Like I said before, you can't steal first. The guy has to absolutely work on his hitting. He looked simply lost at the plate last season. I really really hope Long has worked and continues to work with him big time over the offseason. Once he gets on base though, look out cuz he's goin...

I'll have no problem if Gardner beats out Melky for the position as long as both are provided equal opportunity. The one who will be disappointed will be Cano because as another poster told me in a different thread ... "Cano needs a dance partner in the dugout" LOL

No doubt, but those were Ellsbury's rookie season numbers from last year and all we hear about him here is how disappointing he was.

They have to bat him 9th and be patient with him as he hones his skills at the plate. It is also a good thing to have speed at the bottom of the order. Damon should lead off again as he looks at a ton of pitches and can still hit.

you are assuming that he will hit .270. like i said in my first post if he continues to hit MLB pitching like he did last year it won't matter if he has speed and can steal bases because he only hit .228 and had a very low .285 OBP. Can't change many games stealing bases if you aren't able to get on base in the first place. Like i said i will wait and see if he improves not just give him the job because Melky had a bad year last year. I'm also not saying that Melky is great offensively but we have at least seen him hit .270+ in the MLB before and he IMO is the better CF defensively. I'm not going to praise Gardner until he proves himself a worthy MLB player.

That is just simply crazy....

Great post Canoli....For a team to be successful in the postseason they HAVE TO be able to manufacture runs…..Many of those 3 run homers of summer die at the warning track on a cold October nite….Speed doesn’t…

You are choosing to remain skeptical and that’s your prerogative…I choose to be optimistic….He S@cked out loud his first time up, when he came back he was much better….He hit .283 in the month of spring, and in the last ten games he started he got a hit and multiple hits in 5 of them….

With Gardner its not the average that needs to be watched, it is his on base percentage, and like I said in my original post, if he keeps that at .335 he will be a great asset to this team…..

Exactly. This is why I tell people who trash Ellsbury's rookie season (.280, 50 SBs, 98 runs) and want to give up on him that they are crazy. Guys like that can manufacture runs on next to nothing. Infield chopper they beat out where anyone else would be out, a SB, a groundout, WP or PB or some routine fly ball out and suddenly you've done nothing with the bats in the inning but you scored a run.

"Like I said before, you can't steal first. The guy has to absolutely work on his hitting. He looked simply lost at the plate last season. I really really hope Long has worked and continues to work with him big time over the offseason. Once he gets on base though, look out cuz he's goin... "

Absolutely agree 100%.....and he also needs to learn WHEN to run and when NOT to run....but I think that will come with some coaching and experience.....

I think a lot of people place way too much emphasis on homeruns and “power numbers” in general….I try and look at a player as to how is he as an all around baseball player, his hitting, fielding, running, all of it…..Ryan Howard is one guy that comes immediately to mind…He is considered so great because of his HRs and RBIs and he is awesome in those categories, no doubt, but he is a horrible fielder (lead MLB with 19 errors) that is a defensive liability and cant help the team at all on the bases…Plus, in the past two years he has struck out 398 times, that’s a lot of times he isn’t moving runners over, isn’t getting runners home from third, etc….In fact Ryan Howard has struck out more times in the past two years then Joe DiMaggio did in his ENTIRE career, that is brutal!

He had better learn to hit first. I also don't think he has Melky's arm either. We'll see...

Ellsbury was so good over the last month of 2007 and then in the post-season that people got this unrealistic idea that he was going to jump right into the MLs and hit .330, with 80 SBs and score 130. And incredibly he actually got off to a start through the couple of months or so that would have put him close to later two numbers. He was near the league lead in runs scored at that point.

But as usually happens word got around about some holes in his strike zone, mainly jamming him, and he also hurt his left wrist making a diving catch and had a very bad middle of the season. Then he got hot again at the end, probably making some adjustments to how he was being pitched, lifting his average 13 points in the month of September. In all it was a very streaky year for him, great at the beginning, lousy in the middle, then great again at the end. But overall it was a very good rookie season. He nearly broke the RS single season SB record (54, I think) in spite of the terrible middle of the season, when he went something like a month with barely one steal.

Gardner will be good in CF he has great range and will save some runs plus he brings some elements that the yankee teams have been missing over the last few years.

Ells was scary to face most of the year. When he led off, you had to get him out because you had tha pesky little dud hitting right behind him. He went into a slump late. I'll trade hime for Gabe Gross even up :-P

I think one thing that could really help him would be to work more on his bunting and do it more often. With his speed he could easily beat out mediocre bunts. It's a good way to avoid big hitting slumps too.