Gotta hand it to the Yankees: they really know how to counter a move. The Phillies get Cliff Lee? Bam! New York gets Mark Prior. The Brewers snag Zack Greinke? Bam! New Yorks signs Luis Vizcaino.
OK, that’s not fair. I know those moves aren’t in response to anything and would have happened anyway. I do think their timing is kind of amusing, though, because it makes me imagine an alternative reality in which the Yankees are barely able to stay afloat, live off of scrap-heap signings and bank everything on lighting-in-a-bottle performances. In this mini-fantasy, Brian Cashman transforms from his current self preaching patience about the team’s offseason plans into a 20-year older version of himself, more disheveled, pleading with Yankees fans to have patience because it takes a lot of time to build a winning team.
Yeah, I have lame fantasies.
Anyway, Vizcaino used to be with the Yankees and is late of Cleveland, where he hasn’t pitched in the majors since June 2009. His top end is probably garbage-time middle-reliever, the sort of which rarely if ever get their own posts here at HBT.
But hey, if it gives me an opportunity to imagine the Yankees as a struggling mid-market team in the middle of its third five-year plan in the past decade it’s totally worth it.
