What if the Yankees had kept Ji-Man Choi?

Some Yankee fan blogs are already outlining moves for 2021: God bless 'em. I just can't go there yet. I'm still dealing with 2020.

On that note, I propose that - despite all our lingering bile and hateful rage - direct our juju emissions toward Tampa, against the Astros. First, there is the AL East thing, which Rudy Giuliani claimed in 2004, when he rooted for Boston in the series. I didn't buy it then, I don't, now. 

But I do believe the quickest way to gut the Rays is by having them win a world championship. Suddenly, they'll face expectations that the Yankees face every season. Their players will demand to be paid. They won't be able to trade everybody before they reach arbitration. One reason Tampa has been so successful in recent years is that they never won a ring. Thus, they could deal fan faves without facing a backlash. Let them win. Everything will change.

And then there is reason #3: The Astros. Fuck the Astros.

But I now submit reason #4: the South Korean Kewpie doll named Ji-Man Choi.  Aside from the fact that his name is "G-Man," I've always kept a warm spot for Choi since he played for the Yankees in 2017. He never really got a chance. We blew it. 

In 2017, the Yankees signed Choi off the scrap heap and sent him to Scranton, where he hit well. In the middle of the season, they brought him up for six games - 15 at bats. He hit 2 HRs, batted .267 and flashed a decent glove at 1B. And then we ditched his ass. 

Our regular 1B tandem that year - if you haven't blotted it out - was the great Chris Carter (.201 with 8 HRs) and Greg Bird (.199 with 9 HRs.) If we had simply played Choi, we would have received better production. But we ditched his ass.

In 2018, our 1B woes continued. We tried Bird one more time. He hit .199 with 11 HRs. At that point, we traded for a career minor leaguer named Luke Voit. The rest is Yankees lore.

In Tampa, Choi has proven to be an excellent fielder and dangerous LH bat. He hurt us in the playoffs, and then supposedly "trolled" us and Houston, simultaneously, by banging a garbage can to the P.A. system's rendition of "Empire State of Mind." 

That's Tampa for you. As soon as the game ended, they played "New York, New York" on their P.A. system - an incredible display of bad sportsmanship. Even greasier, they then blamed it on Aaron Judge, because two years ago, while leaving Fenway after a game, he played that song on his boom box. 

Listen: There is a huge fucking difference between playing a song on a locker room boom box and putting it out on network TV from the stadium P.A. system. If the Yankees did something like that, the Gammonites would savage them. But that's Tampa, and I say, let them get the scrutiny that comes with winning a ring. That may be the quickest way to kill them.

And I still like the G-Man. If the Yankees had kept him, our LH 1B option last week would not have been Mike Ford. Think about that.