Yankees Winter Meetings Preview: C.C. Sabathia Bound for New York?

(Zell's Pinstripe Blog)

Joel Sherman’s Hardball: 3 UP: CC and Cash, Renteria, and A-Rod

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I spoke to several baseball folks—executives and agents—about why they thought Brian Cashman flew to Las Vegas to meet personally with CC Sabathia. The consensus was that this is done because Cashman needs to look in Sabathia’s eyes and know for sure that if he takes all the Yankee money that the big lefty definitely wants to be a Yankee after all the talk that Sabathia wants the NL or West Coast. Sabathia probably wants to get a greater level of comfort with the organization. But there does finally seem to be some movement near the top of the free-agent market with Sabathia edging ever closer to the New York Yankees and A.J. Burnett and the Braves approaching a marriage. 

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What will be on the agenda for the Yankees at the Winter Meeting?

The moves mentioned below won’t necessarily happen, but they might be brought up or mentioned...

1st Base: Bring in Tex? Or keep Swisher at first?

2nd Base: Trade Cano? (Kemp, Billingsley, Kershaw, Peavy)

CF: Rocco Baldelli? David Dejesus? Orlando Hudson? Or leave Gardner in CF?

DH/LF: Adam Dunn? Manny Ramirez?

RF: Casey Blake? or Keep Nady there.

SP: CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe, Ben Sheets, Oliver Perez, Andy Pettitte, Randy Wolf?

RP: Possible setup man—Huston Street?

Will Phil Hughes or Robbie Cano be dealt? I doubt it.

What will happen? There are no guarantees on who the Yankees obtain, but I know moves will be made. With the Yankees having only two slots in the rotation filled (Wang and Chamberlain), they will have a lot of work to do.

They have questions at 1B and CF as well. This is the best part of the offseason. It's something that I look forward to and it gets the FA market going. Should be very exciting.

Check out Jon Heyman’s Winter Meetings Preview