Stay away from OBJ
Multiple factors make WR a poor fit for Jets
WHEN THE ESPN report about Aaron Rodgers’ free agency “wish list” for the Jets hit last week, most of the names were unsurprising because of their ties to Rodgers, but the last one on the list was very interesting — Odell Beckham Jr.
Fans in New York know Beckham well from his time with the Giants when he became a star and also found himself making headlines for things off the field. Beckham is a free agent now, waiting on a team to sign him. Should the Jets be that team? “Who wouldn’t want Odell on their team?” Rodgers said last week on “The Pat McAfee Show.” Rodgers clarified he was not giving the Jets a list of demands but he had had conversations with them about players they should think about targeting.
It is not an easy answer with Beckham. When healthy, he is still very talented but he missed all of last season after tearing his ACL in February 2022 in the Super Bowl with the Rams. He tried to sell teams on signing him late last season and some felt misled about his readiness. He ultimately did not sign then.
Beckham had a workout recently that the Jets attended. Videos showed him running well and making his trademark circus catches.
For the Jets, I think this decision comes down to three factors:
1. The cost: There has been speculation that Beckham could be seeking $20 million a year, an absurd figure for a player coming off a serious injury late in his career. Beckham took to Twitter to say that is not true, but he also is not playing for $4 million a year.
“I’m just so confused where the quote is from me tht said I want 20…..[crying and eye roll emojis] all I’m sayin is 4 AINT enough,” Beckham tweeted.
People in the NFL believe that Beckham’s asking price is too high right now and he is going to have to wait a while before someone signs him.
The Jets are keeping tabs on Beckham and if the price is right, general manager Joe Douglas could sign Beckham in June or July. Douglas has made some late free-agent additions that have paid off such as Morgan Moses two years ago and Kwon Alexander and Duane Brown last year.
Whatever contract Beckham gets, it surely will be filled with incentives.
2. The fit: The Jets have to figure out what they’d be getting at this point from Beckham. Is he more name than game?
Beckham will turn 31 during the 2023 season. He has only played 20 games over the past three seasons. In 2021, he had 44 catches for 537 yards and five touchdowns in 13 games with the Browns and Rams. In 2020, he had 23 catches for 319 yards and three touchdowns in seven games. You have to go back to 2019 for his last 1,000-yard season.
The last time he was on the field, Beckham made an impact. He had 21 catches for 288 yards and two touchdowns in four playoff games for the Rams in the 2021 playoffs. He had a strong start to the Super Bowl before tearing his ACL.
The Jets’ wide receiver room looks like this right now: Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard, Elijah Moore and Denzel Mims. Rodgers reportedly has also pushed for the Jets to sign Randall Cobb.
Where does Beckham fit and how does it impact Wilson and Moore? Those are the questions the Jets have to figure out. The Jets would love to get someone to stretch the field and create more favorable matchups for Wilson, but is Beckham that guy anymore? We all saw how Moore reacted last year when he was not getting the ball and asked for a trade. If Beckham joins the Jets, are there enough footballs for everyone?
The roles of Wilson and Lazard would probably not be affected by Beckham, but Moore’s role could diminish.
3. The drama: Look, the Jets are already signing up for drama by bringing in Rodgers in 2023. It shows that they are all-in on this season and willing to deal with what comes with having a great quarterback.
Drama follows Beckham wherever he goes. He had an incident on an airplane in November and everyone remembers his wars with kicking nets and locker room walls with the Giants.
Douglas and coach Robert Saleh have prioritized character since they have been with the Jets. Beckham does not seem like their type of player.
THE VERDICT: I would stay away from Beckham. It feels like too much risk for a player who is now 30 and coming off his second major knee injury. The Jets have a good, young wide receiver room. Don’t mess with it.
TAMPA — Some black out in moments like these, but Ian Hamilton remembers exactly what he saw.
“I saw the ball right there,” the Yankees’ bullpen hopeful said. “And then I saw the end of my year.”
And he remembers what he felt on June 4, 2019, when the thenWhite Sox prospect briefly looked down — “for maybe two seconds” — to pour a handful of sunflower seeds into his hand. While Hamilton was in the Triple-A Charlotte dugout, a foul ball was blasted into his face and set off a spiderweb of facial fractures.
He felt the roof of his mouth rip open. He felt several front teeth get dislodged — some hitting the back of his throat. Before he could process what had happened or the flood of blood exploding from his face, he felt the team’s trainer “punch me in the face with a towel.”
Thus began a nightmarish few years from which Hamilton is just beginning to wake up.
Hamilton, one of the Yankees’ spring standouts who has a legitimate shot at a bullpen spot, first required surgery to sew up the roof of his mouth, then had to wait three weeks before doctors could begin follow-up operations. He said he needed eight surgeries over the next two years to repair a jaw, mouth and teeth that were destroyed. He missed the rest of the 2019 campaign and somehow reached the majors with the White Sox for four games in 2020, when he tried to pitch through severe discomfort.
“It was terrible,” the 27-yearold righty said recently of the brief 2020 campaign. “Fake teeth were coming out when I was drinking water. I was constantly clenching my jaw so nothing [would fall out].”
He could not take real bites out of food and had to test what he could eat and what he could not. He “was just mushing everything” and waiting impatiently for permanent teeth to be installed, which did not occur until 2021.
“Last year and this year is the most comfortable I’ve been since that happened,” Hamilton said. “I’m getting more comfortable.” On the mound, too.
In 6 ¹/₃ spring innings, Hamilton has yet to allow a run and has struck out four. He not only can eat, drink and sleep better, but he believes he is mixing his pitches better this spring than in past years. He is leaning more on a pitch he calls a changeup and sometimes registers as a cutter or slider, which has induced many awkward swings.
He rarely threw the pitch in his big-league time with the White Sox or in one game with the Twins last year.
“They like [the changeup] here. Everyone else hated it,” said Hamilton, who also throws a low-to-mid-90s fastball. “They wanted me to throw other stuff, but they like it here.”
“They” includes manager Aaron Boone, who said after Hamilton’s spring debut: “Wow. … That pitch, it’s different.”
Through injuries to Lou Trivino and Tommy Kahnle, there are spots open in the Yankees’ bullpen. Boone acknowledged Sunday that the 40-man roster status will “always” play a factor in the club’s decision-making, and Hamilton is a non-roster invite to camp.
Hamilton can be optioned to the minors, but he has made a strong case as a reliever pleased with his stuff and his health.
“I kind of feel like the old guy here,” Hamilton said. “But it just kind of feels like: All right, here’s the path that I’m supposed to be on.”
TAMPA — After finishing batting practice in Dunedin, Fla., prior to a game against the Blue Jays on Saturday, Giancarlo Stanton hung around the field. He watched Aaron Judge finish up his work and then walked alongside Judge, the two talking as they headed toward the locker room. Judge, with the outside track, faced the screams of fans and critics who were asking for autographs or pictures or recognition.
Stanton, quite literally, had stepped into Judge’s shadow and received little notice. One of the biggest sluggers on the planet, a 6-foot-6 giant who would stand out seemingly anywhere, is able to escape at least some attention with the Yankees because another one of the biggest sluggers on the planet has become a face of not just the team but the game.
“I think he probably likes that,” hitting coach Dillon Lawson said recently of Stanton. “His personality style is to be under the radar.”
If Stanton stays healthy this season, there would be a strong chance his game would make him harder to overlook.
The 33-year-old is quietly having a solid (if homer-less) Grapefruit League season and has shown peeks of his regular-season form: His 118.6 mph single on Thursday would have been the seventh hardest-hit ball in all of baseball last season.
Manager Aaron Boone repeatedly has harped on the need to keep Stanton healthy. Due to a litany of injuries, Stanton has played a little over half of the Yankees’ regular-season games over the past four seasons — 290 of a possible 546 — and even when he has been in the lineup, nagging injuries often have affected his swing or kept him out of the outfield.
If he does manage to avoid the injured list for the first time since 2018?
“I think that if he stays healthy and Judge stays healthy, you’re looking at potentially 100 home runs between them,” Lawson said. “Giancarlo has a skill set that is unmatched.
“Even with Judge, Big G actually has a little bit more bat speed than someone who just hit 60plus home runs and is obviously capable of doing that [himself].”
In his MVP season of 2017, Stanton smacked 59 homers with the Marlins but has not approached the total since. He hit 38 home runs in 2018, when he and Judge both received MVP votes and debuted as the Yankees’ version of the Bash Brothers.
Last year, Stanton was terrific for the first three months of the season, when he blasted 19 home runs in 63 games and posted an .858 OPS. An Achilles injury then knocked him on the injured list and appeared to bother him the rest of the year, relegating him to the DH slot in August and September.
Judge, in crushing an AL-record 62 home runs last season and turning a historic campaign into a $360 million contract and the title of Yankees captain, became the focus of opposing pitchers, media and fans.
“I don’t look at it like that,” Stanton said when asked if attention paid to Judge helps him. “I don’t have that focus. We have a very big responsibility for this team and the city to help us win every night, and it’s just the ultimate goal.”
The goal for the Yankees will be to have Stanton in the lineup as much as possible. He played right field for the third time Sunday, and Boone wants him in the outfield for both lineup flexibility and health reasons: The Yankees believe the physical requirements in sometimes playing the outfield will help Stanton’s body stay active and healthy.
Boone has said a healthy Stanton would lead to a “massive” season — perhaps for both himself and Judge.
“Stanton having Judge helps Stanton. But Judge having Stanton helps Judge, too” Lawson said before referencing Stanton’s 2017 flirtation with home run history. “Big G had that experience; knew what it was like to be in a home run race.
“How many people on the planet could understand what it is to do what they do?”
For his part, Stanton did not want to make any predictions or state any individual goals. Entering Year 5 in The Bronx, he only has one.
“Championship. That’s it,” Stanton said. “You can’t skip to that. Everything before that has to go well, and you have to take those steps to get there.”