Yankees universe sees Brandon Drury through the looking glass

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.

Gettin’ Miggy With It

Alright, if you’re still here, you deserve a bit more meat on the bone before we do any carving.

As a review, it was Miggy who was given the highest bonus ($750,000) of any player the Yankees took in the 2012 international class, above fellow signee Luis Severino. Drury was drafted in the 13th round, 404th overall, in 2010 by Atlanta.

Andujar is currently ranked as the 65th best prospect in baseball after steadily making progress in the minors, while Drury was never ranked in the top 100. And while their minor league stats are comparable, the home run totals are a bit deceptive.

Brandon finished his minor league career with 60 in 2,501 AB; home runs are always low in the minors. Miguel likewise ended with 51 in 2,271. But if you follow this link, and then this one, you will see that Andujar made steady progress and his home run totals organically grew as he did.

Drury, though, seems to have somewhat of an inflated and deceptive total.

Back in 2014, when Brandon was 21, he had an offensive explosion that ended with him hitting 23 of his career 60 minor league homers. He immediately regressed, however, hitting just five the next season in roughly the same number of AB. And he’s never come close to that number again.

To top it all off, Andujar has been asked for in many trades but is still in pinstripes, while Drury has been traded twice.

A Very Difficult Decision

So, we have one player who was more highly thought of when they were young, had a more powerful minor league career with more projectable numbers, is more highly rated by independent evaluators and who is currently one of the best and most dangerous hitters in the Yankees line-up, versus a guy who everyone keeps thinking can be a good player maybe, perhaps, someday, if he ever gets over his chronic migraines and low power numbers.

Tough choice.

Now, I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I have a pretty good effing idea of who I think should be the Yankees third baseman for the foreseeable future. Maybe it’s just me, but it all seems so very, very clear. Yet some still remain confused.

So, Historic Equals Mediocre?

For instance, Dan Martin writing for the NY Post sees Andujar as more of a minor league player. This viewpoint is also shared by his editors, who ran with this compelling headline: Miguel Andujar’s historic start means difficult Drury decision.

Whether Andujar has staying power in the majors is still in doubt, but he’s getting his chance after a strong spring, coupled with Brandon Drury being sidelined with migraines and blurry vision. The Yankees may have a decision to make when Drury returns.

Really? Are we still talking about the New York Yankees? Because I’m pretty sure they know the difference between one of the hottest hitters in the league and a guy who might start seeing double again in his next at-bat.

I actually think if they had just stepped back and read their own headline, they would have seen how nonsensical and contradictory it is. Next time they should try, “Player’s historic start obviously makes all other decisions easy”; that would make sense.

Oh yeah, the Yankees are definitely considering just moving Andujar up and down between Scranton and whatever road city the Yanks go to next. That’s worth doing to him; he doesn’t look special at all.

Man, now I’m confused about what to do with these clearly equal talents.

Not Even as Good as His Sherpa Guide

What makes it more curious is that this article was posted today. Coincidentally, Larry Brown of his eponymously named site ran this article at the exact same time: Rookie Miguel Andujar off to Historic Start for the Yankees.

As of Monday, he was batting .555 (15-for-27) during his hitting streak. Moreover, he’s had at least one extra base hit in every game during the hitting streak (8 doubles, 1 triple, 3 home runs). According to YES Network researcher Jeff Quagliata, the only Yankee with more extra base hits in his first 19 games is Joe DiMaggio. Katie Sharp says that Andujar joins Alex Rodriguez as the only Yankees third baseman with an extra base hit in seven-or-more straight games since 1930.

And yet Mr. Martin is not sure that Miggy will be able to keep his job when future Hall-of-Famer Brandon Drury returns…for a while.

I mean, just how good does he think Drury is? If Andujar is doing things that only Yankees legends can do, what is Mr. Martin’s expectation of Brandon? He becomes a better player than Sidd Finch?

Oddly, Mr. Martin is not the only one who needs still more information to be really sure which is the better player. And odd is the only word for it.

OMG!

Over at Newsday, Laura Albanese knows everything we have laid out here. She writes as much in an article they decided to headline, Recovering Brandon Drury vs. red-hot Miguel Andujar—who’s going to play?

Andujar entered Monday night with a .542/.560/1.167 slash line, seven doubles, a triple, two homers and seven RBIs in his previous six games — and then homered on Jake Odorizzi’s first pitch of the second inning. He added a double in the sixth. He has at least one extra-base hit in seven straight games, joining Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio as the only Yankees under 24 to achieve that feat, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

But as you can guess by the title, that has only filled her with more questions.

So the medical questions are on their way to being answered. The lineup questions? That might take a while. So what now, Aaron Boone?

What now? Now, the guy who has to be the world’s best number eight hitter gets to keep on hitting. And the guy who didn’t bother to tell the team about his lifetime spent battling his debilitating injury gets to find AB where he can.

Is it Just Me?

Seriously, this is really not that hard to figure out. But even the editors at northjersey.com think choosing right now between Drury and Andujar a very close call. By the way, for those of you wondering why I have been drawing attention to headlines versus the article writer, this is the reason.

The article is entitled, Who’s on Third? Yankees’ Drury is on the mend, but Andujar is red hot. Clearly they draw from the same bag of cliches as the good folks over at Newsday. But if you read Pete Caldera’s as always excellent piece, he makes it clear he sees Drury having to find at bats where he can:

Brandon Drury received some answers about his migraines, and the accompanying blurred vision that has bothered him for years. Now, the question is about his role when he returns to the Yankees. During spring training, several MLB scouts remarked that Andujar was already a big-league hitter, a talent that should override the finishing touches he needed defensively. And if he’s here to stay where does Drury find his at-bats?

Kudos to Mr. Caldera. Not so much his editors.