Boras, Cashman: Ellsbury still good enough to start
Barring a trade that would be difficult to make because of several hurdles, Jacoby Ellsbury will arrive at spring training more than willing to reclaim the starting centerfield job he lost a year ago.
“Jacoby likes New York, likes the Yankees and feels he is an everyday player,’’ Ellsbury’s agent Scott Boras said Thursday by phone. “The idea of moving isn’t in the mainstream for him.’’
Former manager Joe Gi- rardi opted to start Aaron Hicks in center field over Ellsbury in the postseason, which relegated the 34-yearold Ellsbury to DH, pinchhitting and pinch-running duties.
Now, with the acquisition of Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees have five players for three outfield spots with the DH also to come from that group. General manager Brian Cashman said Ellsbury isn’t automatically an expensive bench player.
“He’s going to come in and compete to take his job back. There was a job that was taken from him during the regular season. I think that he had been playing really well for us until the concussion, and then that took him down for a period of time and then it took him a time to get back and find his stride,’’ Cashman said during the Winter Meetings. “When Hicks went down with the rib cage, [Ellsbury] was one of the reasons we were able to hold off everybody else in terms of the wild card because he excelled. He was one of our best hitters in August and first two weeks of September. I think he’s intending to try to find a way to take that job back.”
No mention of Ellsbury and the Yankees can be made without acknowledging the $68.4 million that is owed to him across the next three seasons or the blanket no-trade clause in the deal.
The money and the notrade language are the biggest obstacles to a deal no matter how much of Ellsbury’s dollars the Yankees are willing to eat.
According to Boras, people should remember the type of season Ellsbury was having when he crashed into Yankee Stadium’s center-field wall on May 24 and suffered a concussion that kept him out until June 26.
“He had a [.771] OPS and [was] playing very well,’’ Boras said of Ellsbury who was batting .281 with a .349 onbase percentage and a .422 slugging percentage when he was injured. “He shouldn’t have come back as early as he did. He had blurry vision.’’
Ellsbury’s first 23 games (19 starts) off the DL didn’t go well.
He hit .169 (12-for-71) with a .272 on-base percentage and .497 OPS. However, from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30 when the Yankees chased the Red Sox for the AL East title and secured the top AL wild-card spot, Ellsbury hit .293 with a .384 on-base percentage and a .850 OPS in 50 games (39 starts).