The Yankees will probably not get serious about negotiations with Hiroyuki Nakajima until the last 10 days or so of their negotiation window, but according to Ken Rosenthal one thing that has been discussed, at least by Nakajima’s agent, is the possibility of a sign and trade agreement that would send Nakajima elsewhere, skirting the Yankees’ exclusive negotiating rights. The issue is that Nakajima wants to be an everyday player, but the Yankees view him as a utility player, and even if they didn’t they obviously have nowhere for him to start in the infield. It’s an interesting proposition that makes sense on its face, but I’m not sure how it’s going to work from a value standpoint. The Yankees won the bidding for Nakajima, after all, which by definition means that no one bid more than they did for Nakajima’s rights. Considering that (and that the Yankees bid of $2.5 million was hardly exorbitant), it’s kind of difficult to imagine anyone wanting to trade an intriguing asset for Nakajima now.

The bidding process for Yu Darvish has come to a close, and some details/rumors are leaking out about the process. Multiple reporters have confirmed that the Yankees did make a bid, though it was reportedly “modest” and Jack Curry reported that it came in the last 2 hours of the process. The Nippon Ham Fighters have until Tuesday to decide if they will accept the bid, but the winner could be leaked early. So far we know that the Yankees, Blue Jays, Rangers, and Cubs put bids in on Darvish, and the Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, and Angels are among the teams that did place a bid at all (which I don’t get, by the way, but I guess I won’t complain).

Beyond that the rumors are all over the place. Some people are saying the winning bid was “astronomical,” others are saying that’s not true. More than anything, no matter how the bidding comes out I’m interested in how high the Yankees’ bid was. That should tell us more about how serious they are about improving the rotation.

If you’re looking for a good summation of the Yankees’ payroll slashing means going forward, you could do a lot worse than this neat explanation from Joe at RAB. As Joe gets at implicitly, the real problem with trying to cut payroll to $189 million isn’t the number itself, $189 million is still a lot of money you should be able to put together a quality team with, it’s that there’s no transitory phase between now and then for the Yankees, who will be stuck with some very large payroll commitments made years prior that will significantly impair their ability to add around the edges.

To really illustrate this point, here’s a quick glimpse of how the 2014 roster would project right now, with the player’s age in 2014 in parentheses:

(click “view full post” to continue reading)