Let’s have a little fun this morning since there isn’t a
Yankees game to get ready for and I’m frankly tired of talking about Masahiro
Tanaka. Let’s talk about making an off the wall trade that will probably never
happen and a trade that I’m not even sure I would be all for to be honest,
let’s talk about another trade for the Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy
Tulowitzki. Many this offseason scoffed at the idea of having Tulo in the
Yankees lineup due to his hip surgery and general health questions but Tulo seems
to be full recovered from the hip injury and may be primed to finally play
shortstop in Yankees pinstripes in the Bronx if the Rockies decide to trade him
in July.
If the Rockies trade Tulowitzki then the team has to go into
full blown rebuild mode, and will have to trade Carlos Gonzalez as well if
healthy, which is where Didi Gregorius comes in. Gregorius has a ton of team
control left for a marginal league minimum salary heading into his arbitration
years. Didi will miss out on Super Two status in 2015 and even with a few break
out seasons will cost the Rockies less in the long haul then Tulo would.
Obviously the Yankees would have to throw more into the deal but as long as
that deal did not include Aaron Judge or Luis Severino then I think the deal could
conceivably get done and get done in the Yankees favor.
What Tulo brings back to the Yankees would be a right handed
power threat to balance out the lineup and really add some dynamic to the team.
If you look at things from 2014 and compare them to 2015 offensively Brian
McCann is still off to a slow start and so is Carlos Beltran. Mark Teixeira is
better but overall the only real addition to the team has been a right handed
hitting Alex Rodriguez. Chase Headley is on the team but his stats aren’t as
good as Yangervis Solarte’s were at the beginning of the 2014 season and
Stephen Drew pretty much pushes Brian Roberts’s production. One man, a soon to
be 40 year old man at that, changed the dynamic of the lineup simply because he
takes his walks, hits for power and can balance out a very left handed lineup.
Adding Tulowitzki to that mix and taking essentially your worst hitter and
turning him into your best hitter can only make this team better.
For those worried about Tulo’s health one must consider the
fact that the Yankees have the DH in the American League and can give him half
days off at least once a week if they so choose. Also the team has a suitable
defense replacement in Brendan Ryan for those times that Joe Girardi feels
compelled to give Tulo a day like he’s been known to do. Tulo’s hip surgery
doesn’t worry me as much as it this offseason either after the shortstop came
out of the gate, albeit in still a small sample size, hitting .297 with a .312
on-base percentage with two home runs and 10 RBI. I’m not dogging on Didi here
and I’m not calling for him to be traded no matter what but if the deal makes
sense then you have to do it. This deal, depending on the other moving pieces,
makes sense for the Yankees even if it still likely won’t happen for New York.
At this point, I say why not? Didi still has room for improvement, but he's probably not going to develop into an all star or anything close. He's just keeping the seat warm for somebody else. And it's not like we're ever going to promote our prospects anyways. Tulo can be our next bad contract and we can watch our prospects flourish elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIt will never happen but you do bring up some good points. We're not going to call up Greg Bird or Tyler Austin or probably Bryan Mitchell once Capuano and Tanaka or back so those three plus Didi makes this team a lot better right now. We all know the long term effects
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