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.

Breaking down the MVP Race

Could he be the 2011 AL MVP?

If you watched last nights game then you heard Michael Kay spending a lot of time talking about Curtis Granderson and the MVP race. I don't think that he's correct in saying that if he gets his BA to .290 then he will definitely win in, but Granderson is definitely a top MVP candidate. The Five candidates for MVP are Jose Bautisa, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez and Curtis Granderson. Honestly every stat screams that Bautisa should win the MVP but for some reason the fact that he is on a non contending team, even though they are above .500 prevents people from voting for him, that is why A-Rod didn't win the 2002 MVP award and it could be why Joey Bats doesn't get an MVP trophy for his mantle.
Joey Bats has a 7.6 WAR and while he likely won't have another 50 HR season he is more than likely to get 40 HR this season and if starts hitting like he did in the first half he may still win the batting title. His numbers would actually be even better if their was anyone else in the Toronto lineup that scared opposing pitchers, which speaks to his 120 walks in 113 games. If Toronto had a better lineup then he would probably have a shot at the triple crown but its doubtful he will even get 100 RBI this year. Its really unfair that Bautisa is not running away with the MVP award  because he deserves it. Its very frustrating for Blue Jays Fans as some over a Blue Bird Banter wrote about. Its funny too because The Blue Jays have the capacity to turn into a true sustainable power house team, because don't forget Toronto is a big city with an ownership group with deep pockets. Mike Axis from River Ave Blues wrote more about the Blue Jays here.
I'm just going to lump Pedroia, Ellsbury and Gonzalez together because they are all the reason why they might not win the MVP. Pedria ranks #2 in WAR this year and according to ESPN talking heads he is the greatest player ever because he plays with his heart on his sleeve and has cured cancer with his smile. Honestly seeing how much the ESPN and FOX people fawn over him is disgusting, if you remember from the Yankees Red Sox series they would not shut up about how great Pedroia even after he got caught stealing. Pedroia is having a great year and despite Cano deserving it more he will probably win the 2nd Base Silver slugger. Pedroia's case is hurt by the fact that Jacoby Ellsbury is hitting the ball well, playing good defense and showing some uncharacteristic pop. Adrian Gonzalez is the guy that everybody thought would win the MVP and while he looks like he is going to win the batting title he has only hit two Home Runs since June 25th and both of those were in July, I mean this guy hit 40 HR in 2009 at Petco park, where is the power?  These three guys could draw MVP votes away from each other and make it that none of them win.
Curtis Granderson is the Yankees MVP Candidate and he is having a career year and is proving all those people who felt that the Yankees should have kept Austin Jackson dead wrong. He leads baseball in Runs Scored and tied with Ryan Howard for RBI's. He also has a good shot of going 40-40 and his average is creeping up and .300 is within reach. What is really weird is that he was intentionally walked 3 times last year and hasn't been intentionally walked once this year. Honestly the only thing that is not fantastic about his year is that he has grounded into 11 Double plays which while not a large amount is as many as he had the previous 3 years. He is really heating up to because after hitting .250 in July and June he has hit .369 in august and .359 over the last 28 days.

Right now Bautisa deserves the MVP but Pedroia would probably win his second undeserved MVP award if the voting happened today. however it should be noted that Pedroia, Gonzalez and Ellsbury have all been hitting .250 or lower the last week or two and while that's a small sample size Granderson and Bautisa have been hitting the cover off the ball the last two weeks with Granderson hitting 6 HR and batting .375 over his last 11 games. The MVP voting might see a very close winner with these five splitting the most MVP votes and possibly Zobrist and Miguel Cabrera stealing some top votes. We also still have a lot of baseball left to play.