Ex-Red Sox Jacoby Ellsbury Joins the Yankees

Jacoby Ellsbury is staying in the AL East, but not as a member of the world champion Boston Red Sox. Instead he is heading to the Bronx and the Red Sox arch rivals, the New York Yankees.

Ellsbury reached an agreement with the Yankees on a seven year $153 million, with an option for an eighth year that would increase the value of the deal to $169 million. Ellsbury was thought to be a long shot for the Yankees -- in fact he wasn't even discussed among baseball beat writers as the off-season shopping spree began as even a possible target for the Bronx Bombers.

Ellsbury was thought to be commanding too steep of a price for even the Yankees, but, New York in desperate need of an outfield bat signed the top outfield free agent on the market.

Perhaps the Yankees have some inside info regarding the future of their third baseman Alex Rodriguez, otherwise deals like this and the one for Brian McCann probably wouldn't be possible.

Also, there are reports that the Seattle Mariners are willing to pay second baseman Robinson Cano $200 million, which is a lot more then what the Yankees were willing to spend on him -- leading the Yankees to become a bit pessimistic about bringing Cano back.

Signing Ellsbury is risky. He has a history of injuries, and is pretty much the same player as Brett Gardner, just with a higher profile. Ellsbury only once in his career displayed power when he hit 32 homeruns in 2011, but hasn't produced anything close to that since; makes one wonder if Ellsbury was a steroid guy.

But, he's here, and his is certainly better than the Yankees outfield which features Gardner, and aging Ichiro Suzuki. Automatically he will replace Curtis Granderson, who is a free agent that might end up staying in New York, but with the Mets if he decides to sign there.

A career .297 hitter with 241 stolen bases, Ellsbury will fit nicely into the leadoff spot for the Yankee, allowing Gardner, or even Derek Jeter (if he ever comes back healthy) to bat second.

The Yankees still have a lot of holes to fill though -- they are not a perfect team -- but the moves by the Yankees front office are an encouraging sign, especially after the team said it would try to trim payroll down to and below $189 million in 2014.

As for the Mets -- well --- until they show any signs of life and sign a Curtis Granderson, they have Chris Young and his .233 batting average. Nice to see the Mets using all that financial flexibility, eh?