Yankees Would Make Big Mistake Swapping Top Prospect Jesus Montero for Cliff Lee

The Yankees have the best record in the majors and are favored to win the World Series for a second straight season.

But as usual, they want more.

General manager Brian Cashman has reportedly offered top prospect Jesus Montero, a catcher fitted to replace aging Jorge Posada for years to come, to the Mariners for pitcher Cliff Lee. Cashman previously vowed that he would stop trading away top prospects for big names. The Yanks haven’t done too bad with homegrown talent, after all, with recent returns coming in the form of starter Phil Hughes (10-2, 3.83 ERA), outfielder Brett Gardner (.308 average, 29 RBIs, 25 stolen bases) and fill-in catcher Francisco Cervelli (.270 average, six homers, 30 RBIs in 58 games).

Plus, there’s the bad taste Cashman still has in his mouth from the Javier Vazquez trade, in which the GM sent stud arms Arodyz Vizcaino and Mike Dunn to the Braves for the starter.

Advantage: Atlanta. Vizcaino is 9-3 with a 2.71 ERA and 77 strikeouts to 12 walks in Single-A, while Mike Dunn is an almost unhittable reliever, putting up a 1.08 ERA and 12 saves, along with 55 strikeouts in 41 2/3 innings in Triple-A ball. Vazquez, meanwhile, is the Yankees’ weakest starter with a 7-7 record and a 4.81 ERA in 88 innings pitched this year.

Apparently, though, he hasn’t learned.

No one can argue that Cliff Lee isn’t dominant. He won the AL Cy Young in 2008 and has put up incredible numbers in Seattle this year, sitting at 8-3 with a 2.34 ERA with five complete games, 89 strikeouts and only six walks. He is once again putting himself in discussions for the Cy Young, and he nearly guarantees a win for the struggling Mariners every fifth day. He would be a great asset to any team, the Yankees included.

But at what price would Lee come? At the very least, Seattle pries away the Yankees’ best prospect and Baseball America’s No. 3 prospect overall. No, Montero isn’t setting Triple-A aflame, but he is throwing out base thieves at a 22 percent clip — higher than Cervelli’s 14 percent or Posada’s 19 percent — and has six homers and 35 RBIs in starting nearly every game for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees. He is and has been the heir apparent to Posada, who is nearly 40 years old and hasn’t caught more than 140 games in the past three seasons. The longtime New York backstop has already missed 28 games this season.

Sending Montero away also anoints Cervelli the catcher of the future, and likely a key contributor in the Yankees’ run to the World Series in 2010 given Posada’s shaky health. Cervelli certainly isn’t a terrible option, having shown occasional flashes at the plate, but he isn’t exactly the greatest, either.

And all of this is for a No. 4 starter in the Yankees’ already great rotation. Granted, Lee would have a better ERA than any of the Yanks’ current starters, so adding him may even push A.J. Burnett (who is making $16.5 million this summer) to the No. 5 slot. So swap Vazquez for Lee and allow the team with the second-best ERA in the AL, as well as the second-most runs scored, to mortgage the future to get better in a category in which they already dominate. New York gets the ace for the rest of this year, but then Lee likely scampers off to another club (the last year of his contract is an $8 million club option, which vanishes if he is traded).

There’s a saying, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it." A quick glance at the standings or league-wide statistics all show the Yankees at the top.

So why, then, are they trying to break a winning product?