With the season officially in the books, it's time to look forward to the offseason and speculate how they will fix this flawed team. There are a number of issues facing the club, some of which are obvious.
ISSUE #1: FINDING A NEW SHORT-STOP
I almost put "Replacing Derek Jeter" here and then was like "Ummm, no. You can't replace Jeter". So instead I'll refer to it as finding a new SS. There are 2 internal options, neither of which are acceptable: Martin Prado and Brendan Ryan. Prado hasn't played SS since 2012 and he'll probably be penciled in at 2B. And Ryan is more suited to the "late-inning defensive replacement" role. The best SS prospects in the farm system are all 18-19 years old so that's a no-go.
So the next SS will almost certainly come from outside of the organization. Popular candidates include free agents JJ Hardy and Hanley Ramirez, as well as Starlin Castro from the Cubs and Elvis Andrus from the Rangers. You can probably rule out current Yankee but soon to be FA Stephen Drew, because he performed so poorly in his audition with the team this year, (.150/.219/.271 in 140 AB). Hardy is probably the betting favorite and if he comes without draft pick compensation tied to him I'd be all for it. If he does get a qualifying offer, that should be a non-starter for New York. I've been pretty firm on my position with this one: you don't give up 1st rd draft picks for anyone other than franchise players. And after we gave up 3 1st rounders last year, (none of which we're worth it IMO), it raises the bar even higher. Frankly, there's no FA this winter worth losing a draft pick for if you're New York. Only time will tell if the team agrees with me. (Side tangent over - for now).
Returning to SS, if you eliminate Hardy if he gets a Q.O. and Ramirez because he'll certainly get one, too, that leaves Castro and Andrus, both of whom would be "expensive" for New York to acquire but in different ways. Castro would cost us either Aaron Judge or Luis Severino, (plus someone else like Manny Banuelos probably), and Andrus has a big contract to take on, (8 yrs $120 million...Good grief what was Texas thinking?). Depending on how much Texas would kick in on the salary, Andrus may be the way to go. BUT, it'd have to be at least half and I don't know if they'd do that.
One dark horse candidate for you: Jed Lowrie. He's just 30 and admittedly had a pretty poor season in Oakland, (.249/.321/.355 in 566 AB). He's likely to be cheaper than Hardy, and is 4 years younger. And he will obviously not get a Q.O. from Oakland.
ISSUE #2: ADDING POWER TO THE LINEUP
This one is fairly difficult for a couple reasons. The first is that there's really nowhere to put anybody. There are some deadweight contracts plugging 3 position: 3B, 1B, and RF. (You could probably add C to that list, too). The 3 guys I'm referring to, Rodriguez, Teixeira, and Beltran, are all injury prone and could use healthy amounts of time at DH when they're available. But you can obviously only DH one guy at a time, so a couple of those guys will have to gut it out in the field.
The second reason this is difficult is the absence of power on the FA market and the game in general. If I'm adding one hitter this offseason, it's Yasmany Tomas, the 23 year old Cuban slugger. I'll refer you to Kiley McDaniel's recent scouting report on Fangraphs for his credentials. Tomas exists in a theoretical area where few players can ever be found: free agents in their early 20s with a middle-of-the-order hitting skill set and no draft pick compensation tied to him. He's a unicorn, and one that New York desperately needs frankly. As I alluded to in the preceding paragraph, the Yankees are old, folks. They need a shot of youthful energy, and all he costs is money. New York has plenty of that.
And, before I move on, let me address the naysayers who may quibble with signing Tomas because they prefer Aaron Judge. First off, I understand your position. But the fact is we don't really know how good Judge will be yet, despite him having an excellent season this year. If Tomas is truly a middle-of-the-order bat with 70-power, you don't decline to sign someone like that because you've got someone who plays the same position that is 1-2 years away from the big club. You sign Tomas and figure it out later. Having an abundance of talent is a good problem to have.
ISSUE #3: FIGURING OUT THE ROTATION
This actually is less of a problem than the other two, but there's definitely a decision that will have to be made here. You can pencil in Tanaka, Pineda, Sabathia, and Shane Greene for 4 slots with Ivan Nova due back in late Spring early Summer. But given the fact we technically already have 5 starters, (6 if you count David Phelps), there's still a ton of uncertainty. Health will be a big issue with practically all of these guys, and it may be advisable to sign one more starter, (Brandon McCarthy perhaps?). I wouldn't mind the team deploying a 6-man rotation given their collective health concerns.
There will surely be temptation to sign one of the big 3 FA starters: Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, and James Sheilds. Scherzer and Shields will have Q.O. so they're out for me. Lester is the only would who I'd be ok with, but in general I'd prefer them using another spending strategy, that being...
ISSUE #4: DEPTH, DEPTH, DEPTH
...spreading the money around. Instead of spending, say, $200 million on two guys, why don't you spend it on 6 or 7. The Yankees have had serious depth issues the past 2 seasons; when someone got hurt, they had no one on their bench or in the farm system to turn to. I look at the A's and think there's a strategy their that we could tweak and use to our advantage. I think of it as "Oakland on Steriods"; field a 25-man roster with above average regulars top to bottom. The "Steriods" modifier comes in how much money you can spend on your bench guys. Oakland has done a fantastic job loading it's team with cheap talent that fit together well in the form of platoons and what-not. New York could and should do the same thing, except without the budgetary constraints.
My idea would still involve Tomas, even though he'd probably account for half of that $200M. The rest of the money could be allocated to backup OFs, catcher, utility infielders, etc.
ISSUE #5: WHAT TO DO ABOUT DAVID ROBERTSON?
D-Rob has performed really well this year, much better than I thought. I think the thing they have to do with Dave is pretty straight forward. Make him a Q.O., which will be a little over $15M. If he takes it, that's great - we lock up one of the best closers in the game who is a homegrown player and has proven he can play in the big city in the tough AL East. If not, you negotiate earnestly. The fact is he is replaceable with Betances on the team and a system stocked with elite reliever prospects. And if he signs with another team, we get a compensatory pick.
In summary, the changes they need to make are not solely on the team. They'll have to leave their old spending habits behind and adapt to the current landscape. I don't see how they can make themselves into a contender in 1 offseason, but then again I would've said the same thing 2 years ago about Boston.
