Is it too early to give up Cano? Probably. Is it *wayyy* too early? I’m not sure I agree with that assessment. His offensive numbers have declined three consecutive years and he’s entering into his age 26 season. Yeah, maybe he gets better, but we may very well have seen the best of Cano already. And whatever he does, within a couple of years he will already begin to enter the years typically associated with decline phase.

All this is to say, you’re right–Cano is probably a more valuable commodity than Kemp.

We also might want to consider that Cano is a second baseman with a lifetime 109 OPS+ and Kemp is an outfielder with a lifetime 109 OPS+ Granted, Kemp plays in Dodger Stadium (more of a pitcher’s park) and Cano was a lefty in Yankee Stadium, but considering the leagues they’re in this maybe the stats are a wash. Outfielders with those numbers are in larger supply than second basemen with those numbers.

Still I have to admit that I really like Kemp, who is also a couple of years younger than Cano.

I’m with Mattpat11..if they sign AJ it will be Pavano-lite…

In another word, unless what we’re getting is extremely good, (which i doubt) then I’ll pass. no one is truely untradable, but my true value of Cano is clearly not his present value, and we’re not dieing to get him off the team.

Jake Peavy suffer from a similar problem as O-dog. the combination of park / league / division makes him a bit scary . SG and Hardball times both ran the number and conclud that there’s a very good chance that Peavy’s really not as worthwhile as he first appear . he’s still good, but even a reasonable regression would leave him only just about worth his money, and your throwing in a ton of player on top of that.

If anything, the Yanks should still sign Teix and CC, if they really need to save money, save it on the back end rotation, lock up the best players, for the lesser players there are always ways to figure something out.

And while it’s not mentioned, Pena could be Joe Jr’s replacement if he isn’t up for the job. However, with Pena as Bench Coach, I see him as being as valuable, as Zim was to Torre. I think we will see better on field managing in 2009, as I believe Girardi will consider Pena’s opinion, and sometimes defer to it.

I hope that Sabathia and these other big name free agents don’t start treating these Yankee offers as if they consisted of confederate money, the way that they did in the early 1990s, when Gene Michael was desperately trying to sign people like Greg Maddux. If the Yankees do indeed offer $144 million, they should be able to expect a reply within a reasonable amount of time. If not, take the offer off the table, move on to the next free agent, and tell Sabathia’s agent we’ll be in touch.

The only thing that might have been better, would be to offer $144, as a final offer, with a 48 hour window to accept. That’s an AAV of $24m/yr. It’s worth a few extra million to get this done THIS week. Once CC is in the bag, it makes the rest of the off-season strategy much easier.

And in reality, if the Yanks don’t get CC, it gives AJ, Lowe, et al more leverage in their dealings with the Yankees, and the Yanks willultimately pay more for them they if they had CC already signed.

Also, I read somewhere that Lowe wants 5 years. Is that insane? Would any AL team offer more then 3? And even 3 seems risky. Most pundits seem to think AJ is definitely a Yankee.