What are the Yankees going to do as free agency officially opens on Tuesday? This weekend's speculation by Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports the Yanks are a little sour on Miguel Tejada because "Yankees officials privately are not excited, partly because they don't even know if Tejada can make the transition from short to third," and that the Yanks are not thrilled about adding White Sox 3B Joe Crede and his career OBP of 305. Mr. Sherman offers up Cardinals' 3B Scott Rolen as a good fit - obtainable and recently successful. To me, that seems reasonable, too.
Specifically about their previous 3B, Alex Rodriguez, Saturday's papers quoted Joe Torre in response to a question about whether his new team is interested. He said, "It's possible, possible, possible." I'd agree given the Dodgers select 15th in draft and would not lose their 1st round pick! This seems to be a great situation given the team gets a player it needs while retaining all its propsects and still gets to select in the first round.
Bill Madden of the Daily News didn't offer any rumors or inside info on either team's mindset, but he did add a new bit of information on the offer the Yankees made to Alex Rodriguez. In addition to the 5 year and $150MM extension, "knowing that Boras was going to demand the contract extend for 10 years, they were then prepared to go an extra two years for $58 million more...Thus, the total package A-Rod never was allowed to be offered - but nonetheless walked away from - came to $294 million."
The Yankees also announced they will offer Alex Rodriguez arbitration in order to receive a pick from the club that signs him (the 1st round if not in the top 15, a 2nd otherwise.) and a supplemental 1st round selection. The News reports:
As for Jorge Posada, both New York tabloids report he is close to resigning with the Yankees. He told the Daily News he's only interested in teams with openings at catcher. This rules out a Joe Torre reunion in Los Angeles.