Yankees universe sees Brandon Drury through the looking glass
By Cory Claus
Yankees new third baseman Miguel Andujar is off to an historic start. Yet some observers are confused about what the team will do when Brandon Drury is ready to reclaim the bag. They clearly must have rested by the Tumtum tree and stood awhile in thought.
The Yankees came in to the season with two options for third base. First was farmhand Miguel Andujar and, second, Arizona import Brandon Drury. Drury beat out Andujar over Spring Training but was soon sidelined by injury.
Andujar was recalled, got off to a slow start, but has hit a ton in the last ten days. El Nuevo Miggy is currently hitting .316/.333/.649 with 3 home runs, eight doubles, a triple and 11 RBI. Now he is being compared to, at least in minor but noteworthy ways, Yankees greats such as Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
Performance, however, cannot be evaluated in a vacuum, so I’ll clean that up. Bear in mind that his 57 AB are seventh-most on the team. And that he has only three more than number eight, Tyler Austin (54).
Yet he leads the team in doubles (8). And he is second in SLG on this power-hitting Yankees team and has the third highest BA. He’s also tied for the team lead in triples (1), has the fifth most hits (18), and the fourth most total bases (37).
Learn From What You Do Not See
Strikeouts (SO) have always been a concern, however; here Andujar is surprisingly good. His ratio of SO to AB (9/57) is far better than almost any other player: Judge 24/77; Gardner 20/76; Gary Sanchez 16/73; and, Aaron Hicks 9/35.
The only regular with a better ratio is Didi (8/71), but there is no shame in being behind that man in any category. Drury, meanwhile, is a major league career .270/.319/.447 hitter, who left the Yankees slashing .217/.333/.391 with one home run, five hits, and six strikeouts in 23 AB.
Clearly Andujar is going to continue to man the third base bag until he takes a significant drop in production. No one in his/her right mind would even be confused on the topic.
For those of you who like a neutral-toned, fact based article, free of biting sarcasm and snark, I thank you for reading. I wrote this part just for you, but you can go now. For the rest of you, stick around, because I am about to take a look at those people who have not quite seen enough to figure this whole thing out.
And as you already know what I think of them, you can probably guess where this is going.