When 2013 ended, it was almost a sure thing the Yankees were going to trim their payroll, and the New York franchise across town would be the one to balloon their payroll. As it turns out, there’s no greater motivation than having your hated rival win the World Series to get you to reach deep in your pockets to ante up.
I wrote about the Yankees spending spree back in late January (because of that, a lot of this may sound familiar) and said they would definitely be in the discussion of teams to return to the postseason, and it still holds true. I really dropped the Orioles in my power rankings earlier this winter, even after they made some noise in the free agent market. And with Tampa Bay and Boston already being established power in this powerhouse of a division, here is the real reason they dropped so low: So many teams around them got a lot better, and the Orioles got minimally better.
The Yankees would be one of those teams.
I’ve had a lot of people kill me over having the Yankees in the top 10, I think it’s a no brainer to be quite truthful. I love almost every move this organization made in the offseason, and last year was almost a complete train wreck, yet Joe Girardi managed to keep this team in the hunt the entire season.
Now, while the Yankees made a lot of noise in the offseason, and I’m higher on them than maybe the average fan, the Yankees still have plenty of questions to answer.
Joe Girardi still has to figure out third base. Despite the Arod circus finally leaving town, he still was the long term guy there, and now all of a sudden third base doesn't get you excited. Kelly Johnson is a nice player, but for what you need out of third base in terms of offensive production, it's just not going to be there. But he is a left-handed bat you can possibly see numbers inflate because of the right field short porch.
Shortstop is a glaring question mark. Jeter's health is almost deteriorating quicker than snow in Texas. Not only is his long term health in question, his short term health is somewhat of an unknown.
So far, Jeter has managed to remain fairly healthy through spring training, but can he stay healthy for the next few weeks? If makes it out of that, how long is he going to be on the field? How many days in a row can he go before he needs a break?
All valid, and concerning questions if you're Joe Girardi. Brendan Ryan is one heck of a defensive backup, but his lack of offensive competence is precisely why he's a back up.
CC Sabbathia's stints on the DL have to be concerning. Not only the lefty getting older, he has logged major, major amounts of innings since coming to New York. The good news is, he has lost a ton of weight this winter, but will that translate to increased velocity on his fastball? He lost a lot juice on his fastball as the season wore on last year.
Can Ivan Nova take a step forward after an up and down 2013. Nova is a very good, and gritty right hander. The Yankees have definitely found something there, but they cannot afford him to keep taking steps back. It all has to be forward progress. I'm of the belief he has a very nice 2014 season. While I believe that, will it actually happen? The Yankees have very obviously had their struggles developing young pitchers in recent years.
Speaking of pitchers, what a great season Hiroki Kuroda had last year. But it doesn't take a genius to see, he dropped off majorly in August and September. His ERA went through the roof, and he had to fight and claw to make it through five innings in just about every start. Can he turn around and at age 38 log the 150-175 innings the Yankees need out of him? Also a valid question.
While there are a lot of questions the Bronx Bombers have heading into 2014, there’s plenty more things to like.
Of all the moves the Yankees have made so far this winter, the Carlos Beltran signing I think is their best move. His contract is very affordable, and with finally moving over the American League, you have so many options with him, the Yankees may have gotten the best hitter in baseball north of the age of 35.
Beltran will obviously want to play the outfield, and even though he's 36, he can still play a very solid outfield. The most obvious and best parts of the acquisition is he'll be able to DH. You are going to add games played, and with that added at-bats, added homers, added RBIs, etc.
The best part, I think, about adding Beltran is he's such a clutch player. Whenever he's up in a big spot, he delivers more times than not. I think that is going to be a huge plus for the Yankees, and should translate into more wins.
The only draw back to having Beltran, and it's a small draw back, is late in games, you are going to get a lot of managers turning him around with to the right side. The middle of that order is already pretty lefty dominant, him and Mark Texiera are going to have to prove they can hit late game homers from the right side of the plate. I don't think turning Beltran around takes away his ability to get a big hit, but it does take away his ability to get a big home run. There is a difference.
For Brian McCann, playing in Yankee Stadium is only going to make him even more of a nightmare to pitch to than before. An almost straight pull hitter, that short right field porch is going to be like Prince Fielder at a buffet, it's gone if you're not careful.
I loved the Briann McCann signing. He plays the game hard every day (as evidenced by his many run-ins with guys who were "showboating" last year). He is a very healthy player, and the DH is really going to benefit the longevity of his career. I try not to bring fantasy baseball into discussions like these, but I think here there’s some relevancy to it. I’ve tried to target McCann as much as possible, because I think his home run numbers are going to inflate on a flatline that is going to make him fantasy gold. On top of that, he's just an all around good baseball player. He's a solid backstop, he's a good teammate from all accounts, and last but not least, he's already an established, and feared hitter. All around, another good signing. 
Now the Ellsbury signing is somewhat puzzling, only because of the money he got. Ellsbury has had a very long history of struggling to stay healthy. He's a very streaky player. He may hit 20 homers and hit 280-300, but it's going to be a streaky 280-300.
The one thing he'll consistently do is steal a ton of bases. Which in this line up, is only a good thing. It's going to give Texiera, Beltran, and McCann more pitches to hit. Add his speed with Brett Gardner's, and the Yankees have a great recipe for scoring a lot of runs.
The beauty of the recipe, is it's not all on five or seven power hitters to blast 25 to 30 home runs. This will be a team that can win games in a lot of ways.
The fifth starters role in New York is rather intriguing. I have to say, the analysts that are already declaring the Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda trade a bust for both sides, I have to respectfully disagree. I’m not going to focus too much on the Montero side of that trade, but simply put, I don’t think his career is automatically in the crapper. Now for Pineda, I just don’t understand the reasoning behind deeming him a bust already as well. I understand the injury thing is probably going to take him some time to get past, but I truly believe there’s more in the tank for this kid. One, he’s only 25 years old, and second he’s built like an oxe. I actually didn’t realize how big he was until I was doing some research on him when I wrote my piece in January. This guy is big and strong and I for one, think he is in for a bounce back year. Because of the ballpark he pitches in, I’m not sold he’s a sub-3 ERA, though if he pitched elsewhere (say, Seattle still) I might be swayed otherwise. But I think he’s a 3.25-3.75 ERA guy, who with run support can easily win 15 games. To summarize, I like Pineda in ‘14, and if he can stay healthy, it will be very difficult for the Yankees to try and limit his innings late in the season.
I realize the Yankees have a major question mark in the bullpen, and this truthfully down the stretch, could be a killer if David Robertson cannot be a viable closer. While I think the loss of Mariano is a great one, I think people may be overreacting. Mariano wasn’t God walking from the bullpen to the hill, if he was, he wouldn’t have been in the top 10 of blown saves last year. While David Robertson’s effectiveness isn’t going to be the detriment to the Yankees success, there will be a lot of pressure on him to live up to the Mariano status.
I want to expand a little bit on why I picked the Orioles so low, and the reason has a lot to do with the Yankees. The Yankees improved their team by probably 10 wins with their additions. It may be even more than that, we’ll see, as 10 wins would make them a 95 game winner. The Orioles did very little to make their team better. The Orioles will likely match their 85 game win total last year. Partially because the Rays did little to improve their team (which I’ll talk about in their preview), so the Orioles maybe steal a game or two from them they otherwise wouldn’t. But the Yankees are going to steal more games than those from the O’s. They’ll steal games they may have lost 7-5, or 8-6, basically any high scoring game, the Yankees, I think, take this season. Whether you think Tanaka is going to be a good pitcher in America doesn’t matter. His presence alone, early on, will make this team better. The improvement of the Yankees in the offseason has made them, in my opinion, a better team than they were last year.
I think Joe Girardi proved how valuable a manager can be to a unit by the way he handled what was honestly a putrid Yankees lineup, and somehow managed to make that team a winner. He may not even have to work that hard this year to make this team better. Filling out the lineup may automatically do it. We’ll see.
I think the Yankees make a return to the postseason, we'll see how long it lasts though.
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