New York Yankees Ready to Pounce on Two Bats?
Now that the New York Yankees are close to freeing up $13 million over the next two years, they are putting their shopping shoes back on. According to Jon Heyman the New York Yankees are going to look to finalize deals with OF/DH Raul Ibanez and (backup) 3B Eric Chavez once all of the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed on the A.J. Burnett deal. I have not come across any new word on Jorge Soler and how or if this trade impacts the New York Yankees’ willingness or ability to go after him. Honestly, I’m not even certain that the two are necessarily connected. That will be a topic for a different day.
I can understand pursuing Ibanez as one-half of the designated hitter platoon. I still prefer someone younger who could help the Yankees in the future as well as the present, but in terms of the old DH options, I do prefer Ibanez over Johnny Damon. I think Ibanz has more gas in the tank than Damon and I see signs suggesting that the former could be in for a bounce back season in 2012. For starters, Ibanez’ BABIP in 2011 was .268 – well below the .300 mark that represents the league average. Secondly, this bad luck occurred despite Ibanez’s batted ball tendencies (line drives vs. grounders vs. fly balls) remaining mostly constant. It would be one thing if his bad luck coincided with a spike in fly balls or grounders at the expense of line drives, but that is not the case.
Now, as far as Eric Chavez is concerned….I’m not sure what the fixation is. The guy can still pick it at third base. I’ll give him that. He hasn’t shown any signs of life with the lumber since 2007 though – at the earliest. And of course there’s the fact that he’s going to get hurt before the All-Star break. It doesn’t really make much sense to back up Alex Rodriguez with the a guy who is guaranteed to have worse health. It might make more sense to let Eduardo Nunez and/or Brandon Laird handle back-up duty at 3B and then sign Vladimir Guerrero to compete for a share of the DH role.
It appears close to certain that the New York Yankees will make more moves once the A.J. Burnett deal finally goes through the final finalization process. Hopefully they come to their senses on Eric Chavez, but I admit that I am warming up ever so slightly to the idea of them bringing Raul Ibanez on board.
For more discussion on the New York Yankees and their developing DH situation, follow me on twitter@craigmwilliams.
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3 Rants to “New York Yankees Ready to Pounce on Two Bats?”
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Let’s just say I’m glad Burnett is gone, though the prospects are throwaways. And I share the feeling about Chavez, though perhaps they regard Pena and or Nunez as backups for the backup. But I hate the idea of Ibanez. Last year the guy’s OBP was .289. That is absolutely awful. The fact that he hit 20 HRs as well tells me he’s stopped walking because he can no longer hit the fastball without committing himself a shade early. This is common with older players, but it means shorter at bats and it leaves him too over committed to the fastball to handle a decent curve ball. This guy will be HR or KO type of hitter with decent power numbers but a low BA and a very low OBP, in other words a rally killer. A guy like Damon is far more useful offensively, decent power, good speed, better BA and a much better OBP. It is possible that Ibanez is a better fielder than Damon due to Damon’s lack of an arm, but it won’t matter with a DH.
Well, Ibanez has never really been a big walk guy – 8.5 BB% over his career – but his 5.7% mark in 2011 is certainly worth a concern. The thing that I should have mentioned in the post is that I still prefer Russell Branyan to both of them. I really don’t want to have to bother with Johnny Damon. He had a great run in pinstripes, but I just don’t have any desire for a reunion. Part of it is just a stubborn stance that I’ve taken, but even that has been fueled by the nosedive that his slugging percentage has taken the past two seasons.
That’s really tkhinnig at an impressive level