Right, but I don’t want AJax rushed. And he has already shown that he is not just toolsy. I saw a lot of him last season and was disappointed in his stance at the plate, and his “noisy” sort of load. First of all, he had this dumb high leg kick (very much like ARod’s) and would use his upper body trying to pull everything.

I was stunned to see a completely different hitter in ST. Quiet, no leg kick, hands back, and not pull happy at all. That GS swing was a thing of beauty. He is also utterly determined to be a good hitter – motivated like Montero is to catch. But I think you’ll see him move over to LF eventually, because the Yankees have a kid in their system named Eduardo Sosa ticketed for CF.
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I can’t speak for anyone else here. My skepticism is based on more than the small sample size produced at the ML level. I’ve seen plenty of this guy in the minors, and I can tell you that IMHO, ML pitchers are NOT going to walk this guy. They just aren’t. He is also NOT a good breaking ball hitter. I’m sorry, but the most rudimentary thing a young hitter has to cope with is learning to hit breaking pitches, if he’s to make a successful jump.

I’m sure he’ll have some success initially, and I can see he is a kid who is determined to succeed – that’s a credit to him. But I’m sorry, I just am not buying that he’s going to be able to get on base enough to make an impact on our offense. And he’s not going to get the same middling first-pitch FBs he’s built his ST resume on. Believe it or not, opposition hitters aren’t in the same swoon over Brett Gardner that others here are, and they’re going to try to get him out, not make life easy for him so that he can be a Yankee folk hero.

Could I be wrong? Of course; stranger things have happened. But I just don’t think so.

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Cabrera? I see a guy who can hit. I get it that it goes against the conventional wisdom of this board; I think I can live with that. Do I predict a Cano-like career for him? Of course not – he’s not got THAT kind of talent.

But there IS a tendency here to either annoint someone or completely dismiss him, and actually, the game of baseball takes place in between. And this guy’s bat doesn’t CARE that you’re sick of him and want a new flavor – he will probably have a very good season offensively, if he gets ABs. I’ve charted his bat through the end of last season, through WB, and ST, to see if the adjustments he’d made stuck, and they have.
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To the guy who suggested Swisher should go instead, I am completely in agreement; he can’t play CF, he isn’t going to start in RF, he doesn’t bring that much to the table. I’d prefer to put my money on Melky off the bench, and if necessary, Gardner off the bench. We don’t really need Swisher’s miscellaneous OBP – especially if he’s batting in the bottom third of the order. That’s the one place you want someone to drive guys in, not get on base.

I doubt Toronto’s owners are Yankee fans.

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You’d better make this one good. Exactly how is Jackson, Montero and Romine not vital to the Yankees’ future? I’d even think twice about including Hughes, who is what Halliday was 10 years ago.

I would.

Yanks don’t even really need Halladay at this point.

I’ve been rooting for Gardner for a long time but if his patrolling CF means that brettisgod will be patrolling this blog I may have to re-think things.

Earlier this evening I was watching some show on MLB network that did a segemnt on John Challis and it showed how many players interacted with the kid over the course of last season. And even though I doubt any player gave him the personal attention that Arod did when he had him over to his apartment and drove him up to Yankee stadium, there was no mention of Arod in the segment. Arod would have actually got some good press courtesy of MLB but no dice I guess. Is MLB distancing itself from Alex?