The LoHud Yankees Blog

Last night, a bearded CC Sabathia had pretty good seats for the Nets game against the Bobcats. Sabathia had knee surgery on Monday, but obviously he’s able to get around. That seems to be a good sign for the Yankees.

I figured we’d start the day with a big picture of the Yankees ace and a few small notes from around baseball.

• Former Yankees reliever Steven Jackson was among five players outrighted by the Pirates yesterday. So was Brandon Moss.

• If you haven’t seen it, Buster Olney has some great World Series notes, including a look at that pivotal Game 5 pitch from Cliff Lee to Edgar Renteria.

• After his big year with the Red Sox, Adrian Beltre has opted for free agency.

• Add Chris Young to that list of Erik Bedard-type starters on the market. The Padres declined Young’s option after shoulder surgery left him limited the past two years.

• The Rangers declined an option on Vladimir Guerrero.

Associated Press photo

The Yankees released a nice statement and obituary about former manager and general manager Clyde King. It seems like a nice way to wrap up the day on the blog.

The New York Yankees mourn the passing of Clyde King, who died at age 86 on Tuesday at Wayne Memorial Hospital in Goldsboro, N.C.

King was a member of the Yankees organization for the last 34 years, serving in a multitude of capacities, including pitching coach, manager, general manager and advisor since joining the organization as a scout in 1976.

“Clyde was a loyal and dedicated friend and advisor to my father, our family and the Yankees organization,” said Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner. “Although his baseball achievements were impressive and deserving, he also lived a rich and fulfilling life away from the game. Clyde was a man of great faith who cared deeply about his friends and family, and he served as a role model to so many of us who had the great opportunity to spend time with him. We mourn Clyde’s passing with his wonderful wife, Norma, and the entire King family.”

In 1978, ‘81, ‘82 and ‘88, King was a member of the Yankees coaching staff, including a stint as manager in 1982, when he went 29-33 (.468) while piloting the club over the final 62 games of the season. He also served as general manager from 1984-86, with the Yankees going 274-211 (.565) over the stretch. From 1989-2010, King served in a variety of scouting and advisory roles for the Yankees, often reporting directly to Principal Owner George M. Steinbrenner.

King, a North Carolina native and University of North Carolina alum, had a seven-year Major League career as a right-handed pitcher with Brooklyn (1944-45, ‘47-48 and ‘51-52) and Cincinnati (1953), going 32-25 with a 4.14 ERA in 496.0 innings pitched over 200 games, including 21 starts. His best season was in 1951, when he went 14-7 with a 4.15 ERA in 48 appearances (three starts), ranking fifth in the National League with a .667 winning percentage. King also managed parts of two seasons for San Francisco (1969-70) and Atlanta (1974-75), respectively.

King is survived by his wife of 64 years, Norma, their three daughters, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Visitation will take place on Thursday, November 4 at 6:30 p.m., at Seymour Funeral Home, located at 1300 Wayne Memorial Drive, Goldsboro, N.C. 27534. Funeral services will be held on Friday, November 5 at 2:00 p.m. at Madison Avenue Baptist Church at 300 S. Madison Avenue, Goldsboro, N.C. 27530. Burial will follow at Willow Dale Cemetery in Goldsboro.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the following entities: Fellowship of Christian Athletes of Wayne County (c/o Will Collins, 109 Ellington Way, LaGrange, N.C. 28551); Madison Avenue Baptist Church (300 S. Madison Ave., Goldsboro, N.C. 27530-6152); Clyde and Norma King Baseball Scholarship of UNC-Chapel Hill (Attn: UNC Athletic Department, P.O. Box 2126, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514).

Associated Press photo of King with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle before the 1982 Old Timers Game at Yankee Stadium.

It took only a few minutes for the first Erik Bedard email arrive. Today, the Mariners declined an option on Bedard, making the left-handed starter a free agent. Could he work as a risk-reward signing for the Yankees?

Sure. But the Yankees already have a lot of high-upside starting pitchers fighting for rotation spots in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Trenton. Obviously Bedard is a different sort of pitcher, but he comes with more or less the same level of uncertainty as a prospect. Is he really a better option than Ivan Nova? Maybe. Maybe not.

Truth is, every non-Cliff Lee free agent starting pitcher comes with some level of uncertainty.

Bronx Baseball Daily came up with a list of Lee alternatives. It begins with Hiroki Kuroda and ends with Pedro Martinez, which says a lot about the market. The trade market — beginning with the idea of making a deal for Zack Greinke — comes with considerable unknowns.

MLBTradeRumors posted lists of left-handed and right-handed free agent starters. There are some upside options with plenty of talent, but Lee is the only reliable option who’s obviously available. The rest, like Bedard, bring as many questions as answers.

The past few days, most of the conversation about Derek Jeter’s upcoming contract has centered on dollars, not years.

The guesswork seems to begin around $20 million: He’s either coming back at that number, or for a little less, or maybe a little more. No one seems to be guessing too far from that figure.

But the years matter, too.

Today, Jon Heyman wrote that there are some in baseball who believe Jeter will look for as many as six years. Heyman believes the Yankees will offer three. Personally, I’ve been expecting three or four.

How many years is Jeter worth? Could the dollar figure drop so low that the Yankees would be willing to go six or more?

Associated Press photo

The Yankees payroll budget is kind of like Phil Hughes’ innings limit: We all know roughly the number, but only a few key people seem to know the exact total, and even that exact total seems subject to a slight change if absolutely necessary.

Yesterday, Hal Steinbrenner said next year’s payroll will stay “within the same level” as this season. It gives a rough idea of what Brian Cashman will be working with, but it certainly doesn’t give anything concrete. It only opens the door to vague calculation and guesswork. These are the days when you really appreciate Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Staying the same
CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Jorge Posada and Damaso Marte are the multi-million-dollar Yankees whose contracts are staying the same next season. Alex Rodriguez is due for a small pay cut and Robinson Cano is due a small raise. Those cancel one another out.

Guys like Brett Gardner and Dave Robertson — who aren’t quite eligible for arbitration — will get small raises, but nothing especially significant.

Off the books
From the non-Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte division. Javier Vazquez and Nick Johnson are the biggest contracts coming off the books for the Yankees, totaling a little more than $17 million. From the Opening Day roster, the Yankees are also losing Randy Winn, Chan Ho Park and Marcus Thames, with contracts totaling a little more than $3 million.

We also know the Yankees initially budgeted room to pay Chad Guadin roughly $3 million (his contract before the spring training DFA). There are also some smaller contracts that could come off — Juan Miranda, Chad Moeller, etc. — but like the pre-arbitration players, the numbers are too small to play a significant factor into such vague calculations.

Due for a raise
Three significant players are due fairly significant raises: Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson have raises built into their current contracts. Those raises amount to about $7.5 million.

The Yankees also have their arbitration-eligible players. Joba Chamberlain, Boone Logan and Sergio Mitre are definitely eligible. I’m pretty sure Phil Hughes is too, and probably Dustin Moseley. Mitre and Moseley could be non-tender candidates, but with Gaudin already gone and Alfredo Aceves a complete unknown, it probably makes sense to bring back at least one of them. Moseley would be the cheapest, and probably the most versatile.

The unknowns
Hard to know what exactly the Yankees payroll situation looks like without knowing the contracts for Jeter, Rivera and Pettitte. It’s hard to count them as legitimately coming off the books, but it’s impossible to know how significantly those contracts will change.

Offsets
Because we don’t know the exact number the Yankees have in mind, I’m not sure exact salary figures are the best way to look at the Yankees budget. Instead, consider what’s coming and going, then figure out what’s left.

I’ve already mentioned that the slight changes for Rodriguez and Cano offset one another. The lost Opening Day contracts of Winn, Park and Johnson also more or less offset the raises for Teixeira, Swisher, Granderson (within a half million or so). If the Yankees are lucky, the contracts for Thames and Gaudin — plus whatever money was set aside for those mid-season additions — will come close to paying for the arbitration raises.

What’s left?
Unless I’m missing something, the Yankees will have Javier Vazquez’s salary to play with — $11.5 million — but the rest will depend on contracts for Jeter, Rivera and Pettitte. There are obviously fluctuations that could occur — numbers could change, trades could happen — but there isn’t a lot of extra space. This is certainly not 2008 all over again.

As it stands, it’s going to be a squeeze going after Cliff Lee, and adding an additional player like Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth on the open market is difficult to imagine.

Former Yankees manager and general manager Clyde King has died at the age of 86.

King was briefly the Yankees manager in 1982. He went on to spend two years as the Yankees general manager, one year as a coach and from 1998 to 2005 he was a special assistant to Brian Cashman.

He is survived by his wife, Norma, their three daughters and sons-in-law, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

The Yankees have four more days to negotiate exclusively with their own free agents, but that might not mean much.

Unless Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera sign much sooner than expected, those two are going to hit the open market at 12:01 Sunday morning. Andy Pettitte is certainly going to reach that point.

I’m honestly not sure whether the five-day exclusive negotiation window applies to players who had an option declined, but I don’t think it matters in the case of Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood or Nick Johnson. Those three either don’t have a place on next year’s Yankees or would be better off testing the market.

The Yankees could use this time to negotiate with Javier Vazquez, but I can’t imagine that happening.

That leaves the Yankees to potentially use this window to talk to Marcus Thames about resuming his role as a platoon designated hitter, or perhaps talk to Austin Kearns about playing a cheap bench role, but ultimately the exclusive negotiating window doesn’t seem to mean much for the Yankees the year.

Associated Press photo of Kearns

Pretty convenient timing. On the day Melky Mesa was added to the Yankees 40-man roster, he was also named the Topps/Minor League Player of the Year for the Florida State League. Brandon Laird was also chosen as a Player of the Year, with his award coming in the Eastern League. Here’s the announcement from MILB.

The Washington Nationals and New York Yankees each had a pair of their prospects, who also were named their league’s most valuable player, selected as a Topps Player of the Year winner. Fourteen Major League organizations are represented in the annual George M. Trautman Awards, presented in the 16 domestic Minor Leagues by the Topps Company of New York, in conjunction with Minor League Baseball.

Potomac Nationals first baseman Tyler Moore led the Carolina League in home runs, RBIs, doubles, slugging percentage, extra base hits and total bases in being named the Topps Player of the Year in the Class A loop. Randolph Oduber is the other Washington Minor Leaguer to claim a Topps award. Oduber finished in the top five in eight offensive categories in the Gulf Coast League, including leading it in batting average and slugging percentage.

Trenton third baseman Brandon Laird won the Eastern League’s MVP and Rookie of the Year awards. He finished in the top five in the league in homers and RBIs, despite being promoted to Triple-A in early August. The second Yankees honoree is Tampa outfielder Melky Mesa, who was among the Florida State League leaders in home runs, doubles, triples, RBIs, slugging percentage and extra base hits.

Topps salutes the top performances throughout Minor League Baseball, including monthly awards and all-star teams in each classification.

The status of the Yankees pitching coach opening was not discussed in either of Hal Steinbrenner’s radio interviews this afternoon, but there are some coaches — including one potential candidate — on the move.

Rick Kranitz, who was Joe Girardi’s pitching coach in Florida, has joined the Astros as their minor league pitching coordinator. Up in Boston, the Red Sox have hired former Yankees pitcher Curt Young as their pitching coach, replacing new Blue Jays manager John Farrell.

So far, the only known candidates for the Yankees job are Mike Harkey, Scott Aldred and Gil Patterson.

As for the things Steinbrenner actually did discuss this afternoon… You can listen to each interview online: Here’s the ESPN interview and here’s the WFAN interview.

The Associated Press — which pretty much always has someone checking in on the Yankees down in Florida — reported that Jean Afterman, Damon Oppenheimer, Billy Eppler, Randy Levine and Gene Michael were also involved in those meetings with the Steinbrenners and Brian Cashman.

After attending the Yankees organizational meetings the past two days in Tampa, Hal Steinbrenner did a pair of radio interviews this afternoon — one on ESPN, one on WFAN — to discuss the state of the Yankees and what comes next.

Most of it was fairly predictable, and Steinbrenner went into very few details. He did say the Yankees payroll will not shift drastically one way or the other this winter.

“I can safely say we’re going to stay within the same level, but I’m obviously not going to get into details,” he said during The Michael Kay Show. “We know we’re expected to field a championship caliber team and we’re going to do what it takes to do that. If we have to get creative in a trade, or we have to go after a big free agent, we’re going to do that. We do have some money coming off.”

A few minutes later, Steinbrenner was asked a similar question by Mike Francesa.

“I’m not going to get into specifics, but yes we’ve got a good idea of where we’re going to try to end up,” he said. “We have some money coming off the payroll. Obviously re-signing Derek and Mo is going to be a priority to try to do that, but we’re still going to have money leftover. These meetings are pretty initial at this point, but it’s all about prioritizing what we need to do and looking at the free agent market and eventually looking at possible trades to try to improve.”

A few bullet-point items that were discussed.

• On the approach to Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera: “Derek and Mo, obviously we want them back. They’re hopefully lifelong Yankees. They’re great leaders. They’ve been great Yankees, but we’re running a business. If there’s a deal to be done, it has to be a deal that both sides are happy with.”

• Steinbrenner said he wasn’t sure he could directly address Cliff Lee rumors. Instead, he simply said: “We are looking at the free agent market as we do every year.”

• Steinbrenner said Rangers CEO Chuck Greenberg called him “within an hour or two” of Greenberg’s comments going public yesterday. The Yankees had already contacted Major League Baseball to let them know they planned to respond “in an aggressive way.” They agreed to hold off until after the World Series game, and ultimately Steinbrenner was satisfied with Greenberg’s apology. “I believe he’s sincerely sorry,” Steinbrenner said. “You either forgive him or you don’t. You either move on or you don’t.”

• The Yankees could not find evidence of any specific incident that would have bothered Cliff Lee’s wife during the ALCS. “As far as I could tell, we couldn’t find anything,” Steinbrenner said.

• Steinbrenner said he did not watch the World Series “inning to inning,” but he did watch some of it. He was impressed by the Giants pitching (obviously).

• On ticket prices: “The Legends section is the section everybody seemed to focus on. We did very well there this year. I think the price reduction really worked. We were about 92, 93 percent as I recall. The numbers were very close to that, anyway… That area did very well, but we’re going to do this every year. We’re going to talk to our fans. We’re going to look at every single section, and we’ll make price adjustments as we need to. Some sections may be overpriced. Some may be underpriced, quite frankly. That’s something we’re going to do, and should be doing, on an annual basis.”