Dan Johnson, Come On Down...

You're the next contestant on "2013 New York Yankees Quad-A Bench Competition!!"



Sweeny Murti had the story via Twitter, and the Yankees now have another candidate for a spot on this year's bench.  Johnson is a 33-year-old lefty swinger who can play first base but for the Yankees' purposes would be best-suited as a lefty platoon DH.  He's bounced back and forth between the Majors and Triple-A since 2005, and has a career .237/.338/.412 Major League slash line (.329 wOBA) in over 1,500 PA, but has seen his overall production decline from '05 to present day.

Johnson brings good power to the table, and has very strong BB and K rates, but his defensive limitations and recent down trending production makes him a less-than-desirable option as a platoon/bench player.  At best, he captures some magic and gets some big hits as part of the early-season bench corps.  At worst, he's organizational depth who can continue to do what he's always done and mash at Triple-A.  Nothing to get excited about, but then again it's not like the Yankees are trying to be exciting right now.

Checking In With Wally Matthews

If this offseason were "Inception," we'd all be in limbo right now.  Just an endless string of nothingness.  The biggest news in Yankeeland yesterday was that Scott Hairston signed with the Chicago Cubs for 2 years.  Second biggest story- the Yanks are apparently not interested in free agent catcher George Kottaras even though he makes a a lot of sense for them.  That's how boring it is right now.  The biggest Yankee-related story didn't even involve the Yankees, and both of the biggest stories revolved around them doing nothing.  Hachi machi, that's bad.

But fear not, Yankee fans.  Because Wally Matthews is kicking off his countdown to Spring Training, and he's doing it as only Wally Matthews can.  By trolling the crap out of Alex Rodriguez.  I wish I was kidding.