Least Valuable Yankee: Ichiro Suzuki

D'oh

The Yankees traded for Ichiro Suzuki last July and while he only came in to platoon with Andruw Jones he played well enough to get a starting job and was a great pickup for the playoff run. In the off season it began to look like th Yankees would re-sign Ichiro, but we were all a little shocked when it was announced that it was for a two year deal worth $6.5 million per year. Apparently the Phillies had offered Ichiro a similar deal and so the Yankees offered him this in response, Phillies are a terribly run organization that that deal should have sent up enormous red flags, but they ignored those and signed the 38 year old former superstar to a two year deal.
At the time I wrote how Ichiro's new deal was ridiculous and was made even worse by the fact that the Yankees were trying to reign in their spending and so this deal made no sense whatsoever. basically the Yankees were betting $13 million on the magic pinstripes keeping Ichiros revival going for two years so that Ichiro could get 3,000 MLB hits and the Yankees could make lots of money on marketing it. Considering that he just posted his worst offensive season of his career and that he would need to have one of his best to get the 258 hits he needs to get 3000, thee is really no chance he will get there next season.
I wrote before about how Ichiro's popularity leads many to ignore his struggles and they want him to do well so much that they will completely ignore his wRC+ of 71 and say how he hit .305 in July or that his .285 BABIP is way under his .344 career BABIP. The Ichiro of old is not going to show up, he can't beat out grounders like he used to and he can't make contact on everything like he used to because his bat speed isn't there anymore. Ichiro is a 4th outfielder at this point, he has defense and still has some speed so he's a decent 4th outfielder, but that's really it and the Yankees are paying $6.5 million dollars next season for a 4th outfielder.  Unfortunately even Ichiro's defense started to suffer down the stretch for whatever reason, maybe hes hurt, he had better hope that it does not continue to decline as almost all of his value comes out of his defensive WAR and if its not there next season then Ichiro is done as a MLB player. Like CC Sabathia in Chris's piece, Ichiro actually registers a positive WAR but almost all of it comes from his defense and I'd bet that if the Yankees had given Zoilo Almonte 500+ PA like they gave Ichiro, he would have outperformed him but instead the Yankees stuck with the struggling former superstar because he's Ichiro and his struggles along with the $13 million the Yankees are paying him is why he is my choice for Least Valuable Yankee.