Brett Gardner, Clint Frazier build bond while competing
In Brett Gardner’s mind, he’s a starter, even though he knows the New York Yankees project him as Clint Frazier’s backup in left field.
“I’ve always kind of gone into it with the mindset of having to fight for playing time, whether it was a young guy trying to beat out a guy like Melky Cabera or Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher, even guy like Bobby Abreu,” the 37-year-old Gardner said Thursday at spring training.
Gardner, the longest-tenured Yankee, returned for a 14th season with a contract finalized Tuesday. He mentors the 26-year-old Frazier, who last year put behind a 2018 spring training concussion and vastly improved his defense.
“He’s such a good teammate. He’s such a jokester, like he’s a little kid,” Frazier said. “I swear he’s more immature than I am. He makes you feel comfortable, and he makes everyone around him better. There is still things that
he can teach me as a player, teach me as a man moving forward.”
Gardner is the last link to the Yankees’ 2009 title. He hit .223 with five homers and 15 RBIs in 130 at-bats last year, rebounding after a slump that sunk his average at .169 at the start of September. He batted .369 (7 for 19) in the playoffs.
“I’m planning on playing every day,” he said. “And obviously that’s not realistic. And I know that’s not going to happen. But we’ve seen in the past guys getting hurt and things don’t always go as planned.”
While 5-foot-11, he has power and often was the only left-handed hitter in the batting order last year, at times joined by switch-hitting Aaron Hicks. Gardner jokes with Aaron Judge about his pop.
“I tell him all the time, if I was 6-7, 275 pounds, can you imagine how far I would hit the baseball?” Gardner said. “I told him I might hit 80 home runs a year if I was as big as he is.”
Frazier, too, is in a mood to yuck it up after years of adversity. Acquired from Cleveland in the July 2016 deal for reliever Andrew Miller, he has overcome cockiness, a collision with an outfield wall at Bradenton in 2018 and defense that reached a low point against Boston in June 2019 when he misplayed balls off the bat of Eduardo Núñez, Andrew Benintendi and Michael Chavis.
“A lot of expectations there, I think some unfair expectations,” Gardner said. “And when you have a young kid, just drafted out of high school, you forget that he hasn’t had a lot of time to develop necessarily in the minor leagues. And it’s hard being away from home for the first time and things like that. So I think that coming over to the team, it just took him a minute to get comfortable and to be himself.”
Frazier was demoted to the alternate training site after the second game last season, on July 25. He returned Aug. 11 and came into his own.
“I didn’t feel like I was looking over my shoulder the entire time wondering how many more days do I have until I have to take a black car down to Scranton,” he said.
Frazier finished with a .267 average, eight homers and 26 RBIs in 131 at-bats. He joined Baltimore’s Anthony Santander and Texas’ Joey Gallo as finalists for AL Gold Glove in right field.