This was not about the brink of elimination or thanks for the memories. Aaron Boone had determined he would start Brett Gardner in Division Series Game 4 well before a humiliating Game 3 loss to the Red Sox put the Yankees on the brink of the offseason.
The Yankees manager did so for the same reason he tabbed Neil Walker at third base — with the more contact-oriented CC Sabathia starting Tuesday night for New York, Boone wanted better defense in the field, and with righty Rick Porcello starting for Boston, Boone wanted more lefty bats at the plate.
Also, regardless of whether the Yankees were successful in extending their season or not, this was probably not Gardner’s last game with the team. Because even off of his worst season, the Yankees still believe all-around he is a productive player between the lines and a key voice in the clubhouse. That likely will mean his return next year.
Gardner has a $12.5 million 2019 option or a $2 million buyout, so this a $10.5 million decision whether to extend the current longest-tenured Yankee. It is a not a no-brainer. But when you consider what Gardner means to the heartbeat of the team and how the GM has always felt about him, a 12th season for Gardner in pinstripes is a lot more probable, than less.
Remember that in February 2014, when the Yankees and Brian Cashman gave Gardner a four-year, $52 million extension that would begin in 2015 and include the 2019 option, the statistical appreciation for items such as defense and base running were not as fully formed as today. The Yanks had a burgeoning analytics department doing more to quantify these skills, but Cashman also was watching the games, knew the person.
“The bottom line is we liked the player,” Cashman said. “We liked the makeup. We liked the ability. We have bet on him several times over the years and the bets have always paid off because he is an above-average major league player.”
Gardner was easy to root for — the undersized underdog who profiled as a fourth outfielder sticking around to not only start, but play the 25th-most games in Yankee history … and maybe still counting. Gardner mastered the long at-bat, the difficult contours of left field at Yankee Stadium and the nuances of not only being a speedy base runner, but a crafty one.
And as the Core Four headed into retirement, Gardner and Sabathia, in particular, stepped into a leadership capacity — a step facilitated for Gardner by being excuse-free and maximizing his talent, plus simply surviving.
In another era — especially another Yankees era — Gardner would have lacked the star collateral to stick around to score more Yankees runs than Graig Nettles or Paul O’Neill. But the analytic revolution came to appreciate and better statistically gauge defense and base running, and as a baseball operations department so did the Yankees. Plus, this was a player whose intangibles the Yankees admired and appreciated.
“Nothing ever came closer for a trade for him because we always valued him more than the industry, correctly I believe,” Cashman said. “We felt the [trade] attempts were weak because he was very valued here. There were knocks on the door, but it was a head-scratcher for us because he was disruptor on offense, a difference-maker on defense. He has unique skills and we have been lucky he is ours.”
But Gardner is 35 now and just hit .236 with a .690 OPS. Further complicating Gardner’s status is that Jacoby Ellsbury is still due $47.3 million for 2019-20 and — when healthy — he shares many of Gardner’s on-field skills, though none of his leadership assets. But Ellsbury missed all of this season with a torn hip labrum that needed surgery. Clint Frazier missed a good deal of the year after suffering a concussion.
The most probable scenario for 2019 would be Aaron Hicks in center, Aaron Judge in right, Giancarlo Stanton as the primary DH and Gardner and Frazier in a lefty-righty left-field platoon, with Frazier being given a shot to win the job outright. Ellsbury would be the fifth outfielder if the Yankees cannot find a bad-salary-for-bad-salary swap, which becomes more unlikely after Ellsbury’s surgery.
In that scenario, Gardner would be around just in case Frazier fails or is injured again or Ellsbury can’t get on the field. Gardner would have survived yet another year in the Yankees world, the projected fourth outfielder who just turned out to be so much more.