Saturday, January 7, 2012

If Arod is not Arod, and Jesus is not Jesus, who hits for us from the right side?

Yesterday, something John Manuel said in his Baseball America chitchat about the Yankee kiddie corps stung me to the wick of my grok: "The Yankees' lineup really has no reliable RH power aside from A-Rod."

Oy. 

He's right.

With or without Minka on his side, Jeet won't hit 20 HRs. Swish? Maybe 10 from the right side. Russell Martin? Nope. Teixeira? Crap shot, considering his overswinging ways. We lost Jorge Posada (for better or worse) and, holy crap, 10 seconds into the deliberative process, we're down to Jesus Montero, Anduw Jones and Eduardo Nunez.

Now, a couple things: We DO have Arod, for now, and Jesus can hit, we think. No sense running to sign Vlad Guererro or Smokey Burgess. But Arod is wearing Drew Carey glasses, and Jesus' big numbers are Scranton-made. What if Arod plays in 90 games, and Jesus is the Second Coming of Ruben... as in Rivera?

Listen: Brian Cashman knows what he's doing. We must have faith in the front office - unless its budget is being squeezed by the Steinbrothers, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. But right now, I cannot imagine us trading Jesus Montero - even for the big fish - considering what it might mean to our batting order. And when the big lefty goes against the Yankees - when Arod's knee is barking - here is our lineup.

Jeet
Swish
Tex
Robbie (L)
Jones
Grandy (L)
Jesus
Eduardo
Martin

Good hitters top to bottom. But against a lefty, not exactly a crushing middle of the order, am I right?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

At least we're not the Mets, who have no reliable power on either side.

Joe De Pastry said...

We're not the Mets!
Wow, that makes me feel better.