Kevin Thompson
I don’t understand the Yankees fan buzz on the internet to have New York call up minor league OF Kevin Thompson.
He’ll be 26-years-old this September.
He was in A-ball until he was 23. He was stuck in Double-A until this year.
Sure, he hit .282 lifetime in Single A. But, in AA, he’s batted .278 (in his career) to date. And, as of yesterday, he’s been a .239 hitter (albeit in just of handful of games) in AAA.
Notice, as he moves up the chain, even at the incredibly slow pace that he’s using, his numbers go down. Considering the huge talent gap between Triple-A and big league pitching, there’s every reason to believe that he would be over-matched in The Show – and would be of no more use to the Yankees than, say, Bubba Crosby.
Do the Yankees need two Bubba Crosbys?
I think the point was that Kevin Thompson is almost 3 years younger than Crosby and probably his equal or a little better (based on their career minor league numbers). So the argument is not that the Yanks should have both Crosby and Thompson up at the same time, only that if you think Crosby’s shown definitively that he’ll never be an acceptable hitter in the majors, Thompson might as well get a shot.
This issue was more of a concern when Tony Womack was in the lineup every day, of course, but it’ll continue to be in the air as long as there are rumors of Endy Chavez (for example) trades.
Have a suspicion that Cashman will soon be announcing a trade with Colorado that sends them Proctor, Henn and a PTBN for Chacon and Byrnes. Well, it’s slim pickings but there’s not much out there.
Couldn’t hurt to swap Crosby & Thompson on the roster. I’d do it