Sunday, December 14, 2014

Quick Hit: Something to be Excited About Regarding Didi Gregorius


I think we all expected the player to replace Derek Jeter to catch a little flak, even if he was Troy Tulowitzki, but the amount of negativity towards Didi Gregorius is mind boggling. First and foremost we posted the BIP locations from Chase Field in Arizona and transferred them to Yankee Stadium and saw over the course of a season Didi could be (in a perfect world of course) a 10-20 home run guy in New York or more. Let's remember the guy is 24 years old, will be 25 in 2015, and has plenty of room to grow into himself. That didn't do any good for fans apparently so here we are defending the signing again.

Let's remember first and foremost that Gregorius was a part time player in Arizona with Chris Owings getting the bulk of the every day at bats. Some players aren't simply made for sitting on the bench five days a week and coming up and getting a hit. This was evident by Gregorius' .204 average coming into the final three plus weeks of the season. Didi started to get more opportunities at the plate and raised his average to the .226 we have all been jumping around about. In his last 10 games Didi hit .342 showing you just how valuable regular playing time can be for a young player.

The Yankees either need to add run prevention or run production to the team, I can't see the team adding both this winter, and Didi does both even marginally. His defense and range is much better than Jeter's while his bat, if managed right, could far exceed Jeter's as well. Blasphemy I know but Didi could be better than Jeter was in his last five to seven seasons besides that monster 2012 season from the Captain. So calm down, Didi will be fine as long as you stay off his back after his first 0-4.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)