The Yankees will not get Johnson this year. The D-Backs, a rebuilding team looking to dump payroll, does not want overpaid veterans on the wrong side of 30. They can easily get much, much better value in a Johnson trade with the Dodgers or Angels, both have Major League ready stud prospects, the Yankees simply have no one AT ALL in their system.
While not having any farm system won't hurt them now, it will start to catch up to them in the future. The Red Sox, Angels, and Dodgers are 3 teams that can support a huge payroll, not Yankees huge but they could probably all go over $100 mil. Factor in the fact that they all have good farm systems and you see trouble for the Yankees. In a few years all three of these teams could easily have a core of 3-4 young star players making league minimum or close to it. That's a nucleus of players making under $5 mil easily. That gives the team's management over $100 million to sign a supporting cast with. Imagine what else the Sox could've done this year if Cabrera, Lowe, and Nixon were all making $500,000 instead of $5 mil+.
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"When I cut my finger, that's a tragedy. When you fall down a manhole and die, that's a comedy." -- Mel Brooks
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