Blog Bounce: Melky VS. Gardner (RAB)

The guys at RAB came up with an interesting post last night, as they sparked a debate over who should be playing CF for the Yankees (you can join the debate, here). The RAB writers are big fans of Brett Gardner, who has been doing a terrific job for the club’s AAA team. Like the writers at RAB, most Yankee fans are still trying to figure out what the Yankees have in Melky Cabrera (is he the next Alex Rios or what?), although he remains a fan favorite amongst many circles.

Here’s a bit of text from the post:

This season though has been a tale of two Melky’s. His Opening Day homer gave us all hope that he was in line for the breakout season that many predicted was coming, and as recently as May 4th it looked like the breakout was legit. After hitting .291-.359-.505 with a team leading six longballs through his first 31 games, Melky has become an offensive blackhole. The numbers aren’t pretty: .257-.293-.284 with a whopping three extra base hits (all doubles) in his last 30 games.

This is true about Melky. His BA in June is .294 (so hits are falling), but so is his slugging percentage (it’s also .294), which is sort of scary. His lack of XBH is obviously effecting that number, but his OBP of .333 is pretty decent. It appears as though his homer hitting way at the beginning of the season was a hot streak, but if he can up that slugging percentage, he could certainly be a good offensive CF.

Here’s some more text on Gardner:

Enter Brett Gardner. The Yanks’ third round pick in 2005 has spend the first two-and-a-half years of his professional career terrorizing the opposition, whether it be by working counts (.387 career OBP), spraying hits to all fields (.290 BA), or running wild on the basepaths (141 SB). He’s added another much needed element to this game this year: power. Through 60 games he’s already tripled his homer total of the previous two season combined, and is slugging at a .454 clip, almost 80 points better than his career output coming into the year.

Now, I’m a big fan of Gardner and what he can do for the Yankees. His minor league numbers are much more consistent when compared to Melky’s figures (Melky had a couple of performance spikes which got him a call but they could be signs of his true abilities). He gets on base and is an Ichiro-type, although his abilities are nowhere near Ichiro’s, obviously.

I would like to see Brett Gardner on the Yankees, however, I would not want to see him taking playing time away from Melky. If Melky’s numbers plummeted, I wouldn’t be opposed to a demotion for Melky and a call up for Gardner, since I think it would really help the two through competition. But, until Melky’s BA, OBP and SLG drop, then I’m sort of against the idea. I’m also opposed to having Gardner come up to be a pinch runner or bench player, since he should continue to develop in AAA.

It’s strange to say, but Melky really carried the team (along with Abreu and Matsui) at the beginning of the season with his bat and his defense (his defense has stuck with him and Brett Gardner doesn’t have his arm, but he’s faster and could probably run routes well). Melky, like many other players, will certainly have his good months and his bad months. I’ll wait to see how he performs for the rest of the month and then make a decision about his future. For whatever reason (his youthful exuberance?), Melky has managed to charm us and therefore we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt (he also has a lot of untapped potential, or at least I think he does).