In addition to signing Jayson Nix today, the Yankees also decided to offer arbitration to Freddy Garcia. Garcia qualified as a Type B free agent on the strength of his surprisingly good 2011 campaign, so if Garcia declines arbitration and signs with another team, the Yankees will receive a supplemental round pick in exchange. That might be moot, however, as new reports indicate that the Yankees and Garcia are close to agreeing to terms on a new one year deal to keep Sweaty Freddy in pinstripes for the 2012 season.

I’m not necessarily opposed to another go-round with Garcia, but I do wonder what it says about the team’s plan for the 2012 rotation. Re-signing Garcia would give the Yankees five nominal starting pitchers, so if they still plan to add an upgrade to the rotation in the offseason, either Garcia, A.J. Burnett, or Phil Hughes would have to be the odd man out.

The Yankees signed Jayson Nix, utility infielder, to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training. Nix has only four seasons of experience but he’s pretty terrible, with a .207/.280/.368 career line, including .169/.245/.309 last year. Still, it’s just a depth move and he probably won’t even be a bench player, so it’s hard to get upset.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, and all of us here at IIATMS are extremely grateful for our readers.

I have to say, I’m thrilled that the new CBA’s amateur player provisions are being widely panned around the internet, and the Players’ Association is being properly excoriated for colluding with the league against the interests of amateur players and the greater good of the industry itself. When details of the agreement began leaking, I was afraid that the lack of a work stoppage and unprecedented comity between the two sides would overshadow what an awful deal that comity produced. I don’t get the sense that anyone would have preferred a strike to the deal we got, but there is at least widespread recognition that this labor peace is a result of both MLB and the current membership of the union deciding to enrich themselves at the expense of future players, small market teams, and the long term interest of the sport.

On the other hand, one thing that seems to happen when everyone broadly agrees on something is that they do a less thorough job of really explaining things, and I think that’s happened a little bit with the point that the new draft rules will cause baseball to lose talent in the long run by pushing athletes away from the sport. I won’t go quite as far as Rob Neyer does into “we don’t know what the effects will be” territory, because we kinda do (and we have Puerto Rico as a good case study to support the notion), but I will take a moment to dive deeper into just why the new system will cost baseball talent.

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First, my apologies for dropping the ball on the weekly updates. The last month has been incredibly chaotic for me and I am just now starting to feel like I am catching up. That said, here is how the Phoenix Desert Dogs and their Yankee prospects ended up the Arizona Fall League.

Phoenix ended the season 14-22, twelve games behind the Suprise Saguaros who lost to the Salt River Rafters in the AFL title game. The Yankees members of the Desert Dogs had a mixed bag of results by the season’s closing. Daniel Burawa went 1-4 with a 7.53 ERA over twelve games and 14.1 innings of work. Preston Claiborne went 0-2 with a 3.00 ERA over twelve games and innings. David Phelps went 2-2 with a 4.41 ERA over eight starts. He struck out 28 and allowed just nine walks. Rounding out the Yankees’ hurlers, Chase Whitley had a strong fall, going 0-1 with a 1.62 ERA over 16.2 innings.

Corban Joseph, who started his fall by smacking a three-run homer, slowed as the season progressed. He ended going .227/.287/.371/.658 over 25 games. He had two homers and eight doubles. Rob Segedin hit .250/.367/.407/.775 over 29 games with three homers, a triple and six doubles. Ronnier Mustelier’s season was interrupted with a brief injury, but he made good use of his sixteen games. He hit .344/.354/.516/.869 with a pair of homers and three stolen bases.