What Next? Right Field

At the 2006 trade deadline Brian Cashman managed to pull of a trade of Matt Smith and C. J. Henry for Bobby Abreu from the Phillies. The Phillies didn't want to pay him and thought he was in steep decline and got a reliever who had done great in his rookie year in Matt Smith and a former first round pick in C. J. Henry. Since then Henry was released by teh Phillies the past year and resigned by the Yankees and Smith had an 11.25 ERA last year after intially doing well. Abreu was an on base machine in the second half of 2006 and although he struggled at the beginning of 2007 he turned his season around and played well enough to convince the Yankees to pick up his one year 16 million dollar option for 2008.

I would have preferred to see the Yankees pick up his option and then trade him like they did with Sheffield but he shoudl be able to play right-field solidly. Hopefully, he won't get off to the terrible start he had in 2007. His final line was .289/.369/.445/.294 (BA/OBP/SLG%/EQA) but his fear of the walls on defense is annoying. Its gotten so bad that even his great arm can't make up for it.

I don't see him doing much better or worse than last year but I think he might improve a little just because he won't repeat that terrible first half. He`s probably overpaid but not nearly as much as Tori Hunter or any of the other free agent outfielders. He`s flawed but in the end he`ll get the job done.

2007 WARP3- 7.3

Projected 2008 WARP3- 8.0

Wins Gained- .7