Over the last seven seasons, the remarkably durable Robinson Cano appeared in virtually every game the Yankees played. But he won't be doing so anymore.
The 31-year-old Cano, the best player on the Yankees in recent seasons and the key to their attack, has decided to bolt the Bronx and accept a 10-year, $240 million offer from the Seattle Mariners, according to multiple news media reports. The Yankees were still awaiting official confirmation on Friday that Cano would no longer be wearing pinstripes, but were proceeding on the understanding that he was gone.
Wasting no time, the Yankees agreed to a one-year, $16 million deal with Hiroki Kuroda, which means the veteran Japanese right-hander will return to the Bronx for a third season and fill one of the spots in a starting rotation that still remains a work in progress.
But Cano's decision to leave the only team he has ever played for remained a stunning development. To the end, the Yankees held their ground, telling Cano and his representatives, led by the entertainment mogul Jay-Z, that they would not go higher than seven years and about $175 million in a new contract.
So, Cano is gone, leaving the Yankees with a significant challenge as they try to replace a player who consistently hit for power and average and provided impeccable defense at second base. His departure will create one more riddle in a Yankees infield that now has an incumbent shortstop, Derek Jeter, who is 39 years old and missed almost all of the 2013 season with assorted leg injuries, and an incumbent third baseman, Alex Rodriguez, who could end up suspended for much or all of the 2014 season in connection with the Biogenesis drug investigation in South Florida.
Coming off a season in which they failed to make the playoffs for only the second time in the last 19 years, the Yankees have been aggressive in recent weeks, spending over $230 million to sign catcher Brian McCann and center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury. And they wanted Cano to stay, but not in a deal that would uncomfortably mimic the $275 million, 10-year contract they gave Rodriguez in December 2007, a decision that has come to haunt the Yankees in recent seasons.
In nine seasons with the Yankees, Cano hit 204 home runs, compiled a .309 batting average and was named to five American League All-Star teams. He was sometimes criticized for not always running hard on the basepaths; at the same time, his ability to stay in the lineup game after game was sometimes taken for granted.
In any case, he will now relocate to the other side of the country and try to help revive a moribund Mariners team that has not finished above .500 since 2009 or made it to the postseason since 2001. It was that futility that led the Mariners to pay Cano an enormous sum to leave New York, money that the Yankees, traditionally the biggest spenders in the sport, refused to match.
Posted by Unknown on Friday, December 6, 2013 - Rating: 4.5
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