The Granderson Trade

Today Jon Heyman from Sports illustrated tweeted that Austin Jackson is looking like a future superstar and is better than Granderson, the obvious implication being that the Yankees made a mistake in trading Jackson, Ian Kennedy and Phil Coke for Curtis Granderson(who happens to be turning 30 today). Others agree, including many Yankees fans who believe that the Yankees should have kept Jackson and the other pieces of that trade instead of trading them for a center fielder who in 2010 underperformed to say the least. Phil Coke is going to be starting for the Tigers this year and Ian Kennedy was recently named the opening day starter for Arizona and so Arizona and Detroit both seemed to have benefited from the deal. As all of you likely know Austin Jackson finished second last year in the Rookie of the year voting behind Neftali Feliz and his 40 saves and it would have been very cool to have a 2/3 home grown outfield, i think people are missing a big part of this deal.
Before 2010 Austin Jackson had never played a single game in the Majors and while he was hitting .300 in AAA in 2009 that's the minors and we have no idea if those numbers will be anywhere near what a player hits in the majors, so Austin Jackson was a big question mark for the Tigers and while it was very likely that Jackson would hit nobody knew how he would react to the big stage. Another key factor in this is that Austin Jackson is very similar to Brett Gardner in that he is a contact hitter with almost no power, will be good in the outfield and will steal bases.

Austin Jackson generated a 2.9 WAR rating in 2010 and put up the following stats:

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
2010	23	DET	AL	151	675	618	103	181	34	10	4	41	27	6	47	170	.293	.345	.400

Brett Gardner in his sophomore year had a 4 WAR year in 2010 and put up these stats

If you dont feel like following the link the important ones are a BA of .277 an OBP of .383, 47 Stolen bases and 5 Home runs.

As you can see while Jackson hit better, Gardner had a better on Base percentage and stole more bases and while Jackson did hit for a better average that could be relate to Gardner's drop off after his wrist injury that he never fully recovered from. Also Jackson and Gardner and Granderson generated the EXACT same fielding stats and so the outfield likely would have been just as good defensively as last year. Gardner is also a better base stealer and while they both strike out a lot Gardner generates a lot of walks while Jackson does not and all of Jackson's stats are from leading off while Gardner generated his mostly in the 9th and 2nd spots.
However Jackson was traded for Granderson and Granderson had the worst year of his career last year with a 2.1 WAR and .247 BA, also he hit 24 HR which considering that he hit 30 in detroit last year is disappointing. However Granderson has refined his swing with Kevin Long and the Yankees will need him to hit like he did in the post season because he will be very important to the Yankees in 2011.
Another part of this trade which is often forgotten in Ian Kennedy one of the Big three pitching prospects of the Yankees with Joba and Hughes was traded for Granderson as well and while he went 9-10 he had a 3.80 ERA in 194 innings and had a 2.7 WAR with a whip of 1.2. However Kennedy did give up 26 Home runs and led the league in Wild Pitches. Coke had a negative WAR season with the Yankees in 2009 and while he improved for detroit I don't particularly miss Coke that much. If you look at in based on WAR then the Yankees gave up 2.1+ .6 + 2.9= 5.6 WAR for Curtis Granderson's 2.5 WAR for $4 million dollars more than Detroit and Arizona had to spend.
Hindsight is 20/20 and overall Arizona and Detroit got the better part of the deal than the Yankees, but both Kennedy and Jackson had break out years and quite frankly neither of these players would have likely fit in New York very well and the Yankees like Granderson especially after the tweaks to his swing. Also there have been a lot of players with great rookie seasons who faltered afterward, Jackson is a great player who is going to be a star, but in the MLB superstar outfielders are guys who hit no less than 20+ Home Runs or steal 40+ Bases and Austin Jackson is not going to do either one of those. Ian Kennedy is going to be a great  pitcher who will continue to give up a lot of Home runs, but he is in chase field which is ranked as the 3rd most hitter friendly park in the MLB and he likely would have been better than Javier Vazquez or he could have gotten shelled like he did in 2008. Some people believe that the Yankees lost out on Phil Coke now that he is going to be Starting in detroit, I know he is a lefty but he has only ever started 1 game in AAA and never pitched more than 65 innings in the majors. I don't know if Brian Cashman regrets trading for Granderson but Granderson was an established outfielder, while Jackson was an untested slower Brett Gardner who struck out a lot while Kennedy seemed to have no place with the Yankees in 2010 and he made the decision. Would Yankees fans have been ok with the only home run production in the outfield coming from Nick Swisher? If this trade could be done again I guarantee that the Yankees would not have given as much for Granderson, not because of a lack of production from him but because Jackson would be enough for the deal to happen.