Yankees Should Make Like Preston Waters and Spend Their Blank Check

Macintosh!

All I ever read these days from baseball columnists is that MLB teams should stress youth, stockpile draft picks, trade for the future, and play youngsters over free agents. It gets on my damn nerves, I suhwear.

Sure Billy Beane is a (Money)baller and plays that theory to perfection, but he does it out of necessity. And for every Billy Beane, there are five Steve Phillips.

For the Yankees, money ain’t a thang. Pretending that it is has come back to haunt them this season.

Go back to last offseason and re-examine their refusal to include Phil Hughes in a deal for Johan Santana. I understand that they considered Hughes a top prospect, but he wasn’t special in his cameo last season and certainly couldn’t hold a candle to Santana’s flame.

Santana was as ready-made for the Yankees as any player in baseball; young, super successful, healthy, left-handed, and a good guy. Yes, he had high monetary demands, but Steinbrenner just wants to win. Don’t listen to all the baseball writers puckering up to GM’s, Brian Cashman in this case; fiscal issues don’t apply to the Yankees. They crashed-and-burned in passing on the Santana deal.

If Hughes and Ian Kennedy could’ve been packaged with other supposed supreme prospects in deals for Santana and Dan Haren, how could they pass? The Yankees should always target the top proven starting pitchers in baseball, acquire them at all costs, and build from there.

Tim Hudson, Carlos Zambrano, and Roy Oswalt are a few other prototypical, once available pitchers they missed out on in the past.

The Yankees starting staff is just the beginning, though. The entire roster is beginning to look like a wreck. And it will be worse in a few years as players signed to long-term deals age.

This offseason Brian Cashman should stop straining his brain. The Yankees holes are glaring and the free agent class is ready-made to fill them.

Here’s a position-by-position analysis:

C- Jorge Posada- Posada is overpaid, but they’re okay here
1B- Jason Giambi if they pick up the option- A long-term problem, must be addressed
2B- Robinson Cano- Set
SS- Derek Jeter- Set
3B- Alex Rodriguez- Obvious
LF- Johnny Damon, Xavier Nady- Damon’s playing center now, Yankees have an option year on Nady
CF- Damon
RF- Bobby Abreu- Free agent-to-be
DH- Hideki Matsui- Set
Rotation- Crudely assembled mishmash of garbage

What to do, what to do… WWPD. What Would Preston Do? Buy an eight-gallon bucket of ice cream, of course. In other words, spend that money like it's going out of S-T-Y-L-E!

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