Yankees Need to Come to Grips With Jacoby Ellsbury

Entering his fourth season as a member of the Yankees, the club needs to come to grips with the fact that Jacoby Ellsbury isn’t going to get any better.

Seven seasons. That’s how long Jacoby Ellsbury spent with the Red Sox. In that time, the current Yankees center fielder hit .297/.350/.439 with 65 HR, 314 RBI, scored 476 runs and stole 241 bases in 287 attempts.

Yet for all the times he absolutely drove the Yankees mad, Ellsbury only made one All-Star team. That was in 2011, the lone time he hit over nine home runs or drove in 60 RBI in a season for the Sox. The fleet-footed outfielder (who no longer steals bases with any regularity) had himself a career year, .321/.376/.552, 32 HR, and 105 RBI. And this was a full two years before he signed with the Yanks for 7-years/$153M.

Was the organization so mad at Robinson Cano‘s asking price that they decided to throw an ungodly amount of cash at a 30-year-old outfielder with no arm and a penchant for getting injured?

The unwritten rule is that you never give an outfielder who relies on speed to make things happen a large contract once they’ve reached their age 30-season. Once the legs go, so does their most valuable skill set. Just look at the Pirates moving Andrew McCutcheon to a corner outfield spot this season. At least Cutch can still drive in runs.

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To this day, I honestly feel Ellsbury’s signing was a way of getting back at Cano while at the same time inflicting some level of pain on the division rival Red Sox, as much as it was about securing a capable leadoff hitter.

So when I read speculative articles that ask how the Yankees can rid themselves of Ellsbury’s albatross of a contract I just laugh. No team in their right mind is going to touch his remaining 4-years/$84M — not even if the Yanks ate half of it. 75 percent, maybe. But that’s ludicrous.

And while I totally get that he’s been less than average during his three seasons in the Bronx, do you really think in your right mind that Joe Girardi would platoon a guy making $21.1M this season? Even it were the only logical conclusion, there’s no way upper management would allow it. Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman are perched in their luxury boxes praying Ellsbury catches lightning in a bottle and some wide-eyed team makes them an offer they can’t refuse.

If the Yankees were to drop him in the lineup to ninth, and Brett Gardner continues to lead off, you are still technically batting two lefties back-to-back. Manager Joe Girardi already said this won’t happen in 2017.

Ellsbury turns 34 in September, so it’s safe to say he won’t steal north of 25 bases in a season ever again. He’s under the magic 75 percent success rate for base stealers since coming to New York.

Yes, he can become a smarter base runner, much like Alex Rodriguez did in his twilight, but this guy is the closest thing baseball has to Tony Romo. Every time Ellsbury dives into a bag, Yankees fans hold their breath, waiting for him to stand upright without grimacing in pain.

On Wednesday in Tampa, Ellsbury relayed his hopes for the upcoming season to the New York Post.

"“I am always trying to get better every season. Continue to do the little things in the offseason and continue into spring training,’’ Ellsbury said. “I worked hard this offseason and hope it pays off.’’"

So do we, Jacoby. But at the end of the day, this is the Ellsbury all Yankees fans should have known we were inheriting. I’m not saying he pulled a Brady Anderson (formerly of the Orioles — Anderson hit 50 home runs in 1996, never to surpass 24 again), but players generally don’t get better with age (Barry Bonds excluded).

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The Yankees overpaid a slightly above-average player. We need to come to grips with that. This isn’t the NFL — his money is guaranteed whether he’s released or not. Sadly, Ellsbury doesn’t have to play any better — or give the media eloquent quips about his struggles. And don’t bring up integrity. I’ll give you 153 million reasons why integrity doesn’t matter a whole lot to millionaires.

Sure, Yankees fans want Ellsbury to at bat .290 with 15 HR, 70 RBI, steal 25 bases, play sparkling defense and be the ultimate table-setter this season. But it would appear those days are long gone.