“Should the Yankees sign Elijah Dukes?” was a meme that spread through the Net yesterday like swine flu after the Washington Nationals suddenly dumped the troubled, 24-year old former Rays outfielder.
For those who don’t know the back story Dukes is a legitimate outfield prospect with limited major league experience better known for his arrest record, paternity history, and for threatening to kill his wife. At 24 Dukes has already worn out his welcome with two major league franchises.
When any player with talent becomes available, the Yankees are bandied about as potential employer and despite no apparent interest expressed by Yankees higher ups, Dukes drew a lot of attention from the pinstripe faithful yesterday.
Surprising, to me at least, is the widespread sense that signing Dukes would be a good idea.
Brian Burkhart of Bronx Baseball Daily made the case most simply:
The Yankees spent much of the offseason searching for OF depth, and currently are choosing between Brett Gardner, Randy Winn, Marcus Thames, and Jamie Hoffmann, for the LF/CF position and 2 bench spots. Could Dukes possibly be added to the mix? He doesn’t have Winn’s experience or Thames’ pure power, but Dukes has a higher upside than all 4 of those players I named.
Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues did a little armchair psychoanalysis:
Right now, the Yanks have as good of a “clubhouse culture” as they’vehad in years, and while I can understand not wanting to poison that with a person like Dukes, I think this is exactly the kind of support system that could help him thrive.
as if a major league clubhouse was a therapeutic community.
He also offered the ubiquitous Sabremetrics rattling (any sentence that begins “CHONE projects…is a sentence I’m unlikely to read), agreeing with Burkhart that if nothing else, he’s a massive upgrade over Marcus Thames and/or Jamie Hoffmann as the fifth outfielder.
My favorite take came from Mike Silva at NY Basesball Digest (who also agrees that Dukes would be a baseball upgrade and that the Yankee clubhouse would be somehow therapeutic for Dukes). Silva accurately notes that George would have signed Dukes:
Steinbrenner gave second chances to Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, and Steve Howe. Back in 1998 the Yankees nearly signed notorious bad boy Albert Belle to a contract. Even Wil Cordero, no stranger to off the field trouble, was targeted by Mr. Steinbrenner. George was never afraid to “roll the dice” on a player.
Never afraid to? George jumped at the chance to rehabilitate a troubled kid and Silva’s right, he would have jumped at Dukes, putting his arms around “the young man” at a weepy press conference.
Here’s my take: First, a major league clubhouse–especially in a super high stress environment like that of the NY Yankees franchise–is a HORRIBLE place for a kid with personal problems of any sort and the last place someone like that is going to be able to work out his problems, presuming that the person in question even wants to work out his problems. It’s an enabling circle filled with pampered rich folks many of whom are ego-maniacal assholes. Its probably the worst environment for a deeply troubled kid with a family background of criminality and violence to get help. Where all these bloggers get the idea that the Yankee clubhouse would somehow be therapeutic for Dukes I have no idea but clearly they’ve never been in either a high stress, alpha-male stacked work environment or a therapy group or they’d understand and how opposite they are.
Second, Dukes may be talented, but in his limited major league career he’s hardly put up the kind of numbers that would make one want to put up with all the baggage. It’s not like he has Willie Mays-upside.
Third, although with the trading of Austin Jackson the Yankees portfolio of outfield prospects is slim, it’s so easy to staff a major league outfield with players who can put up Dukes-like numbers or better (especially with the likes of Carl Crawford in next season’s free agent class) that I never worry about having outfield prospects. Pitchers, catchers, shortstops–yeah. Outfielders? A dime a dozen.
Much more interesting than the Dukes meme yesterday were the Joe Mauer stories with Bill Madden at the Daily News reporting that the Yanks were waiting for the Mauer-Twins marriage to break up so they can swoop in with trade offer involving Jesus Montero.
Quoth Madden:
A bunch of scouts were discussing just that Tuesday night before the Yankees’ game with the Houston Astros at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Their consensus was that the 20-year-old Montero’s bat alone will likely get him to the big leagues by next season, but in the long run the 21-year-old Romine has the complete package – bat, arm, mechanics, makeup – to be a top quality all-around catcher – for someone.
“But in my opinion,” said one scout, “the next catcher for the Yankees will be Joe Mauer. Imagine if the Twins don’t sign him and he goes out there on the market next winter with both the Yankees and Red Sox in need of a catcher? That will be the wildest bidding war in baseball history, and don’t think his agent doesn’t know it. And if they (Twins) decide to trade him, the Yankees have the better pieces to get him.”
At RAB Joe Pawlikowski compares Posada and Mauer based on wOBA seemingly arguing that with
similar wOBA the two players are offensive equals at-bat for at-bat proving the silliness of using abstracted stats to compare players (the number of GMs who think Posada’s as good a hitter as Mauer is zero). Pawlikowski also asks the, frankly, ludicrous question: the Yankees have spent the past three or so years filling their farm system with catchers. After all that, why go and use an enormous portion of your resources to sign one in free agency?
Answer: Because no “prospect” is equal in value to the best hitter in the league in the prime of his Major League career. Duh! The Yanks may not outbid the Sox for Mauer if Mauer hits the free agent market but it won’t be for want of trying.
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