![]() ![]() The bulk of that great work has come from star sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, both of whom are off to fantastic starts. That’s the third-best mark in the league, with only the Angels and Twins getting better production. 262/.345/.458 line from their outfielders, translating to offensive production 41 percentage points above the league average according to wRC+. Over the season’s first month-plus, the Yankees have had one of the game’s best outfields. New York instead paid a $1.15MM buyout, essentially passing on a $6MM call on Gardner’s services. The outfielder declined a $2.3MM player option - which isn’t too surprising given that a team like Toronto was willing to offer a greater sum - leaving the Yankees with a $7.15MM option. Both Gardner and the Yankees had an opportunity to unilaterally continue their relationship into 2022 at the start of the offseason. General manager Brian Cashman said in Spring Training that he’d had some contact with Gardner’s reps since the end of the lockout, but added the team was “ focused on what we have” internally at the time. That level of interest seemingly hasn’t been present on the Yankees’ part, however. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference felt Gardner was worth about a win above replacement last season, so it’s not surprising teams like the Jays and Braves were amenable to bringing him in to fill part-time roles. 222/.327/.362, although he still walked in an impressive 13% of his plate appearances and held his own defensively despite being unexpectedly thrust into a regular role in center field. That wasn’t the case in 2021, when he hit. Gardner claimed a Gold Glove award in 2016 and routinely drew excellent marks from public metrics like Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating.Īs recently as 2019-20, Gardner continued to produce at an above-average offensive level. 256/.342/.398 in a bit more than 6600 plate appearances over that stretch, and for the majority of his career, he was one of the game’s preeminent defensive left fielders. By 2010, he’d cemented himself as a regular and wound up spending more than a decade in pinstripes. A third-round pick by New York in 2005, the College of Charleston product first reached the majors midway through the 2008 campaign. Rosenthal suggests Gardner would likely only continue his playing career with the Yankees, the lone organization for which he’s suited up. After losing right fielder Eddie Rosario to late April eye surgery that figures to cost him two-to-three months, Atlanta expressed interest in Gardner but was rebuffed. According to Rosenthal, Gardner also recently declined to pursue an opportunity with the Braves. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic now reports that Toronto offered Gardner a $6MM contract at the time, but the 14-year MLB veteran turned it down. That wasn’t on account of a lack of interest in the 38-year-old, as the Blue Jays touched base with Gardner’s camp during Spring Training as part of their search for a left-handed hitting outfielder. 747 OPS, 12 home runs, 50 RBIs, 0.Brett Gardner was one of the top free agents of last winter’s class who didn’t wind up signing prior to Opening Day. Rosario will likely only play against right-handed pitchers, but if the vision is back to 100%, he should be much better than that offensively, closer to league average.Įddie Rosario’s 2023 Stat Predictions: (101 games). I think he will finish somewhere in the middle this year, and FanGraphs agrees, projecting him to record an 81 wRC+ over 98 games. Up until last year, Rosario was an incredibly consistent offensive player. I’m going to assume the improvement is significant, but I still don’t think he will ever be what he once was. His vision issues can be blamed for a lot of that, but there’s no telling how much better it will be this season. He’s a below average defender, and offensively, he hit just. It’s not absurd to say Rosario was the worst left fielder in baseball last season. ![]()
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