SHOULD GRANDERSON CONTINUE TO BE THE LEAD OFF GUY?

BYB had a piece recently talking about a lineup shake up...read YANKEES NEED A LINEUP SHAKE UP! Then, on Friday, Girardi made a move too, placing Curtis Granderson in the lead off position.

And sure, while Granderson went 0-5 last night in Detroit, I honestly like the idea of  Grandy in the lead off spot. It helps break up Grandy and Robbie, two left handed hitters. Breaking up the lefty hitters is important because it causes the opposing manger to use the left-handed pitchers in their bullpen more conservatively in later innings. With ARod out, I like the idea of Grandy hitting before Derek Jeter, allowing for Robbie Cano to hit third. Do I think he should stay there? Only if he delivers, after all, you don't want to have an experiment run too long in August. Clearly if he's not performing, you can't stick with a bad thing.  All I'm saying is Grandy could be the spark the Yankees need...once he gets out of this horrendous slump. Then again, quite simply...maybe he just needs a few days off and we try again.  Something is definitely in his head right now.

One of the questions I have seen asked the most is “Why isn’t Joe using Ichiro as the lead-off man?” While Ichiro is still playing really well in the outfield, he isn’t the hitter he used to be. With the lead off man, you want to make sure you have someone who is the most likely to get on base, giving the other hitters a chance to get an RBI. Ichiro has a .288 overall OBP this season. Grandy’s overall OBP is .335.

It is true that Jeter has been doing well in the lead off position so far. But it shouldn’t be a given that he'll always be the lead off hitter, especially when there needs to be a change. After all, there was a time before Jeter was the lead off hitter and as his career progresses he may very well continue to move down in the line-up. The fact is that we face a lot of righty pitchers.  Against right-handed pitchers, Grandy does better than Jeter.  So, why not give Granderson the opportunity to get on base and let Jeter get the RBI?

I’m not going to say that this is the best line-up possible, Lord knows you see Curtis struggling and you disagree with this post, so yeah, maybe it will work and maybe it won’t. But considering the way we had been performing, we had to do something. Grandy has the numbers of a lead off hitter. And hey, nothing is set in stone. If it doesn’t work, Joe can always go back to the drawing board and start again.
 

--Erica Morales, BYB Writer




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