The Yanks are signing Nick Johnson to a 1 year, $5.5mm deal with a mutual option for 2011. He’ll also be compensated for reaching certain levels of plate appearances. Johnson’s ’09 OBP was .426, but he also only slugged a mere .405. Reporters are trying to make Johnson look all nice and special, gift-wrapping him and sticking a bow on his head as Kwanzaa approaches, but looking at some numbers, my support of the deal is…weakening.
He has only played in more than 100 games in 3 seasons, and never in more than 150. Johnson has only reached 20 homers once, and that was in ’06. Sure, Johnson has his upsides: he hasn’t had a sub-.400 OBP since the Expos moved south, he draws walks 17.8% of the time, and he works pitchers like he’s Johnny Damon. Yet, Johnson isn’t perfect. He can’t play the outfield, his primary position is taken by a guy making $23mm, he doesn’t have plus power, he gets injured like a Carl Pavano wannabe, and he hasn’t played in the AL since the Yanks traded him away in ’03.
Johnson will be a DH, and without the wear and tear of playing the field, I think his numbers will improve. Everyone talks about “getting younger,” and Johnson, 31, is surely younger than Matsui and Damon, but so is Jesus Montero, does that mean he should be playing in the bigs every day? “Getting younger” is GM speak for “We want cheaper players. We want players that are less injury-prone. We want players who are playing their best baseball.” Johnson is undoubtedly a bargain at $5.5mm, but I bet Orlando Cabrera signs for a bargain-basement price too, does that mean the Yanks should’ve signed him? No, because he doesn’t fit. Johnson is definitively injury-prone, and who knows if he’ll be playing his best baseball. Sure, Johnson fits “in theory,” as a “younger” hitter who makes opposing pitchers work, but he just doesn’t seem to be the right fit. He can DH, he adds tenacity to the lineup, he’ll set A-Rod and Tex up for huge RBI loads, but he can’t trot out to left field and make routine plays. Don’t get me wrong, I think Johnson is a good player, just not for the Yanks right now. Still, he’ll be trying on his pinstripes soon, so Yankee fans need to root for him.
What I don’t understand about the Johnson signing, is that it goes against what Cashman has been saying all winter. He keeps talking about a DH that can play the field. Someone versatile so that Jorge, Swish, Tex, A-Rod, Jeter, and Curtis can rest at DH with the DH slipping on a glove. Johnson can only play first, spelling Tex as needed. Johnson fits well in the batting order, a great guy for the number two slot, but his DH-ness makes him a curious pick-up. Be honest: on November 5th, who though Nick Johnson would be a Yankee? Nobody did.
Johnson is a left-handed hitter, which means the Yanks made smart moves in replacing the lefty forces of Hideki and Damon with the lefty forces of Johnson and Curtis Granderson. Yankee Stadium is a lefty’s paradise, so building a team that can take advantage of that is a wise move. Curtis Granderson is legendarily weak against left-handed pitching, but Johnson actually hit better (.316) off lefties than he did off righties (.281), so offensively he helps to offset the weakness of Granderson against southpaws. Still, Johnson doesn’t have a reputation for smacking balls over the fence, and the home run abilities of Damon and Matsui will be missed.
Johnson is a DH. He’ll be doing what Matsui did last year: sitting, swinging, and never taking the field (okay, maybe he’ll play first a few times). He’ll be the number two hitter and will give Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez lots of opportunities to hit with a man (or men) on base. He’s an interesting signing, and he comes at a fair price, but he is just so much…different than what Yankee fans expected. His signing means the end of Johnny Damon’s tenure in the Bronx, but we won’t know if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing, until the 2010 season, and more importantly the 2010 postseason, unfold.
