With the New York Yankees outfield getting more and more crowded after a busy offseason, rumors of the team trading Brett Gardner have intensified, but team president Randy Levine said that the team has no intentions of parting ways with the outfielder.
The Yankees brought in Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran in the offseason leading to the expectation that Gardner may be moved, but amongst the speculation that the team turned down a trade offer from the Cincinnati Reds that would have brought second baseman Brandon Phillips to the Bronx in exchange for Gardner, Levine told ESPN Radio that he fully expected Gardner to be on the Opening Day roster.
"We think he's going to be on the roster," Levine told ESPN. "One of the reasons the baseball people signed Jacoby Ellsbury is the two of them together present a tremendous dynamic one-two or nine-one, whatever Joe Girardi decides to write in at the top of the lineup.:
He added: "One will play left, one will play center, and it's a tremendous defensive situation. So no there's absolutely no intention to move Brett Gardner. We get inquiries about every single one of our players all the time, [GM Brian Cashman] listens, but there's no attempt here to trade or move Brett Gardner."
Levine also said he plans to have Alex Rodriguez on the roster as he is still awaiting the results from his appeal process for his unprecedented 211-game suspension for his alleged connection to the Biogenesis clinic and Anthony Bosch.
"From our planning purposes, we have Alex Rodriguez in our budget as is if he will be playing," Levine said via ESPN. "And that's the way it will be until there's a change of circumstance. As we sit here today there is no change of circumstance as of yet."
Levine said he fully expects Rodriguez to be at the hot corner in April.
"We're planning to have Alex Rodriguez play third base from a financial point of view, but we always have contingencies," he told ESPN. "Our presumption is that he's going to be here for the Yankees playing third base until we hear anything else. His money is in the budget."
The Yankees have been aiming to stay under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold for the season and have already invested $299 million in their offseason moves that included the singings of Ellsbury, Beltran and Brian McCann and the re-signing of Hiroki Kuroda, while they allowed second baseman Robinson Cano to go to Seattle on a 10-year $240 million contract.
"We have a shot right now to stay under 189," Levine said per ESPN. "I think that Hal [Steinbrenner] has said all along, I have said, that 189 is a goal, not a mandate. It has to be consistent with fielding what we believe is a championship team."
The Yankees may still do more to alter their roster before Opening Day in April, but it seems as though Gardner is in their plans for 2014.
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