MLB Rumors: Yankees Want Kerry Wood Back, But Not at Closer Money

Via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com:

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"Yankees talked to Kerry Wood‘s agents today. Interested in having him back, but Cashman says he “won’t compete with closer money.”

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This is what we’ve thought all along: the Yankees want him back, but they are not going to spend nearly $10 million to do it.

We haven’t heard either way if Wood would be willing to come back at setupman money to play for the Yankees. He’ll certainly get an offer to close somewhere else.

The only thing we do know is that the Yankees were going to offer him arbitration only to pull it back at the last minute. That likely means that they got the feeling that he would have accepted and they would have been stuck paying him a boatload of money. I

f the desire to retain him is real, so is the desire to pay him very little money.

There are fans that want him back so badly that they say pay him whatever it will take. Remember, he’s essentially the Nick Johnson of pitchers. The last thing the Yankees need is to get burned on a $10 million investment.

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