A Tale of One Hot Stove Season

By Matt Imbrogno On January 31, 2011 · 6 Comments · In Uncategorized

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. (Writer’s Note: I may not have come up with that line on my own)

As the Hot Stove season winds to a close and pitchers and catchers start reporting and Spring Training begins, we’re going to see a lot of articles grading the Yankees’ offseason. If I’m a good predictor, which I think I can be at times, many of these columns are going to be negative in nature. The case? They’re going to probably call the Yankee offseason a failure because they didn’t land Cliff Lee. They didn’t land Jayson Werth. They didn’t land Carl Crawford. They didn’t trade for Zack Greinke.

I’m going to put myself in a camp that may be a little lonesome: the 2010-2011 Hot Stove Season was a success for the New York Yankees. While I am not a fan of the Rafael Soriano contract, it does strengthen the team for 2011. The other deals the Yankees made don’t burden future payroll and helped fill needs the Yankees had.

Pedro Feliciano gives the Yankees a second lefty in the bullpen and can provide insurance in case Boone Logan reverts to pre-demotion form. Andruw Jones gives the Yankees a competent fourth outfielder not only at the plate, but also in the field.

The team also filled out some minor league pitching depth, headlined by the signings of Mark Prior and Bartolo Colon. Should we have expectations for either one of these guys at the Major League level? Of course not. But that’s the point of minor league deals: throw some stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

The Rafael Soriano signing was a big splash, but the overall tone of this offseason has been rather low key. There were times of turmoil and head scratching like there are no matter what month the baseball calender shows. Still, the 2011 Yankees are likely to be just as good as the 2010 team, which was just two wins away from the World Series.

This Hot Stove season did not see the Yankees land the biggest target out there, but it also saw them improve the team in meaningful ways.

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6 Responses to A Tale of One Hot Stove Season

  1. MRYANKEE says:
    January 31, 2011 at 2:37 pm

    Duch to the O’s another lost pitcher, the only way this offseason is positive if if AP resigns. Otherwise you have gained nothing on the Sox and you have a disgrace of a back end of the rotation.

    [Reply]

    T.O. Chris Reply:
    January 31st, 2011 at 8:38 pm

    I really don’t think the Yankees cared for him at all, he held private workouts and even threw for several teams in bullpen sessions yet the Yankees were never one of them, if they had interest at all they would have at least brought him in.

    I really don’t know how we have “gained nothing” when we have improved at C, DH and bullpen and if you consider the fact that Andy missed quite a bit of time last year and Burnett should be better our rotation probably won’t be that much worse than last year overall.

    [Reply]

  2. says:
    January 31, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    no love for Russ Martin?

    [Reply]

    T.O. Chris Reply:
    January 31st, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    I was just coming to post about Russell being left off of this list.

    Martin was a very good signing for this team and I really don’t understand the negative reaction it has gotten around the Yankee world, we are in a time period where the catcher we have had for the past decade is moving off the position and a young gun who has never played at the big league level and has defensive concerns is taking over Martin gives you a young veteran presents who allows you to move Posada off of catcher without complain (or as little complaining as Posada can do) and also gives you a stop gap to ease Montero into a tough situation instead of throwing him to the wolves day 1.

    [Reply]

  3. Matt Imbrogno says:
    January 31, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    Yeah, sin of omission, sorry guys. I was doing a lot of prep work and we had a leak in one of our bathrooms.

    [Reply]

    T.O. Chris Reply:
    January 31st, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    That’s cool I was just making sure he wasn’t being purposely overlooked as I have seen a few things on the internet here and there bashing Martin and I can’t figure it out, he seems like the perfect low risk high reward type of guy… You know the kind that if Theo the boy genius had signed would have been trumpeted from the towers with delight and celebrated as a Yankee coup hahah.

    Sorry about the leak that sucks! We had a Washing machine pull that shit yesterday afternoon! Water everywhere!

    [Reply]

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