Yankees Have Another Tommy Holmes Story In Juan Miranda

(Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

For those of you who don't know who Tommy Holmes was....well he is one of the better players you don't know about.

A lifetime .302 average Holmes would go on to play 11 seasons in the majors and in that span he would accumulate 292 doubles, 88 HR, 581 RBI and 1507 hits.

Teamates say he was major league ready at the age of 20 but never cracked the Yankee OF, why? Well when you have Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich and Charlie Keller patrolling your OF its pretty hard to find a job in those positions.

So, with the Yankee OF packed with stars, Holmes didn't make the majors untill he turned 25 and he didn't even make his debut in a Yankee uniform, fortunatly for his career the Yankees traded him to the Boston Braves to get his career launched. 

He was a good player for the Braves and had his best year in 1945 were he led the league in 7 offensive categories and 5 times in his career he hit over .300.

Now, half a century later it seems like from a distance the New York Yankees have their second coming of Tommy Holmes in the body of Juan Miranda. The young man has had good power numbers in the minor leagues, topping 20 HR again this season.

Unlike Holmes, Miranda has tasted the big leagues with pinstripes, hitting .368 in only 23 plate appearences. Now, obviously that isn't a huge sample size but he hit in the minors and it did translate to the majors very quickly. But, because of the blockade of talent the Yankees have in the big leagues it is stopping a home grown talent in Miranda from getting to the bigs.

Assuming the Yankees resign Johnny Damon they have their OF loaded with Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, Nick Swisher, Johnny Damon, Jerry Hairston Jr., heck Ramiro Pena has learned to play the OF and that's not even including young hot shot OF prospect Austin Jackson who is one of the top 2 or 3 players in that system. Jaun can play 1st but OBVIOUSLY your not going to move Mark Teixiera. That does leave the DH spot open but the Yankees could just resign Hideki Matsui or move Damon to that spot, heck a signing of Vlad Guerrero could happen to fill that DH role.

You have to commend teams like the Rays, Twins, Dodgers, Rockies and Marlins for always putting their own home grown players before lookign for outside help.

Now, I'mn't saying Juan will lead the league in 7 offensive categories but he looked like a major leaguer for the short time he was up there. He is turning 27 soon and most hitters have the best years of their careers at age 27, look no further then the Padres Adrian Gonzalez, he hit 40 HR this year and he turned 27.

Whatever happens I hope this young man either gets traded or wins a job in one of those OF positions or that DH role.

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