I am not denying Gary Sanchez's popularity and the fans' thirst for a new pinstriped hero ...

It's just way too early to fast track his enshrinement at Cooperstown.

This is Sanchez's career in a nutshell:

• Batted .389 in August 2016
• Batted .225 in September/October 2016

The next Jeter has a whole 1/3rd of a season under his belt. 

Gardner isn't any better.

I think it's only against lefty starters, but:

• Sanchez batting second?
• Gardner leading off instead of Ellsbury?
• Ellsbury batting fifth instead of Gardner? 

Statistics don't support any of this.

Greg Bird wins first base battle against no one.

While Mark Teixeira (fingers crossed!) revives Foul Territory.

Likely story.

I don't think Pineda can blame the language barrier on his cheating.

Also, this is a three-year-old forgotten story.

Chase Headley had one good year.

Stop with the mechanics and confidence nonsense.

Headley had 31 HRs and 115 RBIs one year for San Diego. His career 162-game average? Try 15 HRs and 68 RBIs ... and that includes the 31/115 anomaly.

Cashman was hoping for another Brosius/Swisher bargain basement find and Cashman got burned:

"The Yankees gave the switch-hitting 32-year-old third baseman a four-year, $52 million two seasons ago after acquiring him in a trade with the Padres in July of 2014.

In 2015, Headley committed 23 errors and posted a .693 OPS. In 2016, he got off to a miserable start at the plate, contributing to his team's miserable start in the standings."

25 HRs and 113 RBIs isn't so bad for a third baseman playing at Yankee Stadium and making $13 million.

Oh, wait.

Those stats are for two seasons combined?


"On May 3, Headley's batting average was .147 and the Yankees were 8-16.

'Mechanically, I had a little too much forward movement in my swing and I was a little too pull conscious,' Headley said. 'And when things are going that bad and you have some poor luck, your confidence gets a bit shaken. Because of my past track record, it never got to the point where I was like I'm not going to hit again, it was when am I going to hit again.'

Eventually, he rebounded to hit .268 the rest of the way."

Wow. A whole .268 "the rest of the way."

If Ellsbury hits .268 "the rest of the way," the writers want to run him out of town.

Spring Training doesn't mean anything.

I don't buy it:

"While Spring Training is about preparing for something larger, there occasionally are moments like this one. Afterwards, all the best quotes came from the Detroit clubhouse.

'There's pride involved,' Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. 'You don't want to get no-hit whether it's Spring Training, regular season or Wiffle ball in the backyard.'

Yankees manager Joe Girardi laughed when someone asked if he'd saved the lineup card. For him, a spring no-hitter simply was another brick in a very impressive wall.

At 16-5, the Yankees hold the Majors' best record this spring. They've seen what they had hoped to see from most of their primetime players and the waves of young talent on the way."

Who is going to start in RF for the Yankees?

"Forget five pitchers fighting for two rotation jobs."

No problem. I have forgotten the names of the five pitchers fighting for two rotation jobs. That was easy.


"The right-field competition between Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks has turned into the hottest battle in Yankees camp that may not be decided much before the April 2 opener."

 Exciting.


"Should Hicks, 27, win the job, Judge, 25 next month, isn’t going to stick around as a bench player. That would open a fourth outfielder spot. Even as good as Dustin Fowler has looked in spring training, it’s highly unlikely the 22-year-old who never has played above Double-A would be the choice. Ditto Clint Frazier, who played 30 games at Triple-A last year. Mason Williams, who hasn’t appeared in a spring game because of a strained left patella, could fill the role if he gets healthy enough. He was limited to 43 minor league games and 12 major league tilts last year because of shoulder surgery."

Judge will get his chance soon enough.

I don't quite see the point, maybe he's selling a lot of Spring Training merchandise.

On the other hand, I'm also guessing that Harper never noticed an on-deck circle snafu before simply because Harper wasn't paying attention:

"Maybe it wasn't quite the same as a rookie quarterback nervously lining up under the guard rather than the center to take the snap, but Tim Tebow's lack of baseball experience proved embarrassing before he ever got in the batter's box on Wednesday.

It's not often you see a hitter walk across to the other team's on-deck circle to get ready to hit. Actually, you never see that, not even in high school, where Tebow last played before signing on for this sideshow with the Mets.

It was so unusual that Red Sox pitcher Rick Porcello, warming up at the time, said he assumed it was a bat boy when he noticed someone in a Mets' uniform walking behind the plate to the Red Sox side of the field.

When home plate umpire Ryan Addition noticed, he had to tell the former Heisman Trophy winner to get back to his side of the field.

Afterward Tebow said he thought because he's a lefthanded hitter, he should go to that side. He said Jacob deGrom kidded him, 'I won't tell anybody but I saw it.' "

Alex Rodriguez would be pleased to hear this ...

... after a decade of slagging.


"The New York Yankees are seriously contemplating dropping the $153 Million Man, Jacoby Ellsbury, to the bottom of the batting order this season. Since Ellsbury has been a Yankee, he has nearly always hit in the first three spots of the lineup, despite being barely an average player. It seems as if his seven-year deal could go down as the worst free-agent signing in franchise history."

I believe you answered your own question. If Ellsbury has been average, then he's a lot better than many Yankee free agent signings.

Has Headley been average? Was McCann average? These are players on the 2016 Yankees. Not a huge research project. Just look around the locker room.

In 2016, Ellsbury was the fifth-best player on the whole team according to WAR.


"This season, the Yankees are paying Alex Rodriguez $21 million not to play, per the terms of his final 10-year, $275 million contract. Owner Hal Steinbrenner has shown the team will eat money if there is no better option."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Obviously, owner Hal Steinbrenner has not shown the team will eat money if there is no better option.

If so, the Yankees would have cut ARod years ago.

I can't recall any other example of Steinbrenner eating a major contract ... and he has had plenty of chances.

For example, what was Teixeira even doing on the team last year?



"Ellsbury's time with the Yankees has been downright boring, with few memorable highlights and benchings in pivotal games. He has built no equity with the team."

No doubt.

But I don't recall too many Yankee fans naming their kids after Steve Kemp or Dave Collins.


"Ellsbury’s seven-year, $153 million contract is vying for the worst in Yankees history. Its shear enormousness, an overreaction to the impending loss of Robinson Cano in the winter of 2013, will likely give it the edge over Ed Whitson's, Carl Pavano's and Kei Igawa's in Yankees free-agent infamy. (Not that anyone should feel bad for Ellsbury; who wouldn’t want to be overpaid?)"

No way.

Just account for inflation. That is all you have to do. It isn't a difficult concept.

The aforementioned Steve Kemp was the 4th-highest player in baseball in 1985. His WAR was 0.1 and he was sent to the minors before quickly being traded. Kemp's salary of $1.4 million doesn't sound like a lot 32 years later, but it's the 2017 equivalent of Miguel Cabrera's salary. Cabrera ain't exactly playing in the minors.

Similarly, Ellsbury is the 30th-highest paid player in baseball in 2017. Too much money, without question. Yet Ellsbury is still better than some of the people ahead of him on the list, believe it or not, even if he's merely average.

ARod is 31st for, you know, lots and lots of consulting.


"In his three seasons in the Bronx, he has hit .264 with a .326 on-base percentage -- far below his career totals of .297 and .439 coming into the contract. He has stolen just 80 bases -- 10 more than he stole in a single season, 2009, with the Boston Red Sox. He has hit 32 homers in three seasons as a Yankee, which is the same amount he swatted in 2011 in Boston, the one year that seemed to justify his big-bucks signing. Ellsbury chases balls down in center field, but he throws worse than a New York Jets quarterback.

On top of this, Ellsbury brings no buzz to the team. He is as invisible in the clubhouse as he is on the field. He is not a leader, typically the role of higher-paid players. When things went wrong, Derek Jeter was almost always there to answer the tough questions. It is part of the job for the top crop of Yankees to communicate to the fans. Ellsbury is rarely in the clubhouse, especially when the big-time players are being held accountable."

This is not a strong case at all.

1. "His Yankee totals are below his own career totals."

2. "He has speed on the basepaths and the outfield."

3. "No buzz in the clubhouse." Well, gee.

None of these observations explain how Ellsbury was a worse signing than, say, Pascual Perez, Jose Contreras, that weird pro-rated Roger Clemens nonsense which excited Suzyn Waldman quite a bit, or Mike Witt ... some obvious disasters who Marchand didn't even mention.

If you're worried about sheer size of the contract, then it is still nowhere near the worst when youl take inflation into account and look at ROI.


What Marchand is really doing is trying to figure out who to obsess about since ARod has retired.

We can all look forward to thousands upon thousands of anti-Ellsbury tweets while Marchand ignores similar observations about Brett Gardner and CC Sabathia.

Clint Frazier's Hair

"The matter of Frazier’s hair speaks to a deeper issue for the Yankees and baseball in general.

Frazier, who could be a starter this season, is viewed as being central to the Yankees’ youth movement, and with his hair and provocative personality, he might offer a jolt of enthusiasm largely absent from Yankee Stadium these days.

Attendance, television ratings and the fan following for the Yankees have been in steady decline in recent years, as the team has played only one playoff game since 2012. Magnetic performers like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez have retired.

Across town, the Mets stand in sharp relief: an ascendant World Series contender and increasingly popular on television, the team is built around a dynamic young pitching rotation. The Mets’ two headliners, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom, sport shoulder-length hair that is decidedly un-Yankee-like and both celebrated and mimicked by fans.

The two teams — and their hirsute styling — may stand as proxies for the push and pull that baseball is going through, trying to speed up the game to lure young, attention-starved fans without alienating older, tradition-bound ones.

How to embrace tradition without being a slave to it?"

The only thing that matters is Ws and Ls.

Shoulder-length hair is not why Mets fans celebrate Syndergaard and deGrom.