Where the New York Yankees Stand in '09 Draft

With all the attention paid to who will or who will not receive arbitration offers today, let us stop for a minute and take a look at what the 2009 draft will look like for the Yankees if it happened today.

The Yankees have not yet done anything to jeopardize their first round pick and will be taking that 26th overall. They also get another pick for failing to sign last year’s first round choice Gerrit Cole. That pick is 29th overall, according to River Ave Blues.

Their second round pick is still safe as well and that is the 59th overall choice. For failure to sign last year’s second-round pick, Scott Bittle, they will get the 76th overall pick in the third round as compensation. That is on top of their other third round pick which is 90th overall.

As it stands right now, the Yankees get five picks in the top three rounds:

First round 26th overall.

First round 29th overall.

Second round 59th overall.

Third round 76th overall.

Third round, 90th overall.

Of course, free agency will change all this. They’ll likely have to give up a draft pick for each player they sign, like CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe, Manny Ramirez,  and Mark Teixeira. Of course, they can pick up picks if they offer arbitration to and fail to sign Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte, and Ivan Rodriguez.

The Yankees may not offer arbitration to either Pettitte or Rodriguez, but they should. It would be much worse to loose picks for Pettitte if he were to sign with the Dodgers than to have to overpay him if they loose arbitration and are forced to pay him $16 million.

Of course, there is a chance they can win the arbitration case and settle for much less.

Rodriguez could opt to accept arbitration, but even if he did, the Yankees could still terminate his contract and be off the hook for nearly the entire thing. With their long wish list of free agents they want to pursue, they don’t have much to loose by paying a termination fee to Rodriguez.

This article originally appeared at the Bronx Baseball Daily.