bad deal for the Yankees, with the usual caveats for long term deals applying.
One wonders what they're going to do with Swisher, Nady, Damon, Matsui, Gardner, Melky Cabrera going in to 3 outfield spots and DH too. It also rules out A-Rod or Jeter changing positions to 1B down the track. It's going to be very interesting what happens with Jeter when his contract expires in 2010.
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