LOW BALL OFFERS ARE LIKE UNWANTED FRUIT CAKE

Ah, fruit cake....the butt of a lot of holiday jokes. You may have heard stories of it being rock hard or crusty. I once heard a story about a guy eating some and then chipping a tooth. Who really thought it would be a good idea to prepackage it and then send it through the mail as if it were some amazing prize? That must be how the "re-gifting" concept was created. Well, baseball may not have a lot of fruit cakes being passed around, but those pesky "buy low" offers are kind of like fruit cake, no?

So what are we getting at here? According to ESPN HERE the Yankees are getting some uninspired offers on Michael Pineda this winter. It's that holiday fruit cake that your relatives send you that you just didn't ask for! What are the Yankees supposed to do with that? The answer is simple really.....nothing. Don't bite.

(Sept. 19, 2016 - Source: Brian Blanco/Getty Images North America)

Sure, Pineda has been rather lackluster. The shoulder injuries and pine tar drama just don't make up for the poor stats and psyching himself out and blowing important match ups, especially when he is ahead of the count. He is his own worst enemy but to another team he could be the right kind of gamble to rehab and tack on to the back of their rotation. He could be the guy that just can't perform up to the hype in New York but do well on a smaller stage on a one year commitment. One year is nothing so if he tanks they can just cut him lose. He's the perfect "buy low" risk.

(Sept. 19, 2016 - Source: Brian Blanco/Getty Images North America)

 So I am sure Brian Cashman has a lot of phone calls pouring in. Last year I was okay with "re-gifting" Pineda the fruit cake but this year I say hold on to him. Once again we are the under dogs. Baseball fanatics are already handing over the AL East to the Red Sox even though Joe Girardi says the Yankees will go toe-to-toe with the Red Sox this season. The fact of the matter is, we already sold all of the best players we had. We have a new potential with our offense, but the pitching is rather scary.

(Sept. 17, 2016 - Source: Rich Gagnon/Getty Images North America)

Right now, the Yankees will have to rely on CC Sabathia to be a productive, and effective pitcher in his last year. Masahiro Tanaka is still the ace but unfortunately cannot be cloned and will need someone else to step up and produce in what could be his last year as a Yankee as is opt-out date approaches. Luis Severino is just too much of a question mark to even be able to predict because 2015 and 2016 were polar opposites. He needs to prove that he is more of the 2015 pitcher to get a starting rotation spot again. So that leaves Michael Pineda as the guy to step up and once again prove he has some of that same talent we saw in 2011 with the Mariners. What else is left?

(Sept. 24, 2016 - Source: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images North America)

Well, the Yankees also have Adam Warren the successful bullpen arm. The Yankees need to figure out what they are going to do with him once and for all before they turn him into the modern day Joba Chamberlain. After that, comes a battle for a back end spot between Luis Cessa, Bryan Mitchell and Chad Green who all could be a productive back end guy, or maybe something more eventually but it is too soon to tell.

So for the time being, it makes sense for the Yankees to pass on the "buy low" offers teams are offering for Pineda. Nobody likes fruit cake, and these offers only destabilize the Yankees even more. That could lead to more headaches and toothaches for the Yankees down the road....so it's probably wise to continue the age old tradition and pass.

 --Jeana Bellezza
BYB Managing Editor
Follow me on Twitter: @NYPrincessJ