Injured Yankees

The Yankees are off to a lackluster start, despite doling out the top salary for yet another MLB season. A big part of the current streak is injuries to top players. Heading the list is Alex Rodriguez ($33,000,000 salary), but Hideki Matsui ($13,000,000), & Xavier Nady ($6,550,000) are also hurting. The combined salaries for these three players is $52,550,000. According to ESPN this is greater than the total team salary for 4 MLB teams (Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics, Tampa Bay Rays, & Florida Marlins). Today, this leaves the Yankees starting Melky Cabrera in left field ($1,400,000), Brett Gardner in center field ($414,000), & Ramiro Pena at third base ($400,000). So the team with the $200+ million dollar payroll has the bottom third of the batting lineup paid a combined $2,214,000. Salary is of course not directly indicative of talent (MLB players cannot reap benefits of free agency nor salary arbitration until years of service achieved), however in this case it happens to coincide with a dearth of talent for Cabrera, Gardner, & Pena. From MLB games played (424 , 53, & 9) to career HR (24 , 0, & 0) to career batting average (.268, .263, & .143), these three players are not very productive. They could not be further from the players they replace; Rodriguez, Matsui, & Nady have much better careers from MLB games played (2042, 783, & 679) to career HR (553, 113, & 87) to career batting average (.306, .293, & .280). It will be a very long season if things continue this way.