There seems to be some concern that the Yankees have a hole in leftfield. I have not noticed this. Most teams would be happy to have just one poor hitter in the lineup, in this case, Brett Gardner. Frankly, my guess is that Gardner won’t be that bad. He posted a very good OBP in the minors. As he goes through his peak years, I would not be surprised to see him with a .350 OBP, and that’s valuable. The Yankees have a very good rotation and eight other outstanding hitters. It’s not going to kill them to play Brett Gardner every day.
Update: More here.
Totally agree. The guy is a great fielder,with good range with good base stealing skills. As long as we get average production he is fine. Other than Damon signing for 1 year at 7 or 8 million-lets go with Gardner
Wouldn’t it be nice if this were really true? I just find it hard to believe that the Yankees would go into the season with Gardner starting the season in LF. Their worst regular in the past few seasons has been Melky Cabrera so they’d replace him with someone worse? I assume that they are going to either sign Holliday (the best FA OF this season and next as well) or trade for someone like Carlos Lee who is too expensive for his current team.
The Yankees should platoon speedster Brett Gardner in left with newly acquired Hoffman, but the Yanks are looking for depth and a low priced player. I am not sure if the Yankees will get Dye for less than 6 million even though it’s for one year. The Yankees are buying time for the big prize (Carl Crawford) in next year’s free agent market.
The biggest concern is that Dye is not a good OF and left field in Yankee stadium is like playing center field. But was Damon any better?
I really think that the Yankees should look into acquiring David DeJesus from the Royals. Defensively, he is about as good as you can get without getting a gold glove. If he was a Yankee last year, I think he would have been selected.
Offensively, he is a very good hitter that could put up 15-20 homeruns by getting out of KC.
He is signed for 2010 at $4.7 million with a club option of $6 million in 2011 or a $500,000 buyout.
Being a KC fan, I would love to get Gardner back as part of any trade package. I think he would blossom in KC and his speed in CF should make up for the lack of production we would have gotten from DeJesus.
Yankees had an unsettled LF, Chad Curtis, Ricky Ledee, Shane Spencer in 1998. They did pretty well that year.
One weak spot in the lineup is not going to spell doom and gloom.
Gardner can’t hit major-league pitching. Not for average, not for power. He is for all intents and purposes an automatic out. The Yankees can and must and hopefully will do better.