Yanks waiting for Crawford?
November 20, 2009, 2:00 pm by iYankees · 7 Comments
From Ken Rosenthal and Paul Morosi (FOX Sports):
Two years ago, the Yankees held off trading for left-hander Johan Santana so they could wait for CC Sabathia to hit the free-agent market the following winter.
Might they take the same strategy this offseason, bypassing free-agent outfielders Matt Holliday and Jason Bay in order to wait one more year for Rays left fielder Carl Crawford?
The Yankees might not be thinking that far ahead, but Crawford could be available for them at the right time.
Say the Yankees re-signed Johnny Damon to a two-year deal and lost their other big free-agent bat, Hideki Matsui. Crawford could take over for Damon in left in 2011, with Damon getting more at-bats at DH.
Of course, the Yankees would face competition for Crawford; White Sox general manager Ken Williams loves him, the Angels undoubtedly would see him as a perfect fit, and the Astros would love to bring him home to Houston. And those are just three teams.
Would you rather wait for Crawford? I think he’s slightly overrated, offensively, and would probably prefer Holliday over him. But I do see the allure in bringing him in to replace Johnny Damon.
Didn’t Crawford just sign a two-year extension?
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No the Rays picked up his 1 year 10 million dollar option… He will be a free agent next year if not re-signed.
Personally I think he isn’t worth it… He is 28 so next year he will be a 29 year old speedster with not much power and his only real weapon being a race against time before he is no longer affective. Also once he gets older I see Defense in the Johnny Damon range.
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Holliday is the better overall player than Crawford, and doesn’t rely on speed the way Crawford does. I would worry about signing Crawford as a FA next off-season because you would get one year of his prime (age 30, assuming prime is ages 26-30, there is some debate but that seems to be the most recent thinking on the subject) then 4 to 6 years of his decline. If his speed starts to go, he loses a TON of his value.
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26-30? Interesting I always looked at it as up to 32 because up until that point your body doesn’t break down as much as later on and you still have a lot of speed and strength from your youth but with added smarts and experience.
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The latest thinking I have read is that it’s more 26-30, especially with the league testing for certain substances that help fight the aging process.
It’s probably different with every player (at least according to Scott Boras’ “Damon’s chronological age doesn’t matter theory”) and ages 31 and 32 aren’t going to be significantly worse than age 30 for most players and even have a chance to have better performance in offense numbers due to some of the luck/random chance things that happen over the course of a season, but age 31 can be the start of the decline (although it is likely almost unnoticeably gradual with many players for the first couple of years). Not to mention, all of that is dependent on the physical conditioning of the individual player.
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According to Boras you would think a player doesn’t start to decline until they switch agents…
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