Former baseball executive David Samson is no stranger to voicing his opinion, and boy did he have something to say about new Yankees fan favorite Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Samson, who was the Marlins team president from 2002-17, called Chisholm — who was acquired in a trade with Miami over the weekend — “average” during an appearance on Wednesday’s “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.”
“I know you’re excited about him because he was on the front of [MLB The Show 23],” Samson said after admitting he rooted for every player he ever traded as an executive to fail.
“That was all [Derek] Jeter doing that. All the talk of Jeter being his idol, it was all ridiculousness. Jazz needed to be traded off this team, and the fact that he was given to the Yankees, whatever happens with the Yankees is fine. He’s not the star; he’s not the center of attention.
“He’s gotten off to a good start, and that’s going to maybe give him the false sense that he’s the center of some amount of attention. But wait ’til he goes 1-for-13 in New York. In Miami, it gets ignored with one camera. In New York, you’re on the back page of The Post. So be careful what you wish for.”
Samson, who left the Marlins organization before Chisholm joined in 2019, isn’t alone in some of his criticism of Chisholm, and an MLB player poll published by The Athletic listed Chisholm as the most overrated player in baseball after a survey of 59 players across the league.
Samson had also gone after Chisholm earlier in the year for comments he had made about former teammate Miguel Rojas on a podcast.
Chisholm has quickly endeared himself to Yankees fans and even made some history by hitting four home runs in his first three games in pinstripes, becoming the first Bronx Bomber to ever do so in franchise history.
He added another hit and run scored in the Yankees’ win over the Phillies on Wednesday afternoon.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Wednesday that he’s happy with how he thinks Chisholm will fit in with the team after the front office did its due diligence before the trade.
“We did a lot of research on him and we’re excited to have him,” Cashman said on a conference call. “He’s obviously very athletic and he plays the game with joy. Ultimately after our deep dive, we felt like he’d fit in really well and would be a really perfect piece to allow our manager Aaron Boone to deploy him.”
