October 18, 2012

BP Unfiltered

Who is to Blame for The Yankees' Season, As Decided By Daily News Readers

by Sam Miller

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It can be hard to know which players to keep, and which players to dump, if you're running a major-league baseball team. (Those are the only options; keep or dump. Players who are not kept are all dumped.) But the wisdom of crowds has never led anybody astray, so the New York Daily News has asked its readers whom to keep and whom to dump. There are a lot of Yankees that the crowd would like to dump: 

• Curtis Granderson (59 percent say dump), because presumably Brett Gardner (80 percent keep!) can play center field just as well. Granderson has produced an average of 3.4 WARP as a Yankee, but he had only three base hits in the postseason for the Yankees, unlike Gardner.
• Alex Rodriguez (84 percent), obviously. No worries. Eric Chavez could certainly hold up as a full-time non-platoon third baseman for a year.
• Eric Chavez (55 percent). No worries, Eduardo Nunez (69 percent keep!) is under contract, and hit .227/.256/.288 this year. In Triple-A. 
• Nick Swisher (81 percent). He will be replaced by Chris Dickerson, whom Daily News readers voted to keep.
• Andruw Jones (93 percent), easily the player with the most dump votes and, we probably all agree, the player most responsible for the Yankees' ALCS sweep.
• Chris Stewart (60 percent), who was on the postseason roster but did not play until the final two innings of the final game.
• Freddy Garcia (89 percent), the second-most dump votes.
• Joba Chamberlain (59 percent), Derek Lowe (72 percent), Cory Wade (68 percent)
• Casey McGehee (84 percent), okay.
• Kevin Long (73 percent), the hitting instructor.
• And Steve Pearce (83 percent), who is on the Baltimore Orioles and has been since September.

Hiroki Kuroda, at 91 percent "keep", is the most popular Yankee right now. David Robertson is next. Twenty-four percent would like to dump Robinson Cano. 

Just perfect.

Sam Miller is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @SamMillerBB
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