While the focus has understandably been on Robinson Cano and his reported contract demands, the Yankees have another key impending free agent in Curtis Granderson.
Granderson is hitting the open market at a bad time, coming off an injury wrecked season at age 32, but his track record still puts him in line for a big contract and the outfielder talked to Brendan Prunty of the Newark Star Ledger about shopping around:
You get an opportunity to see if there’s other interest out there. You get a chance to finally make a decision for the first time in your professional career, where you might want to go play. You get to take your time and decide certain things.
As for his odds of re-signing with the Yankees ...
I’m not the one writing the checks here, so I can’t answer that. Talk to those people up there that do that. It’s something I’m looking forward to. It’s my first time to be able to do it. So we’ll see how it all plays out. I’ve enjoyed my time here. In four seasons, it’s been great. The organization, from top to bottom, has been good to me. I’ve enjoyed the city, everything about it. At the same time, it’s definitely a business. And we’ll see how it all ends up shaking out.
To me that sounds like he doesn’t expect the Yankees to make a huge effort to keep him, but that’s admittedly reading between lines that may not actually exist. New York continuing to limit payroll (relatively speaking, of course) could make for some very tough decisions.