Matsui needs to be let go

I just glanced over at my on-going poll and I was disappointed to see the vote so close. This was a no-brainer for me. The Yankees have to let Hideki Matsui go to free up the DH spot for this aging team.

The Yankees were lucky to avoid major injuries to their core offensive players last year. Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Matsui are all 35 years old, Alex Rodriguez is 34 and Jorge Posada is 38. That’s a lot of offense riding on a lot of middle-aged players.

If Damon is re-signed, the Yankees will definitely need the DH spot free to rotate some of their older players to keep everybody fresh. To Joe Girardi’s credit, he rotated players around nicely while keeping the lineup order fairly consistent.

The Yankees will miss Matsui’s bat if they stay quiet this offseason, but I don’t think they will be. Also, I really don’t trust his knees for another year. He was lucky to hobble around the bases without going on the DL all year long.

Also, Buster Olney tweeted (h/t RAB) that the Yankees won’t care about Matsui’s marketability factor. So that hurts his chances of staying.