Gardner and Melky combined for 2.6 wins above replacement last year. That’s not terrible, especially when you consider that Gardner did essentially nothing after July due to his injury.

Cameron, obviously, was much better, at 4.8 WARP, and 2009 was the 5th best season of his career in terms of WARP and EQA. But he’ll be 37 next season. He hasn’t shown any real signs of slowing down, but he will slow down at some point, be it in 2010 or whenever. The peak of his career was clearly from age 27 to age 33. Since then, over 3 seasons, he’s averaged about 3.8 WARP per 600 plate appearances, which is still very good, but much closer to Melky/Gardner.

The other problem is that if signing Cameron to play center means Melky becomes their left-fielder, they’re upgrading one position slightly while downgrading another significantly. Melky simply doesn’t hit enough to play a corner outfield spot. If anything, it would make sense to plug Cameron into LF, where his older legs have less ground to cover.

I think a better option would be for the yankees to try and make a trade for Curtis Granderson, he’s a good center fielder who’s not as error prone as Melky (i think this was the first year in which the yankees didn’t allow an inside the field Hr to Melky’s side of the outfield with him playing there).

Also… Granderson it’s a leadoff hitter, who could bat 2nd after The Captain, if Damon ends up playing for another team, god knows the Yanks will need a 2nd bat, instead of Damon maybe a combination of Hairston (i hope they resign him) and Gardner could play out fine at LF… but still they’ll need someone as a regular for RF since Swisher can’t handle the pressure all year long, he is better with days off.

Still… the Yanks have various places to fill in case both Matsui and Damon don’t return:

LF
RF (Swisher as i’ve said, can’t be an everyday OF)
C (Posada it’s aging and they need a backup in case Cervelli doesn’t pan out fine)
CF (I don’t think Melky it’s the ideal CF)

If you want to push the issue even farther, the yankees need to begin thinking about replacing Canó if he continues to hit ONLY without men on base.

I surely hope they give a chance at lest in the bench to:
Hinske
Ramiro Peña (he’s been practicing at OF)
Cervelli

Cheers

M.

I hear he is available

Curtis Granderson would be a great addition but the price in players is likely to be exorbitant. Chone Figgins at least would cost only an expensive contract. If one wanted to risk Vernon Wells the price would be low because of his contract, but I probably would not bite unless I knew a correctible reason for his decline. I doubt that Matsui can play the cavernous LF in Yankee Stadium with his knee troubles. He would have to be a DH again. One has to remember that with an older player you are getting next year’s performance.

on the idea to have gardner as an everyday player. he flys out to much and needs to learn to hit a bit better imo. he plays the outfield very good but he cant replace damon’s numbers. id like the yanks to resign damon to 2 yrs and matsui to 1, although id understand if they try to get younger but with bay or holliday not gardner.