The New York Yankees declined to offer arbitration to any of the teams free agents in fear that they would accept and then the team would be forced to pay them a higher amount then what the would have wanted to. Bobby Abru and Andy Pettitte are the two big names that were not offered.

Even though the Yankees did not offer arbitration to both players, they can still talk about a new contract and negotiate with them.

Also not receiving arbitration offers were pitchers Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano and Sidney Ponson, plus catchers Ivan Rodriguez and Chad Moeller, and first basemen Jason Giambi.

With the Winter meetings coming up in the next week, it will be interesting to see what management decides to do about the starting pitching rotation as they would really like to get a couple of new pitchers that they could plug into the rotation.

New York Yankees

On Tuesday the New York Yankees declined options and starting pitcher Carl Pavano and first basemen / dh Jason Giambi. Pavano’s option was to be worth $13 million instead it was bought out for $1.9 million. Giambi’s was worth $22 million and he was bought out for $5 million. Not a bad payday for going on the free agent market if you ask me.

Pavano could possibly be re-signed by the Yankees if he will take a cheap deal but don’t look for the Yankees to really negotiate with Giambi.

Yankees

The Los Angeles Angels but a whooping on the New York Yankees Monday night by the score of 12-1. The Angels used a big sixth inning where they scored six runs to really break the game wide open. There was also a little fight between Pudge Rodriguez and Torii Hunter that caused the benches to clear in the sixth inning. Hunter bumped into Pudge and Pudge pushed him and Hunter went back at Pudge. Wasn’t a full out brawl but sure did nothing for the Yankees in the end.

Carl Pavano dropped to 2-1 on the year as he took the loss for the Yankees. Pavano gave up five runs on six hits in just 5 1/3 innings. Dan Giese and Edwar Ramirez both allowed three runs to score each before Chris Britton allowed one more in the eighth inning. All the Yankees pitchers struggled against the high powered Angels lineup.

Alex Rodriguez had the one rbi for the Yankees. A-rod singled in the first inning to score Johnny Damon. That was all the offense for the Yankees and it was just a terrible game.

Yankees Blog