Who Is Chris Dickerson

You may have seen a new right fielder this past week as the Yankees played down in Tampa against the Orioles.  Chris Dickerson was called up by the Yankees from Triple-A when Rafael Soriano was placed on the DL with elbow soreness.

Besides being the guy who was hit in the face by Mike Gonzalez on Wednesday night and is now suffering from a mild concussion, Dickerson was the guy who we traded for Sergio Mitre during spring training.  You can read my post about that trade HERE.   On a side note, After watching that pitch hit Dickerson the other night, he should be very thankful that he only received a mild concussion.  While watching that game, it looked like he could have died!

Prior to this season, Dickerson has been bouncing around in the National League since 2008 with Cincinnati & Milwaukee.  He wasn’t going to make the Brewers major league team out of spring training and rather than being sent back down to the minors, they traded him.  During the spring he had some decent numbers, hitting .278.  Those numbers were good enough to make an impression and he started this year in Triple-A Scranton.

Before getting called up by the Yanks, Dickerson was playing the outfield in Triple-A and batting only .248.  Although that seems like a low batting average to get a major league call-up, he does have a .370 on base percentage.  It’s not great by any means, but it still is better than Swisher who is batting a mere .163.  He also provides some versatility in the outfield as he plays both the corners and center.

Dickerson also has some pretty good numbers against righties over his career.  He has a career .273 batting average against righties with a .363 on base percentage and .420 slugging percentage.  Logic tells us that Dickerson will be used against righties and Andruw Jones will be used against lefties.   That is assuming this concussion is as “mild” as they claim.

So far Dickerson has been limited to two games for the Yankees and has gone 2 for 5 with 1 RBI and 2 strikeouts.  Hopefully he can battle this concussion and get back on the field while Swisher tries to figure out how to swing a bat!