YANKEE RUMORS & BYB: PART 6

Yu Darvish: Here's a guy who I've made no secret of having a thing for. I've been writing about my love for Yu Darvish for a while now. Read WHY YU COULD BE THE ANSWER and WHY I'LL CONVINCE YOU ON YU.

If you read this blog frequently, you're clearly an intelligent, dashingly gorgeous individual with a vibrant social life... also you've seen these numbers repeatedly, but they're just phenomenal so here's his 2011 line once more:

18-8, 232 IP, 28 starts, 1.44 ERA, 0.828 WHIP, 10.7 K/9, 1.4 BB/9, 10 CG, 6 SHO

Honestly the only blemish in his entire season was his single balk. Dominant is simply the only word that adequately describes it.

There has been some talk lately that his numbers this past season were at least partially a result of the new pitcher-friendly ball used in the NPB, and that's a fair assumption. His 2011 numbers are better than his career numbers, but when your career ERA is 1.99 anyhow I'm not about to penalize you (pun not intended) too much for your 5th straight year with an ERA under 2 being slightly better than the others as a result of a new ball.The latest sources seem to indicate that the Yankees have made Yu Darvish their top target on the market, not including potential trades. They'll still likely make a bid for CJ Wilson (Read HERE), but they don't seem particularly high on him at all these days so they'll back off quietly if the price gets high at all. While Darvish will likely be an $100 million + commitment, the posting fee, which will likely account for nearly half of the overall money spent, is not subject to the luxury tax and thus at the end of the day Darvish may end up being cheaper than Wilson.

There's also some lingering doubt that Darvish will ask to be posted just yet. If he were to spend just two more years in Japan he'd hit the free agent market and be free to negotiate with whatever team he wishes, so if he really enjoys his time in Japan there is a definitely a chance he will want to spend a few more years cementing his place in NPB lore before coming over to the MLB and playing for whoever he wishes.

Cashman recently noted that the organization is now in a better position to evaluate Japanese players, essentially saying that Kei Igawa was a disastrous signing which resulted from misinformation (and that's exactly what it was in my opinion.) Beyond that it's anyone's guess as to whether he's trying to imply that they don't think he's the real deal or that they think he's a shoo-in major league ace. If I had to take a guess, I would assume they're going to make a significant run at him if they don't manage to very quickly work out a big trade. There's no way to tell really, the Rangers and Blue Jays have been said to have interest, but who's to say they aren't just trying to drive the price up by getting their names involved? This is just a mystery we're going to have to wait on.AJ Burnett: Late last week Cashman clarified his choice of words in saying “If [Burnett]'s with us, he's in the rotation.” He said “My intention wasn’t to imply that we were looking to trade him. I tried to explain that for everybody that doesn’t have a full no-trade, I’m willing to be open-minded, listen and try to be creative. I’m trying to add to my rotation, so if I subtract from it, I’ll have to add even more.”

Maybe the Yankees aren't actively shopping AJ, but I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Cashman called new Padres GM Josh Byrnes, or anyone else whose team is a disaster, and offered up Burnett plus most of his salary for a decent prospect or two.However, as nice as having that open slot in the rotation for a new signing or someone young sounds, it might not be as simple as it seems. Burnett has in his last 3 seasons thrown 207, 186.2, and 190.1 innings. While he is wildly inconsistent on the mound, he is consistently able to at least get on the mound and eat up innings. Given the offense the Yankees have, that is, more often than not, enough to win. I have my doubts as to whether or not we'll be able to net two new quality pitchers this winter, and none of our prospects are going to come up and throw almost 200 innings in their first year. As hard as it may be to accept, keeping AJ Burnett in the rotation may actually be our best move. In all honesty he wasn't bad most of last year, it's just his disastrous August caused his ERA to balloon. Just take a look at his month by month ERA:

April: 3.93
May: 4.06
June: 4.15
July: 4.83
August: 11.91
September: 4.30

If you take out the month of August, he had an ERA of 4.24. Obviously you can't totally disregard an entire month of the season, but it's clear that he was quite a bit more effective on the mound than his numbers indicate at first glance. Five out of six months he was a perfectly adequate starter, and four out of those five he was actually slightly above average.

Furthermore, while his WAR (wins above replacement) was -0.5 in 2010, he managed to at least post a WAR of 1.1 this year. For those not well versed in Sabermetrics, this means his pitching won us more games than it lost when compared to the performance of a generic replacement player (comparable to what one of the B prospects would likely do).I expect Cashman to call around, and if he truly figures out a plan to get rid of AJ and replace him with a superior pitcher, I trust his instincts. However, every dollar currently in my wallet says he begins 2012 in the Yankees rotation.



--Grant Cederquist, BYB Staff Writer

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