Eating salary has never been an issue with the New York Yankees and I presume nothing has changed in 2010. That is why I am proposing the Yanks take a long look and consider replacing Randy Winn with Kevin Russo.

Russo would be a great addition to this team for off the field reasons. He is a local kid from West Babylon and would make for a great story on a team of stars. I always hated how the Yankees would have to plug a Kenny Lofton on the bench instead of giving a younger player a chance. No Mike Francesa, you don’t need $10 million dollars to field a competitive bench. What you need are versatile players who can hit and Russo fits that mold.

Its clear Randy Winn can’t catch up to many fastballs anymore. He was in decline the last couple of years in San Francisco. A league executive told NYBD contributor Frank Russo that Winn probably would need to play every day in order to be effective. To his credit, Winn has a few good moments while starting, but not enough to believe he is a viable replacement or quality bat off the bench. Do the Yankees need a ton of defense when Granderson and Gardner are in the outfield together? Is Swisher so bad in right that you need Winn as a defensive replacement? I know he UZR, but what good was he against Jeremy Hermida the other night?

NYBD contributor Jed Weisberger, must to some fan dissatisfaction, ranked Russo 7th on our Top 50 Yankees Prospect List calling him “Brett Gardner type, but a solid infielder with more power.” It’s going to be hard to crack the Yankees lineup with Jeter and Cano up the middle, but if he can play some left field he could essentially replace Winn on the roster. At Scranton this year he played all three outfield positions and looked fine playing spacious Citi Field last night. The big difference is, unlike Winn, the man can hit putting up career .763 OPS during his minor league career. You saw that last night with his 2 hits and game winning RBI versus the Mets.

Let’s not get caught up in names. Randy Winn is a good ballplayer in name only. The back of the baseball card won’t help the Yankees this year. Kevin Russo is a young kid who can hit and fill in at multiple positions. If not for the defense of Ramiro Pena he very well could have made the opening day roster.

Releasing Winn would require eating a little over a million dollars. I think keeping Russo on the roster would be well worth it.



Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host since March of 2007. This website is his own personal "digest" of New York Baseball He's also hosts NYBD Radio on Blog Talk Radio and 1240 AM WGBB. Check out his sports media commentary at www.sportsmediawatchdog.com. Check out his official website, www.mikesilvamedia.com

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Tags: Kevin Russo, New York Yankees, Randy Winn