You guys know me by now, I love to rant and rave about my favorite baseball team the New York Yankees. I truly think I would be an asset to the front office and I believe I do a decent job in player evaluations for someone with two kids, a wife, two jobs and a blog (i.e. a guy too busy to read as many scouting reports or see as many games as I'd like to). The fact that the New York Yankees are interested in second baseman Chase Utley makes me not only question my own intelligence, because honestly I don't see why they would be, but it also makes me question my fandom because it continues to block my favorite prospect Robert Refsnyder.
Utley has been on the disabled list with an ankle injury that will likely keep him from reaching 500 plate appearances in 2015. That milestone is important because there is a vesting option written into Utley's contract for the 2016 season based on plate appearances. With Utley not reaching the milestone he is essentially a month and a half rental for any team that acquires him, why would New York though?
Eventually this little mini hot streak for Brendan Ryan and Stephen Drew is going to subside and they are going to come back down to Earth, why would you throw a monkey wrench into the middle of that during the hot streak for both players? Also this team is built on versatility and defensive consistency, neither of which Utley is at this point in his career.
Where is Jose Pirela? Where is Refsnyder? Could either of them do better then this stat line for Utley? In a word.... likely.
Year | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | 65 | 249 | 218 | 18 | 39 | 7 | 4 | 25 | 3 | 21 | 32 | .179 | .257 | .275 | .532 | 48 |