Hey Fans!

I am surprising my partner with a trip to see the Yankees spring training. We’re both life long Yankee fans and he is obsessed with memorabilia.

Looking for some advice on:

Getting autographs- places to wait, times to get there and any advice to possibly interact with players both on the Yankees and other teams.

Advice while at the stadium- specific seating or places we must not miss

Accommodation’s- debating between staying in Tampa right by the stadium or staying in Clearwater which I know is a little more of a hike.

Any info about spring training experience would be greatly appreciated ! TIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK6mMtwHbkw

I think he has some points but he also sounds like a "get off my lawn" old man.

https://x.com/martinonyc/status/1856067534065225902?s=46&t=3zlrwZqYkWaT_of6Q0ODrw

The Yankees payroll is currently estimated around $235 mil. This is what I think could be a potential offseason for the team that keeps them around $300 million.

Re-sign Juan Soto for 14yrs/$655 million

Sign Christian Walker for 2yrs/$42 million with a 3rd club option year with a $5 million buyout

Trade Stroman and a few prospects away to dump his $18 mil off this season. The two prospects could be anyone with lower end value, I picked Ben Hess and Carlos Lagrange.

Re-Sign Tim Hill for a 1yr/$3.5 mil deal with a club option for a 2nd year which would put him at 2yrs/$7mil.

Re-Sign Jonathan Loaisiga to a 1yr/$3 mil deal with incentives that could have him reach up to $6.5 mil based off of innings pitched.

Acquire David Bednar from the Pirates in exchange for Jerson Alejandro, Richard Matic, and Barrett Loseke.

That puts the team right around $300 million going into the season with the trade deadline still at their disposable to patch up any injured or underperforming areas.

Lineup:

3B Jazz

RF Soto

CF Judge

DH Stanton

1B Walker

C Wells

SS Volpe

LF Dominguez

2B Durbin

Rotation:

SP Cole

SP Rodon

SP Cortes

SP Gil

SP Schmidt

Bench:

C Trevino

INF DJ

INF Berti

OF Grisham

Bullpen:

Weaver (CL)

Hamilton

Loaisiga

Bednar

Hill

Cousins

Leiter Jr.

Effross

Mayza

My personal thoughts on this team:

- Losing Gleyber in this situation sucks, but Walker is an improvement over Rizzo and having Jazz at 3B from the start is an improvement over what we had at the beginning of last year. Overall, I think it's a better team than what the 2024 team had for opening day.

- I have DJ on here as a utility man as I believe the team will use him to back up 1B and 2B while Berti backs up 3B and SS, and Grisham plays exclusively in CF. That said, if DJ struggles in that role, I expect him to be DFA'ed around June (possibly sooner) similar to Hicks. They won't keep Oswaldo Cabrera in the minors for long.

-The starting depth is pretty similar. Cody Poteet is likely the first go to guy, but Will Warren and Clayton Beeter would likely be used throughout the season.

-The bullpen seems thin in high leverage. I could see them going a different direction with some of those moves. David Bednar seems like a Matt Blake project made to be, but the chances of that exact move happening are pretty low. I would be surprised if they make a big splash but would love to see them pursue Jeff Hoffman in free agency or try acquiring Ryan Hesley or Pete Fairbanks through trades.

When I was younger I made a fb page for our 1st round pick in 2012. I never really followed his career honestly it was just an attempt at getting a page going before he got big lol.

Anyways, I wanted to know what had happened and dude just had one of the most unfortunate careers you could experience. I’m mostly just pulling from Wikipedia here.

Debuted, got a muscle strain in the off season. Then he felt pain and had to get surgery for both hip labrum’s, got an infection from the surgeries missed all of 2013.

Had to get abdominal surgey before 2014 season, 11.7 k/9 in 30 innings, 10 starts, 2.92 ERA. Then he was assaulted by a football player arguing over signing bonuses and had his jaw broke (dude who assaulted him got acquitted) then he had to get Tommy John in 2015 during Spring training then had to get Tommy John AGAIN in 2016.

The Rays rule 5’d him then he missed 2017 because a screw had to be inserted into his elbow. Bounced around independent leagues until 2021 and we haven’t seen him pitch since. I know there’s probably a lot of players who had very unfortunate careers and were lost to time but just thought I’d share one of them more relevant to us.

Next Yankees Game: Fri, Feb 21, 01:05 PM EST vs. Rays (102 days)

^^^Posted: ^^^11/11/2024 ^^^05:00:01 ^^^AM ^^^EST

I’m just thinking of what upper hands the Yankees can make to have somewhat of a competitive advantage with LA. Because if he wants to go to LA he’s going there. They have full IFA pool money.

Career: G 319 AB 1178 33 HR 120 RBI 52 SB 288 OBP 373 SLG 661 OPS

Stats have been very underwhelming but he’s still young (23) and durability has been a underrated part of his game led the Yankees in games played the last 2 years (159,160) and won a GG as a rookie and a was a top 3 finalist for the award this year.

Yankees get Jazz Chisholm

Marlins get Agustin Ramirez, Jared Serna and Abrahan Ramirez.

The vast majority of this sub and Yankees fandom as a whole is completely writing off the chances of the Japanese phenom signing with New York. However, there are actually several factors which suggest the Yankees are a true horse in this race, and here's why:

1. The Yankees have had massive interest in Sasaki for many years. They sent scouts to observe him all the way back in 2019, when he was in high school, and have invested in scouting him repeatedly since then. Brian Cashman even attended one of his starts in 2023. Of course, the Yankees did many of these same things for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and weren't able to sign him. But if the Yankees didn't think they would have the ability to lure Sasaki, why devote so much time and money to scouting him?
2. The Yankees have made a concerted effort to collect international bonus pool money in trades over the past year, acquiring it in transactions for Billy McKinney, JT Brubaker, and Caleb Ferguson. Once again, this doesn't guarantee anything, but why make such a concerted effort if the Yankees didn't think they had a realistic chance to sign Sasaki?
3. We have no idea what Sasaki actually wants out of his first MLB team. Maybe he does want to play with Ohtani and Yamamoto, but maybe he doesn't. Maybe he wants to play under the wing of maybe the greatest Japanese pitcher of all time, Yu Darvish, in San Diego. Maybe he wants to play for the team of the pitcher he grew up idolizing, Masahiro Tanaka. We don't know, so we can't just declare that he wants to sign with the Dodgers.

Overall, I don't know what the Yankees' chances are of signing Sasaki, and neither do you! I am confident that they will pull out all the stops to acquire him, and that they'll be able to put together a strong presentation. Let's have a little hope that something special happens here instead of simply declaring resignation.

So there are so many moving parts and players that can make huge contributions to the rotation and some nice free agents but they need to be cost effective. Cole is your Ace for sure. 2nd add a free agent or Rodon. 3rd Gil who should be rookie of the year. 4th Cortes or a free agent but if you are filling in for Cortez he should be trade bait. 5th Schmidt.

Thoughts or changes.

Nolan Arenado or Isaac Paredes? The latter might be more expensive due to salary and years control.

I just think Paredes “fly ball down the left field line for a home run” style fits poorly with the Cubs 350 foot left field line. That he would be more productive as a Yankee than as a Cub. Then again, a fire sale on Arenado’s contract where you also have to take Helsley’s salary, that would be great too.