Why New York Yankees Will Push To Acquire Francisco Liriano from Minnesota Twins

With Andy Pettitte newly retired, the New York Yankees have considerable problems with their starting rotation. They’ll enter spring training with a projected rotation of CC Sabathia, Phil Hughes, AJ Burnett and probably veteran Freddy Garcia and youngster Ivan Nova. After Sabathia, the other hurlers all have enormous question marks as the club looks ahead to the 2011 season.

As a Red Sox fan, I am thrilled that the Yankees rotation is shaping up the way that it is shaping up, but let's be honest: This is NOT the kind of staff a team with a $200 million payroll should be fielding!

If you look beyond the season at hand, consider that Sabathia will likely opt out of his multi-year deal. While it is likely he would opt out of his deal in order to leverage more money out of the Yankees, a la Alex Rodriguez, his return to the Yankees is not guaranteed.

There is a scenario on the horizon that would constitute a complete and utter disaster for the Yankees ownership and front office, and while it is not a likely scenario, the responsibility of any management group is to anticipate a worst-case scenario and develop a plan of action that avoids the worst-case.

In the case of Sabathia, the Yankees have to know he will almost surely void the remainder of his deal in the hopes of sucking more money from the Yankees' financial trough. If he does so, and if he comes to see the Yankees rotation as being non-competitive in the immediate future, he could entertain offers from other teams. At the same time, at the end of the season, the Red Sox will drop tens of millions of dollars in payroll…

You see where I am going with this, right?

For all of these reasons, the Yankees front office needs to do something NOW in order to enhance the club’s ability to compete this year, to establish a scenario in which Andy Pettitte may be enticed to play the second half of the year, to give Sabathia an incentive to return to the Bronx next winter and to provide a foundation for their rotation beyond this season.

The Yankees need to go out and acquire Francisco Liriano from the Minnesota Twins.

Liriano, who appears to be fully recovered from his arm injury and subsequent Tommy John surgery, is likely to be the best pitcher available via trade any time in 2011. He is a left-hander, which would be an invaluable commodity for the ballclub in consideration of their new stadium, which I often (derogatorily) refer to as The New Yankee Stadium Softball Field. The park is a homer haven for left-handed batters, and an effective left-handed starter would prove to be an enormous asset.

According to Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Twins are open to deal Liriano this spring. The Twins aren’t interested in signing the lefty to a long-term deal because of his injury history. They’re a small-market team that recently signed C Joe Mauer to a huge contract. They cannot afford another big contract, especially not when it involves a pitcher with a history of arm problems.

The Yankees have the prospects needed to obtain him from the Twins, who dealt Liriano’s one-time co-ace, Johan Santana, to the crosstown Mets a couple of years ago for a handful of marginal prospects. The problem for Brian Cashman is the Twins got swindled in the Santana deal (they received OF Carlos Gomez, RHP Philip Humber and others) and they will be certain they don’t get burned again. They’ll be looking for something of a home run in any deal with the Yankees.

The Twins blew it with Santana. They waited until the year before he was a free agent and entered the trade market in a position of weakness.

Liriano is not a free agent until after next season (2012). If the Twins learned anything from the Santana scenario, they should have learned to begin soliciting trade offers while the player (Liriano) still retains maximum value to the acquiring team (even in the absence of a contract extension).

The fact that Liriano has a history of injuries provides the club a greater urgency to get a deal done, sooner rather than later, but not at the cost of losing out on the quality of prospects they NEED to get for him.

You can bet the two teams have already talked, and the Twins have asked for Jesus Montero, Gary Sanchez, Dellin Betances and/or Manny Banuelos. The question is: How much can they extract from the Yankees front office?

Liriano is only 27 years old. When he's right, he’s a dominant presence on the mound. FanGraphs.com says he had the best slider in baseball last year, when he went 14-10, with a 3.62 ERA and 201 K over 191.2 IP. The question is his health.

The Yankees have the means for acquiring him and the money to sign him to a long-term deal if he proves to be healthy.

This would seem to be a no-brainer from both sides of the equation. The question is whether they’ll be able to agree on the terms of an exchange.