DJ LeMahieu went 1-for-3 in Wednesday’s loss to the Nationals, raising his season OPS to a still-miserable .525.
Keith, who didn’t want LeMahieu in the starting lineup in the first place, sounded off on the aging veteran and the Yankees’ insistence to continue playing him, despite his advanced stats suggesting that he is 50 percent worse than league average based on OPS+ in 2024.
“I care. They don’t care. They don’t care what you think,” Keith said. “It’s a business…it’s about contracts and time and tenure. DJ LeMahieu is in there because he’s been here the last five years, and he’s under contract for the next two years…they love DJ.
“The Yankees are looking for a return on investment. They’re trying to squeeze anything they can out of David John.”
Keith says the Yankees continue to hang on to struggling veterans for too long in an effort to prove that they were right about believing in a trade or a contract, when they should be giving up LeMahieu’s at-bats to the likes of Ben Rice or Oswaldo Cabrera.
“If you were serious about winning these games against sub-.500 teams…then you would put out the youngest, most athletic guys out there every day,” Keith said.
“I don’t care who’s a nice guy. Put the best players out there.”