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November 1st 2017
As the postseason got underway I was to meet with Hank Steinbrenner to discuss our second consecutive season that ultimately fell short.
Hank cut to the chase and made it clear that 2018 really was my last chance, reminding me that my contract was up at the end of the year. Failure to appear in the postseason again would mean that he wouldn't even consider extending my stay in New York.
With that mandate in mind, I decided that I wouldn't rest, even to watch the postseason action. It was time to deal with some contract issues.
First up, the pitching staff, it's clear that run prevention has been our major issue, but upon further stat analysis it also became clear that the pitchers couldn't be held entirely responsible. For the last two years our defensive efficiency has ranked 14th in the AL. That's just not good enough and with that support, or lack of, it's no wonder that even quality pitchers like Brett Anderson and Chris Sale have struggled.
With that in mind, I decided that my free agency and trading policy would be about improving our defence, even if that means sacrificing a few home runs (hopefully I can get defensive studs that can hit for the best of both worlds!).
I also decided that my pitchers decided another chance and set about extending Josh Johnson, Max Scherzer and Trevor Cahill.
First to sign was Johnson, he'll get $52m over the next 4 years. Next up Trevor Cahill who'll collect $9m per for the next two years. Scherzer proved the cheapest of the 3 at $14.1m over 3 years.
Also getting in on the extension action was reliever Sean Burnett who got $2.3m over 2 years.
There were also a couple of offensive players I needed to discuss terms with. C Jason Castro wanted $15m per for 4 years, after some back and forth he settled for $30m over 3.
Matt Snyder was a player I didn't have to speak to yet but he was headed for arbitration with a big estimate I wasn't happy with. The impact of his bat has been immense but at the end of the day he is just DH'ing, he has fielded about 15 innings over the last two years and thats 15 too many for his skill level. He asked for $100m over 7 years and it took a lot of bargaining to get him to agree to $60m over 6. The key is the first two years are at $6m and $7m before steep step ups in year 3 on. This keeps his salary well below his arbitration estimate the next two years and will give me an opportunity to deal him if I don't think he's gonna earn the salary he'll be on 3/4 years from now.
Despite me working away, the postseason was going ahead and here are the results:
Wild Cards
AL: Oakland beats Seattle
NL: Arizona beats Atlanta
Divisional Series
AL: Houston beats Oakland 3-2; Detroit beats Tampa 3-1
NL: Arizona sweeps LA 3-0; Cincinnati sweeps Miami 3-0
League Championship Series
AL: Houston beats Detroit 4-3
NL: Arizona beats Cincinnati 4-2
World Series
Arizona beats Houston 4-1 to take the second championship in franchise history.
The final action of this month saw me execute the team option on Chris Sale's contract at $13m for the next season.
Also the brain trust at Cooperstown decided there was only one worthy candidate for HoF induction this year, Vladimir Guerrero takes his place with the great and good of the game.
Coming up next month, arbitration and a couple of big personnel decisions.
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