ThePrideofShiner said:
I'd take Gardner/Ellsbury/McCann/Kelly Johnson over Granderson/Cano/Stewart/Gardner. And I wanted no part of Choo. Ellsbury is much, much better.
It's really hard to defend the decisions when you go back to last winter, though. I did this already once in one of these threads, but let's assume NY just keeps all of their guys instead of signing any FAs. Here's how the situations would compare right now:
Ellsbury 21.1/21.1/21.1/21.1/21.1/21.1/21.1
McCann 17/17/17/17/17
Beltran 15/15/15
Ichiro 6.5
Johnson 3
Cano 24/24/24/24/24/24/24/24/24/24
Granderson 15/15/15/15
Swisher 15/15/15
Martin 9.5
That is almost identical money in 2014, 62.6M for the guys they actually have, 63.5M for the guys they let go. The overall commitments are also pretty close, 292.5 for the guys they have, 353.5 for the ones they let go (the difference being the last three years of Cano).
Laid out like that, can anyone really argue the way to go is with the top set of guys? Ellsbury/McCann/Beltran are all so much more injury prone than the guys NY let go, it's not even close to me.