Add Curtis Granderson to the growing list of Yankees' home run hitters from last season's first place team that will not be in the lineup on Opening Day. The outfielder was drilled on the arm during his first spring training at-bat by J.A. Happ of the Blue Jays and suffered a fractured forearm which will keep him out of action until early May, according to reports. Granderson is the leading home run hitter in all of baseball over the last two seasons.
After being hit, Granderson took first despite being in obvious pain, but was then removed from the game. 28-year-old Ronnier Mustelier, who hit .301 with 10 home runs and 49 RBI in Triple-A last year, replaced Granderson. In his five stops throughout the Yankees' farm system, Mustelier has not hit under .300 once, and his lowest on-base percentage was .354 in rookie ball. It is not clear what Mustelier's chances of making the big league roster are.
The Yankees are expected to use a combination of Juan Rivera and Matt Diaz in left field while Granderson recovers. Rivera spent his first three major league seasons with the Yankees before being traded to the Montreal Expos with first baseman Nick Johnson and reliever Randy Choate for Javier Vazquez. In that time, Rivera has become a power hitter best suited for a platoon situation. His expected platoon mate Diaz, however, displays an even more exaggerated split than Rivera against left-handed pitching.
There is speculation that the Yankees could be eyeing former Yankee Alfonso Soriano, currently manning left field for the Chicago Cubs or Vernon Wells of the Los Angeles Angels. Soriano has produced for the Cubs recently, but he has two years left on his prohibitive contract (eight years, $136 million) that the Yankees would likely have to pay a large chunk of. Wells' contract also has two years left on a seven-year, $126 million deal, while Wells has not batted .275 since 2008. Wells is buried behind four other outfielders for the Angels. At his peak, Wells was a premier power/speed combination.
Granderson joins Alex Rodriguez, Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Raul Ibanez, and Andruw Jones in representing 139 home runs missing from last season's league-leading 245.
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