Of all of the free agent pitchers available this offseason, my guess is that the Yankees would like to sign none of them as much as Hiroki Kuroda. The Yankees have been connected to Kuroda for awhile now, reportedly targeting him during free agency last year, as well as trying to acquire him at this year’s trade deadline, but in both cases Kuroda opted to remain a Dodger. Now they’ll have another chance to acquire him, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them be a little bit aggressive in their push to bring Kuroda to the Bronx.

Why? Well, first of all, Kuroda’s a good pitcher. He’s only got four years of big league experience to his credit, but he sports a 3.45 ERA and 3.55 FIP in 699 career innings. His peripherals are solid, if not wowing, and he does a reasonably good job of limiting the number of home runs he allowed. Yes, he’s 37, but he also just had his best season in MLB. Additionally, the age factor make him relatively cheap. Kiroda probably won’t command any more than a one year deal, and indeed may not want one, a fact that makes him an even more attractive target.

So what’s the problem? Well, it’s not clear Kuroda wants to pitch for anyone other than the Dodgers. He resigned with LA during the exclusive negotiating period last offseason, meaning he didn’t even give other teams a chance to make him an offer, and then he invoked his no trade clause to stay with the Dodgers in 2011, despite interest in trading for him from at least the Yankees and Red Sox. Most seem to assume that Kuroda will either be a Dodger in 2012, or he’ll return to Japan if they decide not to bring him back. So while I’d like to see Kuroda pitching for the Yankees, and signing him makes a lot of sense, it’s still probably a long shot that it happens at this point.

Outside of C.J. Wilson and Yu Darvish, Mark Buehrle is the upcoming free agent that’s generated the most interest amongst Yankee fans, as far as I can tell. It’s easy to see why, he’s a well known pitcher who’s been a front of the rotation guy for a few years in Chicago, and he’s even thrown a perfect game and a no-hitter. Additionally, he’s a groundball pitcher who works super fast, which I’ve always suspected is a big part of why he seems to be one of those guys who’s sort of inexplicably well liked by just about everyone.

I’m just going to cut right to the chase; I have absolutely no interest in Buehrle as far as the 2012 Yankees are concerned. That’s mostly because I’m pretty bearish on Buehrle’s future. Buehrle’s never been much of a strikeout pitcher, but it’s gotten pretty ridiculous in the past few years, as he hasn’t managed to strike out at least 5 batters per nine innings since 2008. Add in the fact that he isn’t an extreme groundball pitcher by any means and doesn’t do a particularly job of limiting home runs, and it’s sort of befuddling that he’s had as much success as he’s had.

Buehrle will be 33 in March, and given his name factor I’m reasonably sure someone will probably guarantee him a 2 or 3 year deal, in which case I wouldn’t even seriously consider him if it were my call. The wheels are bound to come off of this train at some point.

This article from Andrew Marchand and ESPN New York has a pretty interesting premise, but once you really get down into the weeds of the matter you find that it doesn’t necessarily hold a lot of water, or at the very least doesn’t provide much in the way of guidance to the Yankees as they try to deal with C.C. Sabathia‘s contract situation.

First of all, the article clearly tries to include too many examples, especially once they’ve excluded non-free agent contracts and Cliff Lee. You can argue about how bad each deal from John Lackey to Kevin Millwood looks now, but the size of those contracts just aren’t comparable to what Sabathia is going to command. That Texas gave Chan Ho Park $65 million once upon a time might be one of the great baseball oddities of my lifetime, but we’ll all be doing cartwheels down Park Avenue if Sabathia signs a 5 year contract in the range of $65-90 million.

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