The NY Yankees have had a very tough season and now they likely will miss the playoffs and that means Derek Jeter will be retiring without a final postseason appearance and the Yanks will have to replace him at shortstop and some names that could do it include Hanley Ramirez, JJ Hardy, Jose Reyes, Starlin Castro, Stephen Drew, Alex Rodriguez or Troy Tulowitzki.
Here is a look from way earlier in the season about options for replacing Derek Jeter. The NY Yankees have Derek Jeter for one more season and now the search begins for who will replace him at shortstop and names that have come up include Hanley Ramirez, JJ Hardy, Jose Reyes, Starlin Castro, Stephen Drew, Alex Rodriguez as well as trade options for Troy Tulowitzki or Elvis Andrus.
There's time before Yankees will have to figure out what to do as a replacement for Jeter and while it will be impossible to fully replace the player he was, the team will have options to bring in a quality star at the position. All of the players are rumors are pure speculation, but the Denver Post and NY Daily News writes that Troy Tulowitzki will be a prime target for the team and SI.com writer Tom Verducci was quoted on the radio that he is a player the Yankees would covet come the 2015 season when Jeter is retired.
Jeter made news last week after announcing through his Facebook page that he would be hanging up his cleats and it comes after he played in just 17 games last season while coming back from a broken ankle and other injuries. The team has Brendan Ryan on the roster now and while he is solid defensively, he is not the player to truly take over for Jeter at the position and he comes in with a flashy glove and basically no offense. While no one really would want to see this happen, the Yankees could conceivably put Alex Rodriguez at the position and in another life if he was maybe another person this could work, but after all that happened between Rodriguez and the Yankees and on top of that between A-Rod and Jeter and his reputation, that is not how the Yankees want to replace Jeter.
Eduardo Nunez was an option before for the Yankees, but he wasn't a long-term solution and his fielding skills were the main reason why. Other options for the team includes players like Tulo, Andrus, Jed Lowrie, Asdrubal Cabrera or J.J. Hardy depending on how Brian Cashman wants to handle things. The team likely does not have the prospects or the trade chips to make a big deal, as all they have are Brett Gardner and Gary Sanchez and that isn't much to work with.
Andrus has been shopped over the past offseason and come next year that could be an option with the Texas Rangers, while Tulowitzki was mentioned by Verducci as the main trade target that the Yankees could look into. Verducci mentioned the $118 million that Tulo is owed after this season and he has a long contract and if the Rockies don't turn things around soon, that is a big contract to hold on to and that could be how the Yankees pry him away from the National League, as he is considered one of the best young SS in the league. Ramirez is another interesting option since the Dodgers have so much money going into a small amount of players over the next few seasons, but he has been injured over the past couple years and only played in over 100 games once since 2011 and that was after averaging 152 games in his first years with the Marlins.
