Last season, Granderson led the league in RBIs and runs scored.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't:

"It has now been three seasons since the big three-way trade among the Yankees, Tigers and Diamondbacks in which the Yankees sent rookie Austin Jackson and lefty reliever Phil Coke to Detroit and righthander Ian Kennedy to Arizona to land Granderson, a four-tool All-Star.

Two years later, all three teams maintained it was one of those rare deals where everyone came out a winner. Granderson had a breakout season last year for the Yankees with 41 homers and a league-leading 119 RBI. Kennedy led the National League in wins with 21 and, running away with the AL Central, the Tigers got a 15-9 season out of Max Scherzer, the pitcher they got from Arizona, while Jackson, despite a 44-point drop in average, provided superb center field defense.

But trades are ever-evolving in determining who got the best of them, and Jackson’s emergence as a .300 hitter this year after working to eliminate a hitch in his swing that had accounted for Granderson-like 170 and 189 strikeout totals his first two seasons, has prompted the thinking that, when it’s all said and done, he may prove to be the best player in this deal."

Madden writes another woulda-coulda-shoulda article the day after he says the Yankees shoulda traded for Miguel Cabrera. 

Yesterday, Madden chastised the Yankees for refusing to trade their prospects in an imaginary deal.  Today, he chastises the Yankees for trading their prospects in a real-life deal.

"So this ALDS will be the latest referendum on the big trade. Much as they loved those 43 homers and 106 RBI from Granderson, the Yankees winced at those 195 strikeouts which helped account for a .232 average and .319 on-base percentage (as opposed to Jackson’s .300/.377). They hold a $13 million option for next year, but with that $189 million luxury tax threshold hovering in 2014, it is doubtful they will sign him long-term. More likely, they will try to trade him this winter. If Granderson helps them win it all, they can consider themselves winners in the deal for the short term, even though most scouts will tell you that, already, Jackson is the better player."

1) This "ALDS" [sic] is a lot of things, but it's not a referendum on the big trade.  Nobody cares about the big trade.

2) After Swisher's inevitable exit, I'm curious what the Madden version of the Yankee 2013 outfield looks like.  Gardner, Ichiro, and the guy who's better than Granderson? 

3) $13 million sounds very inexpensive for a guy who hit 40 and drove in 100 for 2 years in a row.

Jackson is a different player than Granderson, but not a better player.  Granderson has some deficiencies, and so does Jackson.  I wouldn't be so dismissive of the guy who plays CF and leads your team in HRs and RBIs.