Michael Young: New York Yankees are 1 of 8 Teams He Will Accept a Trade To

Via Jeff Wilson of the Star-Telegram:

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[Michael Young] is willing to be traded to eight teams, according to a source: St. Louis, Minnesota, Houston, Colorado, San Diego, the New York Yankees and both teams in Los Angeles.

He has not given the Rangers permission to pursue a trade to a team outside of his wish list, even though the Rangers have heard from a few teams not on it.

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I wrote this post not to get people’s hopes up that the Yankees will go after Young. Actually, the opposite is true. As things stand right now, it is extremely hard to see the Yankees making a deal for him.

First of all, for his production, Young is an extremely expensive player. He’s still owed $48 million over the next three years. To put that in a little perspective, Fangraphs has him as worth just $13.13 million each year over the past three years, and at age 34, we can expect him to decline even further over the next three years.

Even still, most Yankees fans don’t care about money (even though you pay for it through extreme ticket prices). So let’s ignore the money aspect of it for a minute.

Young has formally requested that the Rangers trade him. A big part of the reason for that is because he doesn’t expect to get enough at bats in Texas.

He was supposed to be their everyday third baseman this year, but they signed Adrian Beltre. Then he was happy being the DH, but after they traded for Mike Napoli, Young doesn’t believe there will be enough at bats to go around.

That brings us to why he won’t fit with the Yankees.

If he’s expecting 500-600 at-bats or more in 2011, he’s not getting it in the Bronx. Even as versatile as Young is—he can play second, short and third—there just isn’t enough playing time to go around.

Robinson Cano almost takes no days off. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez figure to sit at least 20-30 games each, but that’s at most 60 games for Young. Even if you put Young at DH for 20 or 30 more games, that still just 80-90 games for him to play.

That’s not going to come close to the 600 at-bats he’s going to need to make him happy.

So if he’s not going to be happy with 300-400 at bats in Texas, a place where he has played his entire career, what makes you think that he’ll be happy in the Bronx?

Besides, who wants a utility infielder, even one as good as Young, who makes $16 million a season. That’s so much more of a waste of money than Rafael Soriano was.

Don’t forget the prospects he would cost as well (although they admittedly wouldn’t be great prospects, but potentially ones that could be used in other deals).

What do you think? Should Young be somebody the Yankees are going after? Or does he just not fit into their roster?

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