Do the Yankees Need to Upgrade Their Outfield?

While they have no shortage of quantity, the New York Yankees should look to upgrade the quality of their starting outfield options for 2017.

The New York Yankees outfield has certainly been an area of depth for the team the last few years. The team had so many quality, MLB-ready outfielders at the beginning of this season that some of them struggled to get playing time in Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre, let along the Bronx.

The team has thinned the herd this year by releasing Slade Heathcott and trading Ben Gamel, but things still look a little crowded, with Brett Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Rob Refsnyder, Mason Williams, Tyler Austin, Jake Cave, and Clint Frazier all pushing for big league playing time next year.

The problem is that, for the most part, none of those guys hit particularly well this season, at least not in the big leagues. Gardner and Ellsbury were two of the three most valuable Yankees position players by Baseball-Reference’s wins above replacement metric with a combined 5.8 WAR, but most of that value came from their gloves, not their bats.

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Aside from rookie Gary Sanchez, who has played 51 games in the big leagues as of this writing, the Yankees don’t have a clearly above-average power bat penciled into their 2017 lineup. Greg Bird looked like that guy during his brief run in 2015, but counting on similar production from a guy who just missed a full season following shoulder surgery would be foolhardy.

Aaron Judge is probably their best hope of emerging as that much-needed second big bat next year, but man did he look like a mess in his MLB debut. His 44.2% strikeout rate is not going to come down overnight. The best case scenario for Judge in 2017 probably has him striking out 30% of the time and socking 30 homers, which has value, but is still a very flawed player.

Aaron Hicks continues to flash enticing tools, but he is turning 27 on Sunday and has 367 career games as of this writing. He’s hardly a prospect anymore and was pretty consistently terrible at the plate in 2016.

Mason Williams is another glove-first guy who is probably better suited to be a fourth outfielder, Rob Refsnyder probably should be playing second, and Clint Frazier has a lot to prove in Triple-A before he even enters to conversation for a job with the Yankees.

New York has the third worst slugging percentage in the American League at .406 coming into Friday night and the second worst OPS+ at 91. The outfield seems like an obvious area to upgrade, despite general manager Brian Cashman’s recent assertion that they won’t seek any outside help this winter.

While the upcoming free agent market is weak overall, it does feature a particularly strong crop of outfielders, with Jose Bautista, Yoenis Cespedes, Matt Holliday, Michael Saunders, Brandon Moss, and Ian Desmond as the headliners. Any of that group would go a long way towards boosting the club’s offense back towards respectability.

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Dealing Gardner would help offset the cost of the new contract and also leave a spot open for the winner of the Judge/Hicks/Williams competition next spring. When Frazier is ready, the big bat the Yankees brought in can slide to DH.