Another hole for the Yankees has been solved. They've got the two hitters they need at the beginning of year with Nick Johnson signing and the Curtis Granderson trade. Although, I would never count the Yankees out of anything, a Jason Bay or Matt Holliday signing seems pretty unlikely right now. Now, its time to turn our focus back to pitching.
As it stands now, these are the Yankees internal rotation options:
1) C.C. Sabathia
2) A.J. Burnett
3) Andy Pettitte
4) Joba Chamberlain
5) Phil Hughes
6) Chad Gaudin
Its not bad but it doesn't exactly scream championship caliber rotation. Especially with Boston having just added John Lackey to an already formidable rotation. Their's been rumblings about adding another starter, one of the many high-risk, high reward guys. Ben Sheets is the most attractive of those names and with the Yankees relatively cheap answers to other positions, I think he will end up in pinstripes. If not Sheets, Justin Duscherer and Erik Bedard have also been linked to the Yankees on a few occasions.
The other big prize this offseason will be the Cuban pitcher Aldroldis Chapman. All indications have been that his guy is going to be a really good major league pitcher in a year or two. He's impressed at all of his workouts and the Yankees have been after him since day one. It looks like this is going to be another Yankees-Red Sox bidding war and its one that it would be great to see the Yankees win. The farm is looking a little weak right now after the trade of Austin Jackson and Ian Kennedy and the two disastrous first round picks of Andrew Brackman and Gerritt Cole. They're lacking in high upside pitchers right now and Chapman would go a long way to solving this problem.
After these two, the only thing the Yankees really have left to do is to thin out their left-field situation. Gardner, Hoffman, and Melky will all be fighting for playing time its going to be tough to figure out that situation. They might as well save a couple million dollars and trade Melky away for some relief help. Really any live arm would do.
If they can do this and stay away from giving Mark DeRosa a big contract, they should be fine and ready to repeat in 2010.
