The 2020 MLB season started yesterday for the New York Yankees, and what a debut it was. In a rain-shortened game, they won 4-1 at the nation’s capital against the Washington Nationals, with a Giancarlo Stanton moonshot and a Gerrit Cole gem from the mound.
However, not everything was as smooth as it sounds. Brett Gardner, a beloved Yankees player who has given everything to the team, didn’t have the best of games. He was one of the victims of some serious swing and miss stuff by opposing starter Max Scherzer and struck out in his three plate appearances.
It’s just one game, but it is fair to wonder if Gardy’s days as a starting player on the New York Yankees are beginning to dwindle. Not because we can conclusively say that he has “lost it” after just five and a half innings of action, but rather because the team has a more than capable replacement waiting in the wings in Clint Frazier.
If Clint Frazier is going to develop into the hitter many envisioned him, he needs to play in the bigs, not in Triple A or sit on the bench more often than not. That’s why the Yankees are at a crossroads with him, and that’s why he could start sooner than we think.
The Yankees can choose which path to take
The Yankees have lots of quality options in the outfield, including Gardner. He still has that awesome defense in left and center field, and he can still run with the best of them even at 36.
But the reality is that it is natural for a hitter to decline, and while the numbers say he had a fantastic season at the plate last year, that is not entirely true. The results were excellent, but batted ball and Statcast data say that he benefited quite a bit from luck: his .299 expected wOBA was bad, and far off from his actual .344 wOBA.
Gardner was only in the 18th percentile in hard-hit rate, with 32.1. He was in the 17th percentile in barrel percentage and in the 23rd percentile in average exit velocity. Quality of contact indicates that his 2020 may not be quite as good as his 2019, and it may create an opportunity for the Yankees’ forgotten man: Clint Frazier.
Frazier has defensive shortcomings, but he deserves, at last, a full opportunity to show what he can do. Will the Yankees give it to him sooner than we realize?