For New York Yankees It’s Bargains or Picks

The Yankees failed to sign their first or second picks from last year’s draft and have already lost their first, second and third picks in this year’s draft.

None of this matters to Ken Rosenthal, he would love nothing more than to see the Yankees keep giving up their picks.

The Yankees have been trying to add a fifth starter this offseason. This has mostly meant that they are trying to sign Andy Pettitte to a one-year $10 million deal. Since that has not happened, Rosenthal said they could take advantage of the draft-compensation rules and sign Ben Sheets, a type-A free agent, and only surrender a forth-round pick.

It isn’t a terrible idea and he has another not-so-terrible idea. They should do the same thing and sign another type-A free agent, Juan Cruz. Cruz is a good middle reliever, but not great and he’s been negatively effected because of the plush market for closers and a poor economy.

Now he’s left with little to no suitors and the Yankees could swoop in and sign him for a forth round pick, or fifth if they also signed Sheets.

Rosenthal also thinks the Yankees should consider adding Jason Varitek to help ease any concern over Jorge Posada’s health. He makes the same point, teams won’t touch Varitek because they don’t want to lose a first round pick to sign a catcher so close to the end of his career, but the Yankees are in a unique situation.

On the surface, sure the Yankees would benefit from adding Varitek, Sheets, and Cruz. If you examine the long-term implications of such deals the benefits aren’t that good and the there are big disadvantages to it.

First, none of the three would really improve the team. Sheets would probably be the best fit. If healthy he could give the Yankees an advantage over every team in the league.

They could potentially have a rotation of five strong. However there is a reason most teams aren’t looking at Sheets. His injury risk is real and he might be the second coming of Carl Pavano.

If that turns out to be the case the Yankees just threw away money and a draft pick.

The situation with Cruz is different, the Yankees just don’t need him. They would only be signing Cruz to take advantage of his cheep price. They have a full stock of young cheap relievers. Cruz is good, but because of his control issues he is only marginally better than Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, Brian Bruney, Damaso Marte, Mark Melancon and David Robertson.

There are also others further away who would be ready by 2010.

Finally, the Yankees already have a backup catcher in Jose Molina. I understand the argument for co-catchers, but I don’t see Varitek at that level anymore. His offensive numbers are too far into decline for that to be an advantage and his defense was never really that good in the first place.

He isn’t a viable co-catcher candidate and certainly not at the cost of giving the Red Sox their forth pick and a supplemental choice as well.

On top of all of the reasons not to sign the players, they need to have a strong draft this year after missing out on their first and second picks last year. They have compensation picks for those two players, but losing their own first three picks leaves them with only two picks in their first three rounds.

By giving up more picks the Yankees would be reverting back to their draft-doesn’t-matter philosophy of the late nineties. Last time they did that they were unable to produce homegrown talent for much of the early 21st century.

The question the Yankees are faced with, draft picks or bargains?