Chris's Best and Worst Offseason Acquisitions

This offseason has been very interesting for the New York Yankees, they made a lot of acquisitions like Brian McCann, Masahiro Tanaka, Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury, Kelly Johnson, and Brian Roberts.  This cost the Yankees a lot of dough, but it will definitely make the Yankees a better team and is a better strategy than last year's version of The Replacements.  Many Yankees fans, including myself, are looking into the upcoming season with hope.  Of course everyone has their own opinion on what the Yankees did well, and what made you go "wait, what?", here is my opinion 

Best: McCann

 

What I felt was to be the best acquisition by the Yankees in the offseason was one of their first, Brian McCann.   He is 29 years old, and will be 30 on February 20th, has a career batting average of .277 and On Base Percentage of .350, and has hit over 20 home runs in his last 6 seasons.  Pretty similar number to one Russel Martin.  McCann will be filling the biggest hole in the Yankees lineup of Catcher, which was previously filled by Chris Stewart.  This is a huge improvement over Stewart who batted .211, had an OBP of .336, and hit a whopping 4 home runs last year (a career high for him).  

The New York Yankees signed Brian McCann to a five-year $85 million contract that includes a vesting option for a sixth season that could push the total to $100 million.  In my mind a good deal for the talent that the Yankees acquired.  In the past few years McCann has had some injury issues, but has been able to bounce back quickly, I do not feel it will be an issue in the future.  Another good thing McCann brings to the Yankees is experience, which will be especially useful because the Yankees have young talent behind the plate in Austin Romine who will be able to learn from Brian McCann.

That being said, I hope that Austin Romine does not pick up Brian McCann's personality.  In case you do not remember, McCann was the catcher who BLEW UP on Jose Fernandez after Fernandez hit his first career home run and McCann apparently had a problem with Fernandez for admiring his first home run in the MLB for two seconds.  Another incident last year was after Carlos Gomez hit a home run, Brian McCann blocked him from getting to home plate, causing the benches to clear.  That is not something you want your catcher to do, I remember watching the game at the time and saying he would make a good Red Sox catcher with that personality, A-rod/Varitek fight 2004, but I digress.

Even with this, I still believe that Brian McCann was the best off season acquisition that the Yankees made because he is a good hitter, with decent defense, and was by far the best catcher on the market, and catcher was definitely something the Yankees needed.

Worst: Ellsbury

What I feel was the worst off season acquisition by the New York Yankees this off season was signing Jacoby Ellsbury to a seven-year $153 million contract.  Ellsbury is 30 years old, has a career batting average of .297, an On Base Percentage of .350 and hit 9 home runs last year.  A big part of Ellsbury's game is stealing bases which he stole 52 of last year.  He is also a very good defensive outfielder, so why is he the worst signing by the Yankees if he is such a good player?  Three big reasons, one we don't need him.

The Yankees needed only one outfielder going into this off season, they signed two, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Carlos Beltran.  Beltran is 36 years old, has a career batting average of .283, an OBP of .359, and hit 24 home runs last year.  So why isn't he the worst signing?  For one, we signed him first to a position we needed, and two because we got him a whole lot cheaper, three years $45 million.  The Yankees only needed one outfielder going into the offseason because they already have Alfonso Soriano, Ichiro Suzuki, and Brett Gardner, and that was before they signed Beltran.

The second reason is that Ellsbury is not worth $153 million, he would be if he was coming off his 2011 season where he hit .321, had an OBP of .376, and hit 32 home runs; that is the only season he hit more than 9 home runs by the way, and stole 39 bases.  But Ellsbury is coming off of a season where he his .298, had an OBP of .355, hit 9 home runs, and stole 52 bases, again not bad numbers, but not $153 million dollar numbers either.

Finally, the third reason Ellsbury was the worst signing by the Yankees was that there were so many other things they could have used that $153 million on.  For example, signing a third baseman, someone better than Kelly Johnson or Brendan Ryan perhaps or we could have used it to keep Robinson Cano, or a relief pitcher. The point is the money could have been used for things the Yankees actually need and Ellsbury is not something the Yankees needed.