…Curtis Granderson.

Curtis Granderson’s 2007 numbers read like fiction. It’s hard for me to imagine a player with 38 doubles 23 triples who stole successfully 26 of 27 tries, and still managed to insert 23 homers into his statline. And for good measure, one of those homers was an inside-the-park job versus the Yanks. You’d feel ashamed to create such a player’s strat-o-matic card or video game profile because you know you’d be cooking the books.

Curtis bats with an exaggerated squat, open hips, and active hands. His long swing is powerful but imprecise and finishes high, with only the bottom hand left on the bat. I remember thinking he was an easy whiff in Game 2 of the 2006 ALDS when Mussina faced him in 2 crucial need-a-K-here at bats. Granderson, who whiffed 171 times that year, responded with a sacrifice fly and a triple in those trips and swung the series for good. Perhaps that says more about Mussina’s stuff in 2007 than Granderson’s ability to make solid contact when necessary, but I left the Stadium day impressed with the young left hander (and of course, extremely pissed off).

This player is donning pinstripes for the upcoming season and I’m thrilled. But between 2007 and Sunday night, a few things have transpired to temper expectations for score-sheet-stuffing. 1) Granderson turned in a 2009 performance that reads like a speedier Nick Swisher without the walks. 2) The Yankees have choses for Granderson to replace Damon in the matrix rather than the Melky/Gardner combo. It was inconceivable to project a Melky/Gardner platoon as superior to even a diminished Granderson. But the Yankees are now relying on Curtis, who is 2 years removed from the sublime (but only one removed from the very good), to be a big bat. When first acquired, I thought of Granderson as gravy. Now he is meat.

But even with expectations tempered, there are a lot of great reasons to expect Granderson to thrive in Yankee Stadium. His doubles and triples will never recover to 2007 levels in Yankee Stadium, but, much to the chagrin of the Ken Burns commentator who longs for the “old fashioned batter who doubles to left and triples to right,” a substantial number of them should turn into homeruns. And when he hits the roads, I expect Granderson to put up crooked numbers in often neglected corners of the scoresheet.

Aside from needing for Mariano to be perfect and hoping for Jeter to continue his march toward 3000 hits (with power please), there’s no player I’m looking forward to watching in 2010 than Curtis Granderson. Which player(s) will you be focusing on when the season starts tonight?