March 29, 2024

Why The New York Yankees Will Push To Acquire Francisco Liriano From The Twins

February 17, 2011 by · 1 Comment 

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, Freddy Garcia and youngster Ivan Nova. After Sabathia, the other pitchers all have enormous question marks attached to their resume for the 2011 season. This is NOT the kind of staff a team with a $200 million payroll should be fielding!

If you look beyond this year, consider Sabathia will likely opt out of his multi-year deal at the end of the season. While it’s likely he would opt out of his deal simply to leverage more money out of the Yankees, a la Alex Rodriguez, nothing is 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 this case, the Yanks have to know that Sabathia will almost-surely void the remainder of his deal in the hopes of sucking more money out of the Yankees trough. If he does so, and if he comes to see the Yankees rotation as being non-competitive for the immediate future, he could seriously entertain offers from other teams. The Red Sox will drop tens of millions of dollars in payroll at the end of the 2011 season…

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, establish a scenario where Pettitte might be enticed to play the second half of the year, give Sabathia an incentive to return to the Bronx next winter, and provide a foundation for their rotation beyond this season.

They need to acquire Francisco Liriano from the Minnesota Twins.

Liriano, who appears to be fully recovered from 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 Yankees in consideration of their new stadium – which I often (derogatorily) refer to as The New Yankee Stadium Softball Field – which is a home run haven for left-handed batters.

According to Joe Christensen, of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Twins may be willing 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 cross-town Mets a couple of years ago (for a handful of marginal prospects). The problem for Brian Cashman and the Yankees 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 the southpaw was a free agent and entered trade discussions in a position of weakness. Liriano is not a free agent until after the 2012 season… if they learned a lesson from the way the Santana scenario played out, they should have learned to begin soliciting trade offers NOW. The fact 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, Gaby Hernandez, 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 is right, he’s a dominant presence in any rotation. FanGraphs.com says Liriano had the best slider in baseball last year, when he went 14-10, with a 3.62 ERA and 201 K in 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.

Comments

One Response to “Why The New York Yankees Will Push To Acquire Francisco Liriano From The Twins”
  1. Paul Dunn says:

    Another “unbiased opinion” from Red Sox Nation
    Paul

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