"Work on your bunting"

I remember reading somewhere in Peter Golenbock's delightful history of the 1949-1964 Yankees, the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport, about how it became a running joke how Deron Johnson couldn't stick with the big team.

Johnson, a power-hitting third baseman, kept doing everything right. At just 19, he had 27 homers for the Triple-A Richmond Virginians.

Nope, not enough. Back Deron went to Richmond, the Scranton of its day, for more "seasoning." He hit another 25 home runs...and didn't even get a cup of coffee on a 1959 Yankees team that had turned in a rare clunker of a season, and was out of it by September.

In 1960, he hit ANOTHER 27, Triple-A homers—though by now, no doubt a bit discouraged, his batting average and OBP both fell off.  The Yanks did bring him up, once they had another pennant wrapped, for all of four at-bats. He had two hits, including a double. Not that that got him anything.

The next spring, Deron was killing it again in spring training, and the Yankees just didn't have a slot for him. They really didn't know what to tell him, and the joke went around the camp that they told him:

"We need you to go down to Richmond again and work on your bunting."

In the end, though, they didn't send him back down again. They traded him to our own personal gulag, the Kansas City Athletics.

In return, we got Bud Daley, a gutsy pitcher with one leg shorter than the other who, as a number-four starter for one of the best hitting teams ever in 1961, went 8-9. The next season, Daley was a useful lug nut in the pen. All in all, he went 18-16 in parts of four seasons in the Bronx.

Deron Johnson took a little bit to right himself. But by 1964, he was the starting third sacker in Cincinnati, and a star. In 1965, he drove in 130 runs, and finished fourth in the MVP voting. As late as 1971, he was still hitting 34 homers for a terrible Phils team, and he was a valuable cog for the 1973, world champion A's, now in Oakland.

Is Andujar our Deron?

I suppose a demotion is what you should expect these days in baseball, when you draw one walk in 42 at-bats, as Miguel did, or when after a very fast start in the spring, you tail off badly.

And yeah, who knows? Maybe Brandon Drury or Manny Machado will prove to be the 2018 equivalent of Clete Boyer, the guy who ultimately beat out Deron Johnson. It's not like Boyer was such a bad option.

But I can't help thinking that we've missed out on something good here. And I dread what we will give up this diamond in the rough for.

Michael Fulmer? Yeah, he has Bud Daley written all over him.

No Soccer, no Yankees, for two days now. It's not like anything just happened.