Sometime around the All Star break the Yankees will acquire an outfielder. This outfielder isn't known for hitting for a high batting average, or high slugging percentage, but he does have a career on-base percentage of .355. And best of all he's stolen 96 bases over the previous two seasons. Having that type of baserunning presence in front of Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson should lead to many scoring opportunities.
Things look even better on the defensive side of things. This outfielder not only has a
UZR/150 of 36 for his career, but he's also won the
Fielding Bible award for left field in each of the last two years, beating out Carl Crawford... who won the award in three of the previous four seasons.
"What's a 'Fielding Bible'"?
The catch is the team has to wait for this guy for a month or so. But I don't think that's going to be a problem. The team is currently 5th in runs in the American League, 3rd in team batting average, 2nd in on-base percentage, and 2nd in slugging percentage. The current Yankees also have drawn the 3rd most walks in the AL, and 11th in strikeouts. In fact, outside of hitting with runners in scoring position, which is pretty hard to predict out of a player or team, the one spot the Yankees offense could use a boost in is stolen bases (they've only stolen 32 bases, which ranked 11th in the AL).
As for the Yankees' opponents this month, they have 10 total games against the Braves (6) and White Sox (4), which should be fairly difficult as both teams have scored more and given up less that their respective league's averages. But the rest of the schedule doesn't look all that tough. The Bombers will face the Mets four more times, and the bastard son of New York has a -18 run differential. The Yanks will face off with the Nationals three times, and although Washington has been pitching great, they simply can't hit (220 runs scored, in a league where teams average 247 runs scored). NY will also face off against the Indians 3 times, and although the Tribe is 31-27, they still score less runs and give up more runs than the league average.
He's not the Gold Glover he was in Atlanta, but Jones isn't bad in LF.
Before the All Star break the Yanks will also have to play Tampa Bay and Boston, so yeah... it would be nice to have this outfielder before then. But seeing as how the team is a combined 6-5 against those division teams, I'm not all that worried.
I haven't gotten to my favorite part of this acquisition yet... the Yankees do not have to give up anything for this guy. Cashman doesn't have to deal away prospects such as Manny Banuelos, Mason Williams, or Gary Sanchez. And when I said "anything", that includes money. This guy is not going to cost the team a dime to get. See, this outfielder is already on the team.
"I can see the light at the end of the tunnel"
I know, seeing that Gardy has only played in 9 of the team's 58 games, it's really hard to look forward to them getting him back. Brett's suffered a couple of setbacks on the DL. But I am optimistic that he'll be back with the team around the All Star break, since he was able to play the other day, and went 1-for-3 with a stolen base. If there was a serious issue with his elbow I don't think he would have made it much further than just swinging a bat in BP, let alone swinging a bat in an actual game.
Sure, now the team will get back the test results from Dr. James Andrews tomorrow, and Gardner's elbow will be all screwed up, and Brett will be lost for the rest of the season. And this entire post will look more ridiculous than some fans already think it is.
