The Off-Season Deconstruction Begins

As if the news about MLB's plan to start the destruction of the minor leagues is not depressing enough, Coops has given notice that—as predicted in this space—Lettuce Romine is soon to be replaced by Higgy.

https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-brian-cashman-kyle-higashioka-austin-romine-backup-catcher-20191115-vadpscplzfgxtbzez2ehrdhnp4-story.html#nt=interstitial-auto

Sure, the Gammonites and other Coops fans will make out that this is just Cashman doing some hardball negotiating.  But that is hardly likely to work.

With 18 homers and 77 ribbies in 149 games over the past two years, Romine won't be bluffed.  He will just go, to start for one of a dozen other possible teams who will be more than happy to have such a catcher.

(One of them may well be your New York Mets).

Close readers of the GM's comments here will note that, once again, the whole obsession is with minor-league options.

Higgy is now out of them, Cashy tells us.  Hence, he will be retained and Romine allowed to walk, never mind the fact that Austin is vastly more experienced and, um, better, with a lifetime OPS that's over 100 points higher.

And special bonus: HAL will save another $1.2 million over last year's payroll, and likely $10-$20 million over a potential new Romine contract.

So what's not to like?  Well, sure, you're talking about the potential of significantly diminishing the not unimportant position of back-up catcher, and catastrophically diminishing it if the much-injured starter is injured again.

But who cares about that?

Certainly not the people who run the New York Yankees.

Next up?  The planned deconstruction of Miguel Andujar, as Coops once again talks about how HE still has minor-league options!