Cody Holding Roster Spot For Ransom

86 plate appearances 7 walks 25 strike outs .256 OBP .329 slugging percentage. Cody Ransom is awful. Awful. He's a backup infielder. Fine. Backup infielders don't have to wow you at the plate. They don't even have to be league average, although it's nice to have. At worst, they just have to be good fielders. Well, Cody isn't a good fielder. At third base over his career, Ransom has a UZR rating of -5.5, which equates to -33.1 over UZR/150. At shortstop, it's -1.4/-6. The Yankees have accepted Cody's deficiencies for most of the season. Ramiro Pena provided a brief spark during his visit from AAA, enough to encourage the Yankees to send him back and get more playing time. Ransom doesn't need more playing time. He needs less. Cashman seemed to have solved that problem at the trading deadline, acquiring Jerry Hairston from the Reds. Hairston won't trick anyone into thinking he's Alex Rodriguez, but he's been a serviceable and slightly below average major-leaguer. Even slightly below average has tons more value than Ransom. Hairston has been an above average defensive outfielder for his career, a bit below average defensive infielder. His UZR/150 at third is -12.3 compared to Cody's -33.1, neither good numbers but one obviously better than the other. Hairston can play second and short as well as the outfield. All of this begs the question: what is Cody Ransom still doing on this team? With Brett Gardner on the disabled list, I assume that Ransom is simply keeping Gardner's spot on the bench warm. But it makes little sense to keep Ransom around until Gardner's eventual return if he has no future on this team. The Yankees would be better served to strengthen the bench and let a guy like Shelley Duncan get a few hacks in a game. Shelley has no defensive value, either, but at least can provide a little power. UPDATE: 8/5/09 Ransom was designated for assignment to make room for pitcher Anthony Claggett, an insurance policy incase Mitre blew up against the Blue Jays.