THE RETURN OF MARIANO RIVERA

Weeks after informing the Yankees he’d like to return following conflicting thoughts, Mariano Rivera and the Yankees appear to be close to hammering out a new contract. In fact, a new deal could happen as soon as this week. This comes from Ken Rosenthal, and you can read that HERE.

When Rivera made his final decision, the Yankees were thinking about giving him a pay cut. It makes sense, I suppose, since he’ll turn 43 on Friday, and he’s coming off major knee surgery. In 2012, Rivera got paid $15 million, and in that Rosenthal tweet, the Yankees are thinking about paying him a little more than $10M. Long story short, expect Rivera to sign a one-year, $11-14M contract in the coming days, if not the coming hours.

The Rivera signing is obviously huge, as the Yankees will bring back the greatest closer of all time, thus they won’t have to scramble and overpay for Rafael Soriano to return. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather pay Rivera for one year coming off serious knee surgery than overpay for three or four years of Soriano, since it appears that the Yankees would get either one or the other. Anyway, if the Yankees lock up Rivera, as well as Andy Pettitte, they’ll be able to focus on further upgrading the team during the Winter Meetings, which take place on December 3-6 in Nashville, Tennessee.




--Jesse Schindler, BYB Lead Staff Writer
Follow me on Twitter @SchindlerJesse



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