Yankees Sign Mark Teixeira

ESPN’s Buster Olney is reporting that free agent 1B Mark Teixeira is Bronx-bound with an eight-year deal worth $180MM.

If Sportsline’s Danny Knobler was correct when he wrote just a couple of hours ago that that the Nationals and Red Sox were the two teams remaining in the hunt for Teix’s services, the Yankees swooped in at the 11.9th hour with this offer that supposedly includes a full no-trade.

Teixeira will be 29 by the time the new Yankee Stadium officially opens for baseball and he brings with him the deserved reputation as one of the best two-way first basemen in the game. He will take over for the departed Jason Giambi, a guy who can still hit but is far inferior defensively.

In 2008. Teix had a WPA (Win Probability Added) of 5.87 while Giambi was at 1.96, – and this metric doesn’t even account for defense. And despite the fact that Teixeira only played 54 games in the AL in 2008, he still racked up 15 Win Shares compared to Giambi’s 16 in 145 games. The only area where the two are really comparable is their ability to get on base.

But is Mark Teixeira worth $180MM?

For me, it’s yes and no. I can easily argue that no player is worth such a long commitment. It’s very unlikely that the Yankees will get eight-years worth of value out of this deal just because it’s rare for any player to be healthy for so long. But Mark Teixeira is the second best first baseman in the game – and that’s about the worst I can say about the guy. He gets on base, hits for plenty of power, keeps his mouth shut and plays stellar defense and has been doing so pretty much since the moment he stepped onto a big league field in his rookie year.

And it can’t be stated enough that this is the Yankees we’re talking about (Evil Empire! Antichrist! Spawn of Federline and Bonaduce! Get over it, people). What’s worth $10 to you is worth a million to them. And they’ll make a profit off it, too.