Friday, December 18, 2009

Yankees Keep Dealing

After a six year absence Nick Johnson will be back in the pinstripes he came up in. It is a nice pick up for the Yankees who only a few weeks ago were stressing the importance of leaving the DH spot flexible for the likes of A-Rod, Jeter and Teixeira. Personally I always liked Johnson and what he brought to the table. The man is an OBP machine, getting to first at a .402 clip for his career and for a meer $5.5 million this year and a mutual option for the same next season, it's affordable too. Of course, that's when he was on the field.

That has always been the problem with Johnson. The Porcelain Man has missed 450 games since he left the Bronx, including the entire 2007 with a broken leg. There has only been one season where Johnson had more than 600 plate appearances and in his eight year career he has topped 100 games only four times.

Still it is a good pick up for the Yankees. Johnson can slide into the two spot in the lineup behind Derek Jeter where is on base ability is a upgrade over Johnny Damon and on another planet compared to that of Curtis Granderson. Sure he is slow and cumbersome, but really when is he going to have to run. He has almost 70 home runs hitting behind him and that makes for a lot of extra runs.

Johnson has never had a ton of power, though the short porch in Yankee Stadium ought to give him an adequate amount of power, probably somewhere around 20 home runs.

Damon overplayed his hand and Scott Boras has screwed yet another client. Perhaps Johnny should have given Jason Varitek a call before he listened to pompous agent and his ill timed advice.It seems even less likely that Damon comes back to the Bronx now even though his situation looked favorable after Hideki Matsui left town for LA.

Now Nick Johnson will get his at bats. The only thing Yankees fans should worry about now is how long every Yankee game will be. The Bombers will be seeing ball four a lot this year.

2 comments:

Dan said...

He's the kind of guy, that if you already have a loaded team, can be a real compliment. Plus, he's already been in NY. He will not be fazed.

Dennis said...

I thought they didn't want a full-time DH so they could have the flexibility to use A-Rod, Jeter, Swisher, and Posada at DH on different days.