Don’t misunderstand this post – the Yankees have had a good off-season.  The rotation is arguably better and Granderson, assuming he plays center field is an upgrade over Melky and Gardener.  However, Granderson has to play CF for this to work.

Randy Winn, might be able to play defense (not sure on how he’s played in SF), maybe he can hit .280 and steal some bases, and the Yankees saved a bunch of money.  But make no mistake, Randy Winn is not the player Johnny Damon is.  I get the fact that you are combining Nick Johnson and Randy Winn to sort of fill Damon’s shoes, and on the surface it appears that if you combined their batting, HRs (maybe Nick hits 15, Randy hits 4 at the most), RBIs, OBP, etc, etc, they may match Damon’s and still be cheaper than him, I’m sorry this is not as good as Damon.  Damon was clutch and there ain’t no replacing that.  I’m not saying this won’t work – I just feel better with Damon on the team.  I know I can count on him for .285, 20 HRs, 75 RBIs, 95 plus Runs scored, a .380 OBP and clutchness.  Sure, he’s terrible out there in left field – he was going to have to DH more often.  But, when I’m in a nuclear arms race with the Red Sox, I don’t feel like taking any chances.  The Red Sox give us all we can handle – every darn year.  I want more, more firepower, more clutchness, more mojo, more intangibles.  MORE, MORE, MORE.  I don’t want to just scrape by on these bargain basement players.  That’s fine for fantasy baseball, where it’s about compiling numbers to get to where you want to be at the end of the year, it’s entirely another thing when I’m in a baseball, life and death struggle with a division rival, and improved teams in Seattle and Chicago (they have two aces, Peavy and Burhele).  

I just don’t like the “feel” of this – I feel like the Mets…. trying to get by with lesser players and we get to say “hooray, we saved money” and hope nobody notices the fact that it’s probably not going to be as good.  The offseason overall is still good, but the Yankees had an opportunity to make it that much better – to really advance and make this team incredibly formidable in the face of a tough division rival.