Yes, you read that correctly. Former Yankees minor league shortstop Garrison Lassiter sued the Yankees, among other organizations, for preventing him from having a professional sports career. This is probably the wackiest story of the MLB offseason, but it’s been swept under the rug by the Astros’ cheating scandal. Yankees fans and front office staff must be smiling after two of their rival’s managers (Mets and Red Sox) were fired. Now they have to deal with a new problem. His name is Garrison Lassiter.
Lassiter was born on December 22, 1989, in High Point, North Carolina. His brother, Landon, was born on June 14, 1993 in Thomasville, North Carolina. We don’t have a lot of information about his life before high school, but we do know that he grew up around his birthplace of High Point.
Lassiter started high school at Ledford High School in Thomasville. In his freshman and sophomore years, he played quarterback in football. Before his junior year, Lassiter transferred to West Forsyth High School in High Point, his birthplace, to play baseball. There, he was coached by long-time baseball coach Randy Pope, who retired in 2019. His team was ranked nationally and he played so well his number was retired in 2009. Lassiter also was a preseason All-American in 2007 and 2008 and played in the 2007 AFLAC All-American Game. It is even reported that he played for the US at the Pan-American Games, even though though there is no record of him being on the team.
As a talented high school star, the next step naturally was to play in college. In 2008, when he was ranked No. 1 player in North Carolina by Baseball America, Lassiter signed a letter of intent to play at the University of North Carolina. Instead, Lassiter got drafted by the Yankees in the 2008 MLB Amateur Draft and was set to play in the minors for them.
As an 18 year old rookie, the Yankees probably didn’t know what to think about Lassiter. So they assigned him to play in the Gulf Coast League, for the Staten Island Yankees. Oddly enough, there were 22 future MLB players on that team, including big names like Francisco Cervelli, Kyle Higashioka, Dellin Betances, Ian Kenedy and Arodys Vizcaino. That season, Lassiter played in only six games and had 24 plate 553 on-OPS appearances. He had six hits in that span (all of them singles), a stolen base, a walk and six strikeouts. He had a 261 batting average and a 553 OPS.
Lassiter moved up a league before 2009. He was assigned to the Charleston Riverdogs in A. He didn’t play with as talented players this season, although he did play with the legendary switch-pitcher Pat Venditte. Being in a higher division in 2009, you could tell the Yankees had more faith in him to be a big player and he showed he could. He played in 75 games in 2009, only one of those in Rookie League. He had 30 RBIs in 2009 and had a 669 OPS. You could tell his stock was rising.
Lassiter played for two teams in 2010. In the first half of the season, he stayed on the Riverdogs in A. This season, he was teammates with 2019 MLB All-star Shane Greene. After playing just 27 games and racking up only a 102 batting average, Lassiter was moved down to A lower class. He played for the Staten Island Yankees alongside current Yankees players Gary Sanchez and Tommy Kahnle. Once he moved to A-, he improved a lot. In 39 games, he hit for 285 average and a 714 OPS . After the 2011 season, Lassiter could have been on the brink of a career revival, and the Yankees probably hoped so too.
Because of his performances in A- the year before, Lassiter was moved up to A, playing again in Charleston. In 64 games, Lassiter had a pretty average season with no outstanding stats. Getting a lot of games and plate appearances was probably a good sign that his stock was rising.
It turned out that he was getting better and in 2012, he got moved to A+, his highest level yet. He was playing for the Tampa Yankees alongside major leaguers Austin Romine and Eduardo Nunez as well as a 36 year old A-Rod as he was trying to build his career back up. Lassiter played only 24 games and had his worst year since his rookie season. The future for him looked grim.
In June of 2012, Lassiter’s baseball career was over. He was finally cut from the Yankees. He had had a 242 career batting average and was described by his Riverdogs coach Aaron Ledesma as “below average. Not much power, didn’t really hit for a high average.”
Lassiter’s athletic career wasn’t over yet. In 2013, he enrolled in the University of Miami. He wanted to play quarterback on the football team because he had experience in high school. His football career didn’t go as planned. He didn’t play a single snap and was cut in 2014 after trying to rally up the team to having him take the starting role.
After his sporting life was over, we didn’t hear much from Lassiter. In 2016, he wrote a letter to the Yankees former head of development complaining about he was underpaid and undervalued. In January 2018, he sent a letter to the Rangers GM saying that the Yankees were “a team that doesn’t understand the importance of giving respect to the players” and referred to the GM as “big dawg.”
In May, Lassiter launched the lawsuit representing himself as his own lawyer. He sued the Yankees for $34 million. Lassiter, who calls himself a mix between Corey Seager and Brandon Weeden, had many factors that went into making up the $34 million. He got about $17.5 million from what Seager makes, $11.6 from what Weeden would have made and $5.6 for basketball, which there are no records of him playing.
On December 30, he added $1.6 million dollars on. This was a suit for the Reds for not being able to pick him up on waivers. You could tell Lassiter was trying anything he could.
The reason for all these suits? Lassiter claims the Yankees cut him “to protect the career of Derek Jeter.” I’m not sure that the Yankees were afraid of Lassiter overtaking Jeter. What do you think? Is Lassiter just a minor league scrub looking for money or does he have a case?
Sources:
- NJ.com
- baseballreference.com
- hurricanesports.com
- Girrafeneckmarc on Youtube
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