That’s right. Jacoby Ellsbury, who won the World Series in his first year (2007) and his last year (2013) with the Red Sox, is headed to the Bronx to get fitted for a new pinstripe suit. After that, he is projected to be the starting center fielder for the New York Yankees and get paid handsomely for it.
It’ll be sad to see Ells wearing a Yankee uniform, but I’m not angry the way I was when Johnny Damon signed with New York in 2005. The Yankees gave him $153 million over seven years. He’s 30, he’s often injured, and he doesn’t hit home runs. The Red Sox were smart to hold off on this one.
The real question is what were the Yankees thinking? General manager Brian Cashman pretended to be interested in Carl Crawford in 2010 in an attempt to drive up the price on the Red Sox, but admitted later he had no interest since the Yankees had a younger and cheaper version of the same type of player in Brett Gardner. Ellsbury is another player of that ilk, and the Yankees paid him even more than the Sox paid Crawford three years ago. Sometimes Yankee ownership goes over Cashman’s head and coughs up money for players he doesn’t want, and he’s usually honest with the media when he doesn’t like a deal. I wonder if we’ll be getting similar quoted from Cashman soon.
The Yankees still have to pay expensive contracts for Alex Rodriguez, C.C. Sabathia, and Mark Teixeira, who are not the players they used to be. They’re also trying to bring back Robinson Cano, who is looking for a big payday of his own. Something doesn’t add up.
Thanks for 2007 and thanks for 2013, but no thanks on that amount of money for your 30s. The last game Ells played in a Red Sox uniform was Game 6 of the World Series against the Cardinals where he famously got out of a pickle when everything was going right for the Sox. He’s a Yankee now, but it doesn’t bother me the way it probably should.
Dave's Words 