Meanwhile, the Yankees are actively shopping Xavier Nady and Nick Swisher, as Ken Rosenthal wrote Monday, and it figures they will move one or the other by the start of the season. Nady is eligible for free agency after 2009, but it makes more sense to me for the Yankees to deal Swisher; they're in a win-now mode and Swisher is coming off a terrible year, with no guarantee that he'll bounce back. Nady, on the other hand, hit .305 with 25 homers and 97 RBIs last season, and he's just 30 years old, and it may be that the Yankees will want to keep him around as the contracts of Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui expire next fall.
The Yankees have asked around about a possible market for Matsui, but as other GMs will attest, this is not the best winter -- actually, it's the worst winter -- to be marketing a pricey corner outfielder.