And people think I’m hard on players. Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York recently wrote a complete evisceration of Yankee outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, describing him as being “on pace to become one of the worst free-agent signings in New York Yankees history.” Marchand said that the center fielder “still has plenty of time to change the narrative,” but also commented: “as Yogi supposedly once said, ‘It gets late early around here.'”
Marchand notes that given Ells’ seven-year, $153 million contract, he “needs to be a reason the Yankees win games, not be unhelpful like he was” during Friday’s loss, when he lost a fly ball that helped the Tigers score two runs. And the Yankee writer notes that Ellsbury’s numbers as a Yankee have been pretty pedestrian, with a .265 BA and a .710 OPS.
Marchand also writes this:
It is not Ellsbury’s fault that his agent, Scott Boras, masterly used the Robinson Cano situation to entice the Yankees into giving Ellsbury an exorbitant, $153 million contract in the winter of 2013. But more and more it is looking like a really bad deal for the Yankees.
The thinking was that the Yankees would get their money’s worth during the first few years of the contract, which raises the question: If not now, then when?
Okay, first of all, Ellsbury got his deal before Cano left town. It was one of the more ridiculous things about the Yankees lowballing Cano — that their $170M *best* offer to their own homegrown superstar wasn’t much more than they gave Ellsbury.
Second, some of us, (cough, cough, like me!) were against this deal from the beginning. I called it the “baseball equivalent of a payday loan” and pointed out that even in his best year, Jacoby still missed 30 games due to injury. I also noted that most of his value was due to speed, something that would slow as he aged.
Third, another reason this deal made no sense was that Ellsbury is basically the same player as Brett Gardner.
Fourth, Ellsbury has been a disappointment in his first two seasons (well, not to me, because I was against this signing from the beginning, so he couldn’t have disappointed me!) but at least he was mostly on the field. Which is more than anybody can say about Carl Pavano, who is winner and still champion of the world Yankee free-agent signing in history. And Ellsbury would have to do a lot more horrible things to knock Pavano off that throne, so to speak! Heck, he’s not even as awful as Kei Igawa, who is the second-worst signing in modern Yankee history.
And finally, I do have to laugh over some of the Brian (Fredo) Cashman apologists in the ESPN thread. They refuse to pin any responsibility on him over the Ellsbury signing, suggesting that Scott Boras must have gone over his head to get the deal done. Is Cashman ever responsible for ANYTHING with these folks? Yes, the trade offer that he supposedly turned down to trade Derek Jeter to Montreal for Pedro Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero. You know, the one that only could have happened when he was an assistant GM. So Cashman was wheeling and dealing and making those sort of decisions when he was only an assistant GM, but he had no responsibility for signing Ellsbury as GM. Sure, that makes perfect sense!
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