We used to have a lot of these ongoing head to head arguments/discussions in the Yankee section: Cano/Pedroia, CC/Lester, Melky/Coco Crisp, even Swisher/about to retire JD Drew, and in this thread there's a bit of Gardner/Ellsbury:
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/62452-brett-gardner-still-no-respect/
Now that they are teammates and both signed long deals in the offseason, and with Gardner's recent power surge (he is tied for 2nd in MLB in HRs since July 1 with 8), I was curious to broach it again. If you could choose one at equal salaries for 2015-2017, who would you take?
Also with Gardner being a better defensive CF and a decidedly better hitter so far this year, I think that if their contracts were switched, maybe Gardner would be in CF and batting 3rd by now. Admittedly this power surge is recent and out of the blue, but also Ellsbury at leadoff could steal even more ahead of the Black Hole of Suck in the #2 spot, hopefully stay out of some DPs. Gardner is probably just as fast, but not nearly as good of a base stealer.
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/62452-brett-gardner-still-no-respect/
Now that they are teammates and both signed long deals in the offseason, and with Gardner's recent power surge (he is tied for 2nd in MLB in HRs since July 1 with 8), I was curious to broach it again. If you could choose one at equal salaries for 2015-2017, who would you take?
Also with Gardner being a better defensive CF and a decidedly better hitter so far this year, I think that if their contracts were switched, maybe Gardner would be in CF and batting 3rd by now. Admittedly this power surge is recent and out of the blue, but also Ellsbury at leadoff could steal even more ahead of the Black Hole of Suck in the #2 spot, hopefully stay out of some DPs. Gardner is probably just as fast, but not nearly as good of a base stealer.