Yankees trade for Giancarlo Stanton brings odd response from Bill Madden

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Before I wrap this up, a quick word about some of the comments sections from disparate articles, and disparate sources. I understand hating the Yankees, and I understand hating this move. I know how many Yankees fans felt last year when the Red Sox added Chris Sale.

Of course, I can understand taking a pessimistic point of view; you’re not meant to be neutral observers. But those of you who are suggesting this is automatically a bad move for the Yankees have really lost all sense of reality. And some of those saying these things are Yankees fans.

I’m not saying it has to work out, or that the Yanks will win anything with Stanton. However, to suggest that adding Stanton’s strikeouts to Aaron Judge’s will absolutely be a disaster seems a bit of an overreach. It’s a perspective with little connection to reality.

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The point of view seems to suggest that the Yankees and Judge were not that good last year. And now they are going to add a guy who strikes out a lot. Oh my god, that sounds like the Mets are adding Chris Carter.

But, in reality, the Yankees were good enough to get to game seven of the ALCS. Baseball observers, meanwhile, thought Judge was just good enough to win Rookie of the Year, and be runner up for MVP. Even with all of those destructive strikeouts.

To that, they are adding a four-time All-Star, home run derby runner-up, and reigning National League MVP for his age 28 season. And that is supposed to make them worse, automatically? Yep, that sounds like the most likely outcome.

And these detractors could be correct. But to say this absolutely and automatically makes the Yankees worse is just, well, a bit bizarre. I don’t remember anybody predicting the demise of the Red Sox when they signed Sale. You know why? Because that would have been really, really stupid.

Next: Yankees and Major League Baseball Arrive at a Crossroads

What does seem likely is that the Yankees season will at least start with great optimism. And while that’s true for Mr. Law, it is most definitely not true for Messrs. Kepner, Madden, and Nightengale.

But at least Yankees fans won’t have to look up the definition of a curmudgeon as they can just read the columns written by these three.

Or not.