Yankees Editorial: It’s Way Too Early to Judge the Didi Gregorius / Shane Greene Swap

There has been a ton of talk about the three team trade on December 5, 2014 that sent Didi Gregorius to the New York Yankees and Shane Greene to the Detroit Tigers.

Yes, the Tigers look to be the early winners of this blockbuster trade. The 26-year old Shane Greene has looked dominant in his first two starts with the Tigers, going 2-0 without allowing an earned run and pitching through eight innings in both games. Last year with the Yankees Greene went 5-4 in 14 starts with a 3.78 ERA.

Yes, Didi Gregorius is struggling in his Bronx debut. The 25-year old short stop has just four hits in 26 at-bats, he’s made numerous errors on the base path and, while known for his gold glove caliber defense, has not looked particularly comfortable at short.

Naturally, this has thrown Yankee fans into a frenzy! Some people are already trying to declare a winner to this trade, some are calling for Cashman’s head and others are ready to give up on Didi Gregorius.

It’s time for everyone to relax!

This isn’t football. We can’t judge baseball players on the same timeline that we judge football players.

Two starts for Shane Greene and nine games for Didi Gregorius is way too small of a sample size to assume anything. Let’s not forgot that Shane Greene pitches for arguably the best team in baseball and that one of his two starts was against the Minnesota Twins, arguably the worst team in baseball. On a broader spectrum, Shane Greene has only appeared in 17 major league games (16 of which were starts) and has only pitched to a combined 7-4 record with a 3.14 ERA to date. Didi Grerogius on the other hand has only appeared in 29 at-bats for the New York Yankees over a nine game span.

If you think this is enough evidence to judge either player and make a fair assumption to the blockbuster trade over the winter you need a real wake up call. This is baseball, a sport that features a 162-game season for crying out loud! Give both players two months minimum before you can make a fair assessment as to who won this trade, and even that might not be long enough! Look at what happened with the 2012  blockbuster Michael Pineda/ Jesus Montero swap. A winner wasn’t really declared until this season.

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