State Of the Yankees, Issue 1

This guest post is written by fellow blogger Jeff Winston. He blogs over at Two More Cents on Sports which is well worth your time provided you have any after you are done here. He offers a unique perspective on sports, is a huge baseball and Yankees fan and I look forward to hearing his take hopefully every week. So without further ado...

First, I would like to thank Ben for this opportunity to contribute to his blog. Any fan of baseball would benefit from viewing and keeping up with Ben’s Baseball Bias. I was not sure what I would write about for his blog, but I really like the idea of his suggestion to write some sort of post regarding the “State of the Yankees.” So that’s exactly what I’ll do when I get a chance to post on his blog. But enough of the small talk, onto the main course…

For as long as I can remember (1993), I have been a fan of the greatest franchise in all of sports; the New York Yankees. Despite my devotion and commitment to this team, however, this does not prevent me from recognizing the flaws of the Yankees. So for today’s edition of “State of the Yankees,” I’d like to share one of them with you:

Hideki Matsui – A player that in my opinion that has never lived up to the hype since coming over from Japan, “Hit-Deki” finds himself in the final year of his contract. Now I acknowledge that Matsui has had his share of clutch RBI over the years. But my biggest problem with our now everyday DH is that I think he has done nothing but decline since coming over, and it has reached a point this season of aggravation and frustration for this Yankees fan. Let’s take a look at some key stats in his yearly breakdowns:

2003 (163): .287 avg, 16 HR, 82 runs, 106 RBI

2004 (162): .298 avg, 31 HR, 109 runs, 108 RBI

2005 (162): .305 avg, 23 HR, 108 runs, 116 RBI

2006 (51): .302 avg, 8 HR, 32 runs, 29 RBI

2007 (143): .285 avg, 25 HR, 100 runs, 103 RBI

2008 (93): .294 avg, 9 HR, 43 runs, 45 RBI,

2009 (89 games as of July 27, 2009): .256 avg, 15 HR, 33 runs, 44 RBI

2009 (on pace according to ESPN): .256 avg, 25 HR, 56 runs, 78 RBI

There are two glaring things that I notice from looking at his stats: First, his durability is certainly not what it used to be (although he is on pace for 151 games, barring any injury). Second, he is not the RBI man that he used to be. Matsui hit 50 HR during his last season in Japan before coming over to the states. Thought of as a 40+ HR man a year, Matsui’s top mark was 31 in 2004. Despite the low HR total, he was still a very dependable RBI machine during his first couple of years, and always seemed to be one of the guys coming up with the big hit.

This year, not so much. And when looking into the future of this franchise, we see players such as Gardner, Cabrera and soon Austin Jackson possibly taking up all 3 outfield spots. This pushes Damon (who is certainly, in my opinion, playing his way to another contract) into the DH spot. Where does this leave Matsui? The question remains, will the Yankees bring him back? There are two sides to this coin. Side A dictates that he doesn’t fit into the future plans. Side B recognizes the immense popularity and publicity overseas in Japan that Matsui creates, and all of the revenue that he brings in; which could ultimately lead to his re-signing. Me personally, I want Side A. Let him go clog up a roster spot on another team. The Yankees will be better off without him next year.

On another note, I shall also end off each addition to the player of the week on the team. This week’s award winner is AJ Burnett, who in the past week has won two starts against fellow AL Easters Tampa and Baltimore. Congrats AJ, you have won the first ever “State of the Yankees” Player of the Week award. Have a nice pat on the back :-)