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New York Yankees: It’s Time For Chris Carter to Go

By Alexander Evans

May 17, 2017; Kansas City, MO, USA; New York Yankees first baseman Chris Carter (48) catches the ball in the ninth of the game against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. The Yankees won 11-7. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
May 17, 2017; Kansas City, MO, USA; New York Yankees first baseman Chris Carter (48) catches the ball in the ninth of the game against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. The Yankees won 11-7. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports /
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The New York Yankees thought they made a great move going after signing Chris Carter. Thus far in the season, it looks like on big bust for the Bronx Bombers.

The time has come for the New York Yankees to stop messing around with Chris Carter.

The Bombers, losers of seven straight games, find themselves out of first place in the A.L. East for the first time since May 20.

Carter’s poor play has been even more evident due to the fact that his team isn’t winning at the

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clip that they have been so far this season.

This cannot be a situation where Yankee manager Joe Girardi uses his famous, “It’s not what you want” expression to describe his first baseman’s play. Instead, Brian Cashman and the Yankee front office need to eat Carter’s $3 million deal, designate him for assignment and bring up the red-hot Tyler Austin from Triple-A.

He’s simply hurting the team too much, and has made costly mistakes that have led to losses. The most recent example of that came last night’s game.

Carter’s struggles at the plate this season have been well-documented. His .201 average, .287 OBP and 66 strikeouts in 159 at-bats prove that he’s well below the standard production that a first baseman usually has.

Despite this, Carter was still able to play some solid defense in the field, which made him somewhat valuable to the team. After last night, however, that value is gone.

After making a crucial error in the second inning that led to two runs and a 3-0 lead for the Los Angeles Angels. Carter is now a completely useless part of this Yankee team in all facets of the game.

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Those two runs were of course unearned by Michael Pineda who, aside from giving up one earned run in the first inning and getting into some trouble early, pitched a solid 5.2 innings with seven strikeouts.

The Yankees were able to claw back and tie the game going into the seventh inning, 3-3, before the wheels flew off with Tyler Clippard on the mound.

He undoubtedly deserves most of the blame for that collapse, but Carter’s error has to be factored

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in as well.

After a 20-plus pitch first inning, Pineda was in line for an easy inning in the second, but the error continued the inning and drove up his pitch count to over 20 pitches and brought Pineda’s pitch count to 49 pitches.

He was able to bounce back and keep his pitch count in check in the following three innings of work, but if Carter doesn’t make that error, Pineda likely has under 49 pitches after two innings and probably could have pitched through the seventh inning with a tie game or the lead instead of exiting early and then having Clippard and the bullpen come in and blow a close game.

Aside from the fact that Carter’s error may have inadvertently lost the Yankees the game last night, Tyler Austin has been playing well in Scranton and has put up better numbers than Carter has.

In 24 games with the RailRiders in 2017, Austin has hit two home runs, including a three-run shot last night, driven in 13 runs and has 25 hits overall on a .287 batting average. These numbers aren’t eye-popping by any means, but they’re better than Carter’s, and it’s hard to believe that Austin’s projected numbers at the major league level could be lower than Carter’s this season.

Although it appears unlikely that Cashman and the Yankees will send Chris Carter packing, it’s no secret that he’s run out of time to prove that he belongs on this team and can help them win.

Carter has been a liability at the plate all season, and the fact that he’s now become a liability in the field means that it’s time to bring up Tyler Austin. After all, he can’t be any worse, can he?

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