The blueprint for escaping Ellsbury’s onerous contract
TAMPA — Let’s start this discussion by not being silly: The endgame arrives when Jacoby Ellsbury gets traded. No road map that will get the $153 million center fielder a plaque in Monument Park exists. The goal should be to turn Ellsbury — who addressed the media Wednesday for the first time in 2017 at George M. Steinbrenner Field after staying home for the birth of his second child — into his 2013-14 winter classmate Brian McCann: an underwhelming but not awful acquisition who departed — with financial assistance from the Yankees, in return for a couple of interesting pieces — to make room for a more exciting youngster.
Ellsbury makes more money than McCann, he doesn’t possess anywhere as good a clubhouse reputation and he plays a less valuable position. Nevertheless, with young outf ielders Dustin Fowler and Clint Frazier plus athletes like Jorge Mateo and Tyler Wade on the horizon, Ellsbury does no good clogging a spot as the Yankees try to construct another perennial contender, especially with the superior Brett Gardner (under team control through 2019) around to help and free-agent-to-be Bryce Harper available for ’19 as well.
The Yankees created this hurdle for themselves when they signed Ellsbury three-plus years ago to a deal that had most baseball folks, including Ellsbury’s previous employers in Boston, raising their eyebrows in disbelief. Now that hurdle must be leapt.
Here’s how the Yankees and Ellsbury must plan their escape from each other:
1. Have the talk now. Rebuilding teams often sit down with players owning no-trade clauses, as Ellsbury does, and discuss the future. The Yankees, not quite rebuilding yet definitely not all in, should get that ball rolling by sitting down with Ellsbury and asking him to ponder where else, if anywhere, he’d like to play. Perhaps the contending Mariners, closest to his native Oregon? If a trade market for Ellsbury develops during the season, both he and the Yankees should be ready to roll.
2. Platoon him. Last year, Ellsbury slashed .247/.292/.326 against lefty pitchers in 196 plate appearances. That marked a downgrade from his .253/.327/.325 showing in 173 plate appearances in 2015. Limit his starts to those against right-handers, against whom he slashed .271/.347/.397 last season. The Yankees can give Aaron Hicks more opportunities against southpaws, last year’s awful results notwithstanding, or they can start Matt Holliday in left field and move Gardner to center field.
3. Hit him ninth. The Post’s Joel Sherman proposed this a few days ago, and it makes a great deal of sense. This move, like the rest of these suggestions, carries the potential residual benefit of alerting Ellsbury that he needs to do better. Like platooning him, it would put Ellsbury in optimal situations to succeed.
4. Work on his stolenbase efficiency. It doesn’t feel realistic to ask Ellsbury, who turns 34 in September, to turn back into the speedster he was four years ago. What stands out most, though, is not his decline in stolen bases, but rather how much worse he has become at it. After going 52-for-56 in 2013, his final year with the Red Sox, he dipped to 21-for-30 in 2015 and 20-for-28 last year, falling short of the desired 75 percent floor in each campaign. How about a tutorial with guest instructor Alex Rodriguez, who stole 329 bases in 405 attempts (81.2 percent) and went a perfect 7-for-7 in his final two seasons?
5. Work on his ad-libs. Though a player’s media-relations skills don’t rank among the top considerations, they absolutely mean something. Ellsbury is always polite and respectful, rarely accessible and virtually never selfcritical. Surely you can theorize that Ellsbury needs to approach his media responsibilities that way in order to maintain his confidence on the field. Yet it rubs folks the wrong way when you never fall on your sword. Ellsbury can find a Yankees mentor in CC Sabathia, one of the most accountable players you’ll ever meet.
With this five-step program, the Yankees can turn Ellsbury into a more marketable commodity and, in the process, upgrade his pinstriped legacy from sour to … well … slightly musty.