A New Year's resolution: To not have to talk about left field anymore

So far Brian Cashman has followed through on one-third of my dream offseason plan -- the bringing Nick Johnson back component. At this point the Yankees apparently have no further interest in Ben Sheets, and it appears that the Cardinals are about to lock Matt Holliday up.

Since the Javy Vazquez trade it's been all left field all the time in Yankeeland, and I'm just as tired of talking about it as you are. Unfortunately, there's little else to set our sights on given the way the rest of the team is presently constricted for 2010. Rather than waste 1,000 words analyzing a situation that none of us truly know the ultimate resolution to, I'm just going to present a quick list of the remaining available left fielders that have been linked to the Yankees (which is basically every available left fielder):

	2010 BJ wOBA	2010 SG wOBA
Marlon Byrd	.335	.328
Johnny Damon	.348	.339
Jermaine Dye	.350	.337
Reed Johnson	.312	.313
Xavier Nady	.347	.349
Marcus Thames	.338	.320

The name that surprised me the most here was actually Xavier Nady. I've never been much of a Nady fan, but I'd love to be able to get close to a .350 wOBA out of left with passable defense. Not that Nady is a defensive wizard by any stretch, but he seems to be able to play a reasonable enough left field. Pinstripe Posts endorses bringing Nady back, but as Chris from iYankees points out, despite Nady missing nearly all of 2009 his asking price is apparently too high for the Yanks. Still, what kind of negotiating power could Nady really have? It's not even clear whether he'll be ready for the start of the season.

Here's what the Yankees' in-house options for left are projected to do:

	2010 BJ wOBA	2010 SG wOBA
Brett Gardner	.347	.321
Jamie Hoffman		.305

Bill James doesn't have a projection for Hoffman, but I can't imagine it would be much better than .305. It's great that James thinks Gardner can perform at a near-.350 wOBA level, but I have a feeling SG's .321 is a more accurate reflection of what we'll get out of Gardner. Of course, we also have to remember that James' version of wOBA reflects stolen bases, which probably accounts for the significant disparity between the Gardner projections.

The Yankees can probably get by with Gardner starting in left, but it's far from an ideal situation. With Jason Bay and Holliday off the market, and the number of teams with a need for a left fielder shrinking, I still wouldn't be surprised to see the Yankees work something out with either Johnny Damon or perhaps Nady.