The NY Yankees may be in on the Kendrys Morales free agent sweepstakes and it comes as the team has suffered a power outage on offense and other clubs like the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers, NY Mets, KC Royals and Boston Red Sox also could be interested and the clock is ticking on his draft compensation with the MLB draft coming soon.
The Yankees have been dealing with a number of big injuries to players, including Carlos Beltran and Mark Teixeira and adding Morales could help mitigate those losses, as Morales can play DH and first base. According to CBS Sports, the Yankees are looking into the idea of signing Morales and while they could lose a draft pick for picking him up, the team can wait until after the MLB draft and that compensation from the Mariners previous qualifying offer will disappear. Another reason the Yankees could use the bat is the struggles of both Brian McCann and Alfonso Soriano along with the other injuries.
The Yankees have been dealing with injuries all over the place, including in the starting rotation with CC Sabathia, Michael; Pineda and Ivan Nova all out and now they are trailing in the AL East. The team is a couple games back of Toronto and while no one is running away with the division yet, the injuries are starting to pile up for the Yankees. According to Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal, the Yankees are interested in signing Morales if Tex has to miss an extended period of time and right now he has missed the past few games and could be out over the weekend as well.
Morales is a big dude and while he is coming back from a couple ankle surgeries after that terrible injury with the Angels, he still has his power. The Yankees need that right now and he is 30 years old and a switch hitter and he could mash in Yankee Stadium. Last season he was very solid with the Mariners, hitting .277 with 23 homers and 80 RBI in 156 games and the team tried to sign him back to a three year deal after the qualifying offer, but no dice. Morales missed over 100 games with that ankle injury and the Yankees may try to wait until June 5 to sign him so that the draft pick compensation goes away, but another team could jump in by then to snag his career numbers of 102 homers, 345 RBI and a .280 average.
