It was over six months ago when I first suggested that the New York Yankees permanently assign Alex Rodriguez to the designated hitter role. There were a couple of roadblocks preventing that transition from happening. Among them was the presence of Jesus Montero and the lack of confidence in his ability to do anything worthwhile with the glove. Now that Jesus Montero is in Seattle, the New York Yankees can get creative with the DH spot. As I discussed back in July, Alex Rodriguez is breaking down before our eyes. A surgically repaired hip and knee have caused him major problems over the past few seasons. It is time for the New York Yankees to preserve the little bit of All-Star caliber offensive production that Alex Rodriguez might have by addressing his declining health.
While I don’t think Rodriguez HAS to move off of third base permanently right away, I would be a much happier Yankees fan if he spent the vast majority (~80%) of his games at DH this season. I said it before and I’ll say it again: the Yankees are paying him waaayyy too much money to have him missing significant chunks of time every year. Also, I don’t give two sh*ts that he would be paid to play “one half” of a game. I think he can still be a problem for opposing pitching staffs, but the Yankees desperately need him to approach the 600 plate appearance mark again.
In order to move A-Rod to the DH role full-time, the Yankees obviously would need a player to replace him at the hot corner. This is where things get interesting and where I’m just going to start throwing out a few names for the sake of discussion. What are the chances that someone like Pedro Alvarez or Gordon Beckham become available? As excited I would be about Alvarez, I don’t really see the Pittsburgh Pirates giving up on their former top prospect this easily. I would be more optimistic about Beckham who, correct me if I’m wrong, could be blocked by Brent Morel at 2B and Dayan Viciedo at 3B in 2012. Those are really just the first two guys that come to my head and not necessarily the two players that I’m hell bent on the Yankees pursuing. Martin Prado is another guy who would seem to present a decent option at 3B as well.
I don’t quite have my stay-at-home GM hat on right now so I’m not going to make a case for any player in particular today. The only point that I feel like emphasizing is that it is time for Alex Rodriguez to transition to a full-time DH role and it is time for the New York Yankees to make the appropriate move(s) between now and the start of the season.
Buy New York Yankees Tickets | Buy New York Yankees Apparel
I disagree with moving Alex full time to DH. I do understand the sentiment, he isn’t paid to play third he’s paid to mash, but I don’t think this is the right time to take away his field duties from him. He should certainly see more time at DH than ever before, but Alex still provides value with his defense at third and I think mentally he’s not ready to move out of the field yet. He needs to be slowly eased into that role over the next 2-3 years in my opinion, slowly taking more and more days in the field away. Also I would like to give this surgery he’s had on his knee and shoulder a years time to see what kind of Alex we are dealing with now. I’m a Lakers fan and have watched every game the Lakers have played this season and Kobe Bryant looks amazing. He seriously looks to have had 3 years taken off of his legs with this surgery, the amount of explosion and lift back in his legs is really unbelievable. If Alex has this same kind of rejuvenation in his knees and his hip is 100% healed he could have a scary season this year, which would be boosted by play in the field. Then next year we can see where we are and revisit how much time he needs to spend at DH.
We are in agreement in one area I believe though and that is that Alex has been written off a little too soon. I don’t think his performance last season was age induced, but was almost fully injury induced. When healthy he is still one of the more scary ABs in the game, I just hope this surgery can give him 500-600 as healthy as possible ABs to prove what he still has left.
You make a good point that Alex might not be mentally prepared for the move yet. Last year, Cashman contacted Posada and told him to prepare for the season as a DH. I think that is very important. I just don’t trust A-Rod to be able to stay on the field as much as the Yankees will need him to if he’s trying to play full-time – even with the treatment. Perhaps the move does happen next year, but the sooner the Yankees can acquire their 3B of the future, the sooner they can kill two birds with one stone and improve the crumbling foundation of their offense.
I think crumbling offense takes things too far. We aren’t nearly as close to a complete offensive collapse as it seems you think we are. The team is still going to hit a ton of HRs this year and I would bet we finish in the top 5 in OBP.
I didn’t mean to make it seem as though I think the offense is on the verge of collapse, but to me it is like a house that is breaking down from the inside out. It won’t show up this year, but certainly by next year we could look at our offense and conclude that we have three consistent threats in the lineup. Jeter and A-Rod will be another year into their decline (we’ll see if A-Rod can even make it through the season healthy), Swisher could and maybe should be gone (I’m not a fan of signing him to a long-term deal after this season), Martin has some pop but he’s not exactly a guy who can carry the offense for stretches. You’re basically down to Cano, Granderson and Teixeira responsible for the heavy lifting.
It may be down some from what we are use too, but I doubt we are in any real danger of falling into the cellar. Most teams would kill for an offense with Granderson, Teixeira, and Cano as the keystones. Plus hopefully our pitching staff will be stronger than it has been in a while as Pineda takes another step forward and Nova solidifies himself as a middle of the rotation arm.
The best option may be trading Granderson. If he can come close to repeating his 2011 it would probably be in our best interests to pick up his 2013 option and then trade him for a big corner outfield bat, then slide Gardner over to CF. I love Granderson but I am against giving someone with his skill set a long term contract at his age.
Well for now we’re okay, but I could see some serious problems arising as early as 2013. As long as the Yankees have some plans to address and fortify the foundation of the offense I’ll be happy. It will be interesting to see what they do with Granderson. I’d rather the Yankees give Granderson a 3-4 year deal than Swisher, but I’m still not a big fan of signing players long-term after they pass 31-32. However, it does seem like players are remaining productive longer into their careers so maybe Granderson could continue to be a very good player through his age-35 season. Who knows? The work is cut out for the Yankees though.
I don’t see Granderson being productive into his mid 30′s, nothing about his offensive or defensive skill set is meant to last that long. He’s a small framed power hitter who relies on bat speed to generate almost all of his power. Bat speed is usually the first thing to start to go, and once that starts to happen with Grandy his bat is going to fall off quickly with his low walk rates and high strike out totals. His defense is also almost completely reliant on his speed. He’s much like Damon in his prime where he made a ton of bad reads on balls but was able to out run those mistakes. Once he can’t do that anymore he is going to be a weak armed left fielder who takes bad routes to balls without the speed to makeup for it. We’ve seen that show before and it wasn’t pretty.
I’d much rather give Swisher a long term deal than Granderson. At least Swisher bases his game around his OBP, having one of the best eyes in baseball isn’t going to go away. No matter the physical skill decline the ability to draw walks almost always stays until a player retires. His power also isn’t completely driven by his bat speed, he’s a big bodied guy who can continue to muscle balls out even once his bat speed starts to regress some.
We’ve had this discussion before, but I think both guys could still be pretty productive through age-35 or so. They won’t be MVP candidates, but I can still envision them being solid weapons in the lineup. Still, that concern is only further evidence that the Yankees need to find some young bats ASAP. Some bats that can start to hit their stride when guys like Granderson, Cano Teix and maybe even Swisher hit a steady decline phase. That decline phase is coming sooner than we’d like and even if they remain productive, they might not be able to carry the offense. The Yankees traded the only youngster they could expect to lean on in the near future.
I just think you put a little too much emphasis on having one guy who can carry the whole offense. With the depth in the lineup the Yankees put out we only ever need 2 or 3 guys hitting at a time to be top offense.
Free agency isn’t going to solve that problem next year though, so if they really want a young position player with that kind of “carry the lineup potential” they are going to have to trade for it.
Perhaps I do, but that’s how the Yankees have been built for the past decade-plus. They have the circular lineup that just wears down and punishes pitching staffs on a nightly basis. With pieces entering and continuing into the decline phase, the lineup is getting shorter and if the Yanks don’t make the right and necessary moves, the offense is going to come back to the pack a decent bit. A lot of people will say that they have plenty of cushion, but I think the AL is too competitive not to make sure every aspect of the team is as strong as possible.
I’ve pretty much dismissed free agency as the way for the Yankees to reload their offense (unless they want to go after Prince Fielder). I think they’re eventually going to need to swing a deal or two and trade some pitching to acquire the type of bat they’ll need.
Yeah but one of the reasons the Yankees have always had to bash everyones brains out is because they have mostly been pitching lightfor years. If Pineda develops like they hope, and Nova remains what he was last year or slightly worse they already have have a good pitching staff. add a Banuelos with a sub 4 ERA, or even better a Hamels and they have one of the best rotations in baseball year in and year out for the next 3-5 years.
I’d love to call up Kevin Towers and try to dump Banuelos and Betances off for Justin Upton, too bad that’s never going to happen.
Yea, they did have some horrendous pitching staffs for some time in the 2000′s.
I would trade anybody in the Yankees farm system for Justin Upton without the blink of an eye.
That cat is special isn’t he. I’d almost be tempted to see if he could play CF, even if he wasn’t all that great his value would double going from RF to CF. I know he isn’t his brother in the field, or even all that close to it, but he seems to have the physical gifts to play the position some degree of success. He maintains he could play CF, Arizona just thinks Chris Young is better at it.
He’s definitely one of the most fun players to watch in the game. I think he’d probably do fine in CF. He’s definitely built more like a RF I don’t think that would be much of a problem at this point in his career.
Looks like they won’t be finding any quality third base replacements in next years free agent class. The cupboard is pretty bare.
Casey Blake (39)
Geoff Blum (39)
Miguel Cairo (39)
Jorge Cantu (31)
Mark DeRosa (38)
Brandon Inge (36) – $6MM club option with a $500K buyout
Maicer Izturis (32)
Chipper Jones (41) – $7MM vesting/club option
Jose Lopez (29)
Placido Polanco (37) – $5.5MM mutual option with a $1MM buyout
Mark Reynolds (29) – $11MM club option with a $500K buyout
Scott Rolen (38)
Ty Wigginton (35) – $4MM club option with a $500K buyout
David Wright (30) – $16MM club option with a $1MM buyout
Kevin Youkilis (34) – $13MM club option with a $1MM buyout
I wouldn’t touch a single one that doesn’t have a club option, and of those that do only David Wright and maybe Reynolds would even be options. Neither of which will have their options declined.
Cashman better be lining up some calls to other GMs around the league then.
A player I always wanted to see as a sort of super utility guy on the Yankees was Ian Stewart. Too bad the cubs traded for him, his power fits in perfect with Yankee Stadium and he played 3B and RF. Someone like him is who we need to target though, not an everyday 3rd baseman in my opinion.
I actually had him included in the post until I remembered that the Rockies already traded him. Maybe we could get through one more season, but by 2013, the Yankees definitely need to be going after a full-time 3B in addition to a replacement for Nick Swisher.
It would be best if Swisher would just accept arbitration and come back on a 1 year deal for next year, though he’s played more than well enough over the past 3 seasons to earn a multiple year deal from someone. There really aren’t a lot of great options for OF on the free agent market next year either.
The best of the bunch are Carlos Quentin (30), Andre Ethier (31),Josh Hamilton (32), Delmon Young (27), Melky Cabrera (28), and B.J. Upton (28).
I wouldn’t give Hamilton any kind of long term deal with his age and past drug abuse, I would rather have Swisher at 32 than Ethier at 31, Delmon Young is the youngest with probably the most upside but has been anything but consistent and hasn’t had but one season that could be considered good all the way through, I want nothing to do with Cabrera, and Quentin is more of a DH to me.
The best option is probably to sign BJ Upton and move Granderson to RF. That would give us the best defensive outfield in baseball, and we’d have over 100 steals a year between CF and LF alone. BJ wouldn’t replace Swisher’s production with the bat, but it would make us younger and maybe KLong could finally get Upton’s full potential to come out.
Yea, free agency just is less and less reliable these days. Upton intrigues me a little bit as an option, but rolling with Swisher could be the best bet. Even at 34-35, there is a good chance that he can still be productive. I don’t want to say B.J. is useless if he doesn’t find his way at the plate, but the Yankees don’t need another guy who gets so much of his value from defense. I know he still has potential, but I don’t think you can knock fans for maintaining hope with Phil Hughes and then support B.J. on the chance that he figures it out with the Yanks.
The difference with Upton and Gardner though is Upton steals 40 plus bases every year and still hits 20 HRs. So even if he stays what he is now he is more valuable offensively than Gardner with the bat because of his power.
The big difference with Hughes and Upton is Hughes has had actually had 4 full seasons I would take at CF over a lot of other options. Hughes has had one full season, that has been way overrated, and never done anything else of note. Not really apples and oranges on that one. Plus Kevin Long has shown he can help a guy with swing mechanics time and time again, while Hughes adding a change up has never been shown to be something he can do.
I agree somewhat with Upton and Gardner. Although, at this point in time, both can be expected to deliver an OPS in the .700s. Upton is in the mid-.700s while Gardner is low .700s but I’m still not hopping on the bandwagon with two feet. I think the fact that Hughes has only made 71 starts as opposed to Upton’s approx. four full seasons is a plus in Hughes’ column in terms of upside left to realize.
Agree to disagree on that one. Even with a slight uptick in batting average, and subsequently OBP, added to his power and speed Upton becomes one of the best center fielders in the game. Hughes will at best become a number 3 three starter with injury concerns, but most likely just a number 4 with injury concerns. Upton is much closer to substantially more value, Hughes is light years away.
Slight uptick? He’s a .257 lifetime hitter (.759 OPS), hasn’t batted above .245 since 2008, hasn’t been above an .800 OPS since 2007 and he strikes out at a 28% clip. I’m not even trying to say that Hughes will be a stud at any point going forward, but I just don’t see Hughes’ and Uptons’ situations being that different – two young, former top prospects who have disappointed this far. Either one has as good of a chance as the other one to take a step forward or continue to come up short.
Exactly. If he goes from .257 to .270 he’s at .270/355 with AVG/OBP, add in his 20 HRs, 40 SBs, and defense and he’s one of the best center fielders in baseball. Hughes will never be one of the best starting pitchers in baseball. The difference between the top of their positions is much much different.
But to take his career average from .257 to .270 is as unlikely as Hughes developing and implementing an average change-up. Again, I’m not trying to suggest that Hughes will develop into anything more than a mid-rotation arm at this point, but the fact that he’s only had one full, uninterrupted season as a starting pitcher makes his case more compelling than Upton who has batted .241, .237 and .243 the past three full seasons (with ~league average BABIPs). My thing is that you can’t play the “IF” game with B.J. Upton and say that he’s all-of-a-sudden going to address the glaring weaknesses in his game while dismissing Hughes and the same small chance that he has to address his shortcomings.
Btw, I realize BA is being scoffed at more and more in the baseball community, but I don’t think it’s a terrible stat to use here because his low BA is largely due to his high K rate which remains sky high. Also, when I cited a 28% K rate earlier, I was dividing his Ks into his ABs. If you divide K’s into PAs instead you get a 24.8% K rate. Still really high, just not 28%.
Adding and successfully using a change up is much much more difficult than say Kevin Long tweaking your hitting mechanics and creating a change i the amount of solid contact you make. We’ve already seen him do it effectively with both Swisher and Granderson in the past 3 seasons, we’ve seen exactly 0 Yankees successfully add a pitch to their repertoire .
Again my point is not that Upton is suddenly going to be able to do this and Phil is not, my point is that it’s a much smaller leap from where BJ is now to the top of the CF ladder than from where Hughes is and the top of the starting pitching ladder. Not to mention the larger point, the original point, that even if neither one ever improves from the point that they are right now Upton is the better player. If Hughes never improves he’s a setup man, or at best a closer. If Upton never improves he’s one of the best defensive center fielders in the games with 20 HR and 40 SB ability every year.
Maybe Long could help Upton make more solid contact. That would definitely help. I need to see some precedent of players in Upton’s mold who have dramatically improved contact rates at 28 or so. I’m not so sure that adding a change-up is any harder or easier than changing your fundamental approach at the plate.
As far as your main point, you do have to say that Upton is the more valuable player at this point based on what we’ve seen. I’m just saying that Hughes deserves another full shot in the starting rotation to close or eliminate the gap.
Hitters make tweaks and mechanical adjustments all the time, pitchers take much longer to add completely new pitches to their repertoire and some never do it. So I would say adjusting your mechanics is much easier, it can be as simple as moving where you hold your hands or where you stand in the batters box.
I’m not so sure any players “deserves” anything, but if there is no one better than him I see no reason why he shouldn’t get that chance if he can’t be traded for something better. Though I don’t think he deserves a spot in the rotation over Freddy Garcia or AJ Burnett if he doesn’t earn it. I’m not for just handing him the spot because he’s the youngest, as so many have suggested.
I’m not disagreeing with you that adding a pitch is extremely difficult, I just think you might be underselling how difficult it may be for Upton to make the type of adjustments that will allow him to raise his career batting average from .257 to .270. That alone is going to be a bitch just because he has so many at-bats under his belt. But I think the adjustments that he needs to make to not be a perennial .240ish hitter are more significant than a mechanical tweak or a slight shifting of his set-up. In his case, it could very well be as difficult as Hughes developing his change-up.
Btw, Hughes has a change-up. I don’t understand why he doesn’t use it. It was only one instance that I have in mind, but he made Mark Teixeira look over matched with it. That isn’t meant to directly contribute to our debate/discussion, but it just occurred to me to mention it.
I think we can use Nunez at 3rd for now to help Alex out. We also have a guy named Laird, whose defense was not rated high but came off a gold glove season at Scranton. These guys may just be bridges to a kid named Bichette.
The problem with Eduardo Nunez and Brandon Laird is that they would profile as part-time players at 3B – especially Nunez who might qualify as a starting shortstop by the skin of his teeth. Maybe, as T.O. Chris has mentioned, the Yankees don’t move Rodriguez off of the hot corner just yet and use those two guys to handle some of the defensive load in 2012. They definitely need to find a long-term 3B though. Bichette Jr. is way too far away to even consider him an option at this point.
Plus we still haven’t determined if he can even stick at 3B yet. Even if Bichette does manage to stay productive with the bat enough to make it to the majors, he still has a lot of work to do on defense. He could very well end up playing RF when all is said and done.
Well, he performed a lot better than expected at 3B this season, but you’re right. Playing a good 3B in the GCL is a mile away from playing that position well in Double-A or sticking there as a big leaguer. And honestly, we shouldn’t even be discussing his future with the Yankees. He’s WAY too far away.
Yeah he’s really move of a hope he does well one day kind of guy, nothing you can even begin to think about to solve problems we have now. We’ll probhably have a completely different team by the time he is ready to be called up, if he ever does get called up. You never know he could end up being the next Eric Duncan, god I hope not, but it could happen.
Exactly. Or he could flame out this year or next and not even reach Eric Duncan-status.
It’d be kind of hard to not reach Duncan status. He had one decent double A season at 22 and that is the extent of what he did in his career. You could argue doing what Bichette did this year at his age is close to the equivilent of what Duncan did. Though you do have to give Duncan the slight edge just for playing in AA.
Either way, the main point is that he’s miles away and not worth getting excited about yet.
First, A-Fraud’s decline is clearly a result of his steroid usage. There’s no way I believe him that he only juiced for the 3 years with Texas, no way. With 6 years (!) left on his supremely stupid contract (screw you Hank Steinbrenner you retard, should’ve let him leave after he opted out like Cashman wanted) for the team to have ANY CHANCE AT ALL of him being productive after the next year or two, he needs to be moved to DH now. He hasn’t played a full season since 2007, to think he will now, 5 years older, is sheer fantasy.
Second, moving Jeter to 3B seems logical to me. (Laird’s OBP was below .300 last year at AA ball, this doesn’t sound like the solution) His problem is range, which isn’t as important at third. He has the arm and the head to make this switch. True the club won’t be getting the kind of power teams usually want from the hot corner, but a .295 hitter who runs well isn’t too shabby. Plus I’d rather have him than any other 3Ber who’s currently available. Also, it’s usually easier to find a decent fielding SS than a productive 3B (unless you’re the Red Sox). In fact alternating Ramiro Pena and Nunez at SS might be an okay way to see which of them can cut it until Culver is ready.
I don’t believe that his decline is clearly a result of steroids. He was caught so what point was there to lie? Perhaps he did to save face with the New York fans, but I have no reason to believe that until and unless there is some sort of proof or confession. I wouldn’t have a big problem moving Jeter to 3B if that is what the Yankees determined was the best option. It will depend on which player they can bring in – most likely via trade. Jeter is going to be in the lineup regardless so it really doesn’t make that much of a difference what position he is at as long as the Yankees fill the new void with a productive hitter. Moving Jeter to 3B and then letting Nunez and Pena man SS is absolutely not the answer though. Pena has no business being anywhere near a batting box.
We do agree about A-Rod. One way or another, the Yankees need to find a way to transition him to DH ASAP. They need to bring in a big bat that can man the left side of the infield first though.
A-Fraud… Hilarious, where did you ever come up with that? It’s so clever and original, totally nothing I’ve ever heard a thousand times before at all. I’m serious that is some funny stuff, you could be the next Tony Danza!!!!!!!
You are absolutely right with your opinion on the 3b/dh situation..Time is critical for Yanks. Start the ball rolling Cashman.