In the middle of the week, the New York Jets hired (apparent castoff) Adam Gase as their newest head coach. The reaction I saw on Twitter and heard on the radio was universally negative. I’ve been mostly unplugged from football this year, but if my brief exposure is any indicator of the truth, this is a terrible hire by the Jets.
As a New York sports fan, I should be used to it, but the totality of the (often) extreme pessimism towards Gase and his hire bordered on shocking. Despite my negative reaction to this negativity, I found myself in a similar place when the Yankees signed DJ LeMahieu on Friday afternoon.
The gut reaction was somewhere between befuddlement and anger as the move most likely ends the Yankees’ pursuit of Manny Machado, a far superior player who would improve the Yankees. In a vacuum, LeMahieu does the same thing; he’s a better option in the infield than Tyler Wade or the recently departed Ronald Torreyes or Hanser Alberto. He just doesn’t improve the Yankees as much as Machado would and it’s frustrating to see the Yankees pass on a player over money when they have so much. Along with that gut reaction, though, there are baseball reasons not to like this signing.
Despite playing the majority of his career for the Rockies–thus having his home games in Coors Field–LeMahieu is a below average offensive player. His career wRC+ is 90 and he has a lowly ISO of just .108. More surprising is the relative lack of production at Coors Field. Aside from the year he won the batting title–2016–he has failed to put up a wRC+ greater than 90 AT HOME. 2016 is also the only year in which his overall offensive production was better than league average. Pardon the snark, but I guess any time you have the chance to sign a guy who can’t be a league average hitter in the league’s best hitting environment, you’ve gotta do it.
To cut myself short and avoid sounding like one of those Jets fans, there are reasons to like the move. Bobby covered some of them yesterday in his post. Regardless of my reactions, though, he’s here and now we’ve got to see how he’ll fit into the lineup.
LeMahieu is a second baseman. He’s played nothing but since he played about 40 or so innings between first base, third base, and shortstop in 2014. And there’s the rub of fitting him into the lineup. With Troy Tulowitzki on board and shortstop while Didi Gregorius is out and Gleyber Torres at second, things become crowded in the Yankee infield rather quickly. A possible solution is one I’ve floated in the event that the Yankees did indeed sign Machado: move Miguel Andujar to first base. If that were the case, the lineup could look like this:
- Aaron Hicks CF
- Aaron Judge RF
- Giancarlo Stanton DH
- Gary Sanchez C
- Miguel Andujar 1B
- Gleyber Torres 3B
- Brett Gardner LF
- Troy Tulowitzki SS
- DJ LeMahieu 2B
This is definitely a workable lineup, but it does move two players out of position in Andujar and LeMahieu. It also cuts down the fact that LeMahieu is, by all accounts, a great defender at second. But is it a likely scenario? For it to be, we’ve got to believe that Tulo will be healthy and I’m not taking that bet; are you? Should he continue to be injured–or be ineffective and get cut in Spring Training–the lineup looks a little more “conventional”:
- Aaron Hicks CF
- Aaron Judge RF
- Giancarlo Stanton DH
- Gary Sanchez C
- Luke Voit 1B
- Miguel Andujar 3B
- Gleyber Torres SS
- Brett Gardner LF
- DJ LeMahieu 2B
Signing LeMahieu probably signals that the Yankees aren’t terribly confident in Tulo staying healthy or being good and we’ll cross the Didi bridge when we get there. There are pluses to signing him, but his being successful requires the Yankees to–like they were with Luke Voit–be successful in judging that a player’s batted ball profile will adjust him well to Yankee Stadium. It helps that this player is a great defender at an up-the-middle position, but that position is already taken and, as previously mentioned, he hasn’t played another one in a while. Might it have made more sense to give this deal to Jed Lowrie, especially when he got a less expensive one from the Mets? Probably. But that’s not how it worked out and we (I) have got to live with it.